Politics, Re-Spun

The Province Newspaper: Mattress Ads as News

2008-07-28T10:59:00.004-07:00

So CanWest's imperial media used to own 1/3 of the free Metro daily paper in Vancouver. They have clearly learned something from Metro's tendency to skip any actual news on the front page and just run an ad because today, The Province decided to mostly skip any news [real, soft or nearly] and run a mattress ad. Maybe they were hoping for bloodshed, terrorism or carnage at the fireworks or the Pemberton rock festival, and receiving none, just bailed and went for dropping the pretense of them actually being a real newspaper and just run an ad, like the flier that they really are.

And after yesterday's cover reporting "Rock 'N' Roll 'N' Chaos" without the actual chaos, they have gone one step further to demonstrate their lack of journalistic integrity with a mattress ad.

The Province Newspaper Flexes its Fear-Mongering Muscle Again

2008-07-27T23:44:00.004-07:00

In their tradition of tabloid, sensationalist pseudo-journalism, The Province newspaper in Vancouver, pablum flagship of the CanWest media domination in town, described the Pemberton rock festival as "Rock 'N' Roll 'N' Chaos."

Astonishing, this chaos. CTV news tonight said the RCMP kicked out a small number of people from the event over the weekend, considering there were 40,000 people there each day.

Chaos makes me think of terrorist attacks, total violent anarchy and a tone of unruliness that merits bringing in the riot squad.

As it turns out, it was just a rock show. No real news there for a paper that panders in fear when slow summer news weekends emerge. No carnage at the fireworks last night, I'll assume, since no blood showed up on the cover this morning, just this photo of concert fans.

And it's hard to see The Province as a legitimate media source when we read their own entertainment columnist end his last blog post tonight with this:

"Thanks are in order for all the concert-goers who kept it on the up and up, not turning any of the minor inconveniences into cause for misbehaviour and to all the hard-working volunteers on site. And, most of all, to Pemberton for letting us all come up and, admittedly, make a real mess all over someone's farm and have a ball."

Alas, no mass arrests there tonight either. Too bad because tomorrow's headlines will have no gore to lead with.

Our Precarious Neoliberal World

2008-07-11T00:52:00.001-07:00

Canada22's 2008 Canada Day message spoke of $140 barrels of oil and $1.50 litres of gas. This week we have seen more evidence of our precarious economy making us think about how growth-based capitalism is fundamentally toxic and cancerous to our planet and our society.

On Tuesday this week we saw Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist and now serious critic of the World Bank, write about the moral and economic collapse of neoliberalism.

Yesterday we learn that the federal government, staunch neoliberals, have the capacity to break from neoliberal, laissez-faire, hands-off economic non-regulation to stop the victimization of our economy by the American sub-prime mortgage implosion by no longer supporting 40-year mortgages and no money down mortgages. Whew! :)

This might actually start deflating the bubble of insane housing prices in Vancouver and to a lesser degree, in most other places in Canada. Vancouver homes cost 3 times what I feel they're worth. If Garth Turner is right and Vancouver prices drop 30%, that's half way to where they should be for the majority of citizens to be able to afford a home. 60 year old homes in my neighbourhood are assessed this year at $1.2 million. The cheapest houses in Vancouver are typically listed in the high $500,000s.

But now we need to start thinking about addressing neoliberalism and growth economics. Business schools teach us that the economy is like a corkscrew generally pointing up. There are cycles of growth and decline in a general uphill direction. But constant growth is about constant extraction and exploitation of our human and natural resources.

A no growth model is cyclical, more like the seasons. It is also more sustainable. Tom Walker of the Work Less Party spoke about this at Canada22's founding workshop on Earth Day 2006.

But how do we switch off growth?

Kevin Potvin explores that idea in a few recent pieces in The Republic.

In "There's Always Revolution, You Know" he examines why revolution is and isn't possible in Canada today. The piece doesn't go into much about how to make that revolution happen, though. Canada22 is all about exploring that, though.

In "No one right or left will say what needs to be said" he examines how addressing our criminal negligence and abuse of our ecological symbiotic relationship may force us to reject growth-based economics.

Finally, he examines how capitalism and speculation are synonymous in "Did Saudi Arabia suddenly go anti-capitalist?". So we should not be surprised that oil speculators are involved in the rise in the price of oil to over $140/barrel.

So, what are the lessons from all this?

Global neoliberalism undermines social, economic and political stability and cohesion.

In Canada22, we're working up a vision of a post-neoliberal world, nation, region and community. We're figuring out how to get there from here. And we're looking for all the people and groups fighting for social and economic justice to come together to coordinate our confrontation with neoliberalism.

That's all. :)

And with your dedication to justice and community building we'll develop our vision, path and network...all while building the hope and optimism we need to face the crises on the horizon.

Canada22: Who Will We Be Over the Next 7 Generations?

2008-07-01T23:06:00.004-07:00

There are cracks in Canada's maple leaf. If you look closely you can see that it is a vibrant symbol, but it is drying and decaying under assaults on its cohesion.

And today, Canada Day 2008, on our nation's 141st birthday, we should take stock. A barrel of oil broke $140 today and gasoline in British Columbia passed $1.50/litre. The International Energy Agency stated today that we are now in the world's 3rd oil shock, worse than both in the 1970s.

These are harbingers of what?

We are besieged by neoliberalism as free market ideologues engage in rampant privatization of our infrastructure and health care system, gratuitous corporate welfare schemes at the expense of human welfare and human security, neglect of our first nations peoples to a criminal degree (a great Canada Day for them!), tax cuts to lure the economically desperate middle income and working poor to the right despite the resulting crippling of our social safety net, keeping women's wages at 71% of men's wages (down from several years ago when it was 72%), a new norm of double income households that have less purchasing power than 35 years ago, the revolving door between government and business being replaced by an archway that allows a general milling about on both sides, and generally the rich getting richer as the poor are getting poorer, all while the World Economic Forum defines and coordinates the New World Order.

But while the leaders of the 1,000 richest corporations and the most powerful governments meet every January at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland to issue their fiats around the world, the World Social Forum meets to plan alternatives that put people before profits. This is particularly critical in these days of looming peak oil and water, ecological crisis and the unlikeliness that the industrialized world (made up of us billion or so out of the 6.7 billion people on earth) can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 90% in the next generation to stop the climate mayhem.

Indeed, BusinessGreen.com reviewed George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning and concluded that his recommendations to save us: "are so far from the political and business mainstream it is hard to imagine them being adopted in 50 years, let alone 20, but, as Monbiot constantly reminds us, the threats posed by climate change are so serious the alternatives could prove even more unthinkable."

But where do we go from here?

I think back 20 years to the original free trade agreement with the United States. A fascinating national coalition emerged called the Pro-Canada Network, where people rightly recognized the neoliberal free trade movement as a mortal threat to social cohesion. Whether democratic socialist or social democrat or some version of groups interested in social and economic justice, Canadians gathered together to fight for things like Medicare, then barely 20 years old.

That was the last time such a massive neoliberal agenda was put forward with any sense of democracy as the federal election swung on it. Chretien signed NAFTA despite campaigning against the Tory free trade regime. The MAI, FTAA, and SPP are now all pursued anti-democratically and under the radar as much as possible.

Today we need a new kind of Pro-Canada Network. We need to ask ourselves what should our Canada look like. We need to figure out what values the social, political and economic face of our land should orbit. And we need to figure out how to get there from here.

So when Canada22 formed at a workshop in Vancouver on very sunny Earth Day 2006, we embarked on that.

Canada22 is all about envisioning how we will guide our national life over the next 7 generations into the 22nd century. We are an umbrella organization that links people and groups together to fight for social economic justice, locally, nationally and ultimately globally. We link groups with the same social economic goals so we can work together more effectively and combine resources, insight and ideas.

With members in 12 Canadian cities, we are now ramping up our chapter organization to be pro-active in fighting for the Canada we want...and it will be a fight, as anyone working in social and economic justice circles well knows.

And while the neoliberal free marketeers seek to destroy any communitarian efforts that reduce private profitability, we need to take advantage of this time of flux to re-assert what community is all about. And while the World Social Forum and related meetings are critical for creating synergy and vision, we need to take those ideas and implement them in our local, provincial and national social, economic and political arenas if we are to re-frame what our communities and nation will look like as the looming peak oil and water and climate crisis stop looming and start affecting the breadth of our lives. And we need to force political parties to enact our vision.

Feeling the pulse of change is a difficult thing sometimes. Being the pulse of change is harder still. But on days like today when Canadians celebrate ourselves, we truly need to ask ourselves what kind of change we must embrace in our next generation. When my children become adults our world will be far more symbiotically healthy, or it will be a victim of decay from our selfishness (except for the hyper-rich who will be immune from the climate havoc to come).

How high does a barrel of oil have to get before we embrace the reality of our future and do something before our apathy victimizes us all?

Being the pulse of change is Canada22. Get involved at http://Canada22.org!

Poor Bashers Tend to Be Hypocrites

2008-06-24T01:01:00.004-07:00

I've now received this thing for the third time this month. It makes me vomit. Why? Read on...

This was written by a construction worker in Fort MacMurray ...he sure makes a lot of sense!

Read on...

I work, they pay me.

I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.

In order to earn that pay cheque, I work on a rig site for a Fort Mac construction project. I am required to pass a random urine test, with which I have no problem.

What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.

Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare cheque because I have to pass one to earn it for them?

Please understand - I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their arse drinking beer and smoking dope.

Could you imagine how much money the provinces would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance cheque?

Jean Swanson is one of my heros. She works in Vancouver's poorest neighbourhood and wrote Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion, a book that challenges everyone's assumptions about the poor, assumptions that usually justify why we won't re-organize society to keep from continually kicking them.

The below response to the above depressingly common attitude is inspired by her exploration of the same issue in her book.

I'm just quite tired of the "don't get me wrong, I really think we should help the poor, except if they..."

Another good [if not far better] point is that there are hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in tax cuts that go every year to people in the top 20-40% of income earners in our society who can afford and write off RRSPs, stocks, and capital investments.

We don't ask them to present their urine or a blood sample or prove they aren't wife/child beaters, embezzlers, speeders, j-walkers, theists, atheists, supporters of gun control or capital punishment, regular voters, hockey fans, cokeheads, neglectors of children, gamblers, pot smokers, contributors to political parties, beer/wine/spirits drinkers or various social miscreants.

We give value-free tax cuts to the well-off [like me] as long as they meet the legal requirements to get tax refunds.

I too can sure imagine how much we'd save if we did similar morality testing on those earning over $57k, double the Canadian average annual income.

Who Pulls John McCain's Strings?

2008-06-20T00:00:00.004-07:00

My Commentary is in fire engine red!

McCain Plans to Almost Double U.S. Nuclear Reactors

Lorraine Woellert Thu Jun 19, 9:23 AM ET

June 19 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain will push to almost double the number of nuclear reactors in the U.S. as part of a broad plan to address the nation's energy woes.

OK, #1 appears to be the nucular lobby, assuming they still pronounce it that way now that w.Caesar is a lame duck.

On the second day of a two-week tour to promote his energy security proposal, McCain told an audience in Springfield, Missouri, yesterday that he would increase research in so-called clean-coal technology and push to add 100 new nuclear reactors, almost double the 104 nuclear plants now in use.

And #2 seems to be McCain having swallowed the clean-coal Kool-Aid.

"I will set this nation on a course to building 45 new reactors by the year 2030, with the ultimate goal of 100 new plants to power the homes and factories and cities of America," McCain said. "This task will be as difficult as it is necessary. We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field."

McCain's remarks build on a speech in Houston on June 17 in which he laid out the elements of his energy plan. Central to that plan is expansion of offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that is under fire from his Democratic rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, and environmental groups.

And strike 3 would be big oil [is there small oil anymore?]

"One obstacle to expanding our nuclear-powered electricity is the mindset of those who prefer to buy time and hope that our energy problems will somehow solve themselves," McCain said, noting that Obama's home state of Illinois has more nuclear reactors than any other.

Oh yes, and Obama is personally responsible for all the nukes in Illinois. Right.

Clean-Burning Coal

McCain, an Arizona senator, also vowed to spend $2 billion on research into clean-burning coal.

"This single achievement will open vast amounts of our oldest and most abundant resource," McCain, 71, said. "It will deliver not only electricity but jobs to some of the areas hardest hit by our economic troubles."

And GHGs that I don't want to even begin to calculate.

McCain's energy plan also includes spending on renewable resources such as wind and solar power.

Right. Probably not to the tune of $2b that clean coal will get.

McCain was joined at the forum by Michael Chesser, chairman and CEO of Kansas City, Missouri-based Great Plains Energy, and Greg Boyce, chairman and CEO of St. Louis-based Peabody Coal, the largest U.S. coal producer, who said a patchwork of state and federal regulations are hampering their ability to build new power generators.

"We need to have a regulatory compact in place," Chesser said. "There are definitely things you could do as president to facilitate that environment."

McCain also touted his environmental bona fides at a fundraiser in Chicago last night. In a 10-minute film preceding his appearance at the Drake Hotel, McCain made an appeal to outdoorsmen.

"Our ability to hunt and fish and enjoy the great national treasures of America is something I'd like to preserve," McCain said in the film. "I'm committed to preserving the enjoyment of the great national treasures of the most beautiful nation in the world."

Why is he talking about Canada now? :)

Recipe for Assassinating the CBC

2008-06-12T23:58:00.005-07:00

Start with an ideology that opposes communitarianism and public ownership and worships the market's capacity to create "the good" even if the market is far from freely competitive. The federal Liberals and Conservatives have well demonstrated this.
Choke its funding.
Appoint corporate leaders who wouldn't dare come up with an original idea to guide CBC as a core part of the ever morphing Canadian culture.
Fail several years ago to come up with the cash necessary to secure continued rights from the NHL to broadcast Hockey Night in Canada, the core brand of MotherCorp and the closest thing we have to a central icon of Canadiana.
Cancel shows like This is Wonderland just as they receive a plethora of award nominations.
Murder the CBC orchestra.
Intentionally bungle securing the rights to the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada.
Let bake for several years at 43,500 degrees.
Don't turn off the oven so that the whole concoction burns to a crisp: strangled of cash, free of its flagship show and cultural icons.
Turn off the oven after it's too late, take out the burnt carcass and say it can't compete with CTV, TSN, Global and the Americans; put a bullet in its head.
Toss it in the garbage and instead of auctioning, give away at fire sale prices the broadcast frequencies that MotherCorp held for generations to the strongest of corporations in a bizarre corporate welfare pitch in an arena where Big Media wants to take away a nation-wide network of frequencies that up until a few years from now were owned by the (fucking) people.
Pretend you don't know what oligopoly means.
Worship Rupert Murdoch and Leonard Asper.

The End of Globalization--Can You Smell it Yet?

2008-05-28T00:28:00.004-07:00

A few years ago I was sitting in the pub at Simon Fraser University with the usual suspects...a gang of mostly political science graduate and undergraduate students for our weekly 4-hour lunch consisting of political debate and movie reviews.

I can't remember the details but I had just been learning about peak oil. Petrochemicals have a large role in the fertilizers that enable the population of the industrialized [OECD, minority] world to eat food to the degree that supports our massive population. Apparently there was something in Harpers about that some time ago. I'm still scared to read it.

And since most of us at the lunch were generally political economists, we often discussed how to derail the global trade regime: IMF/WB/WTO. Since Hugo Chavez has spayed and neutered the IMF by paying off most of Latin America's loans to it and since the WTO Doha "Development" (sic) round of negotiations has stalled leading to neoliberal defections toward regional trade initiatives, the regime may be collapsing on its own, thank you very much.

But one thing came up that day at lunch when I was trying to address how to cripple neoliberal globalization, and that was how peak oil will make prohibitive the costs of transporting materials around the world to be processed by workers in jobs outsourced from the industrialized world into products shipped to us in containers on those big boats. The economics of it all depends on a price of oil that is not quite so high as today's $135/barrel. Or not even so high as the $70 barrel 2 years ago [yes, the cost of a barrel of oil has doubled in the last 24 months].

When peak oil grabs us by the throat and prices rise, the global supply chain will become less cost effective. Our runners and bananas will begin to have costs that assert them as the luxuries they really are. Economics will become more local, both in food from bioregions, but also products and services.

One friend at lunch that day said they'd just find another way to power the big boats. Nuclear power perhaps. Or maybe clean (sic) coal. Ok, he didn't mention clean coal, but both it and atomic manipulation are somewhat impractical for varying reasons.

So we're left with the end of globalization that comes not from policy decisions based on educating the populace to demand our representatives (sic) alter the global trade regime. It comes from the end of cheap fossil fuels.

My friend's nuclear answer sounded plausible, but I had a hard time being truly swayed by its possibility.

So yesterday I read at Report on Business [see below] that I was on the right track.

And while the piece mentions that NAFTA could encourage outsourcing to Mexico instead of Asia, and by implication that a fully mercantilist, protectionist Canada may not be imminent, our latest globalization prime minister did recently scuttle a deal to sell off MDA's Radarsat to an American firm. In the end, realists are realists.

And while we not all be ready to go out and buy our yurts and embrace a bioregional lifestyle outside of metropolitan centres, we are one step closer. And if oil hits $200/barrel this Christmas, we'll have to re-assess the situation with a little more intensity.

Oil's cargo cushion

MARCUS GEE

May 27, 2008 at 8:53 PM EDT

The soaring cost of fuel is whittling away at the cheap-labour advantage enjoyed by Asian exporters, giving Canadian firms a welcome edge in their fight to win back business from Asian competitors.

Two bank economists argue in a report released Tuesday that because of higher fuel costs, shipping a standard 40-foot container from Shanghai to the east coast of North America now costs $8,000 (U.S.), up from $3,000 in 2000 when oil was just $20 a barrel.

That higher cost is passed on to North American consumers, making goods from China and other Asian places more costly compared to the offerings of domestic North American producers.

Some Canadian manufacturers are already noticing the effect.

“It's helped us because it's harder for the Asians and others to ship over here,” said Barry Zekelman, chief executive officer of Atlas Tube Inc. of Harrow, Ont.

He said that after taking 30 to 40 per cent of the North American market for some steel tubing products, the Chinese have now “virtually disappeared” – partly, though not exclusively, because of the costs of transporting a heavy product such as steel across the Pacific.

Jeffrey Rubin and Benjamin Tal of CIBC World Markets Inc. say higher oil prices are reversing the world-is-flat effect, in which lower trade barriers and new technologies like the Internet made it cheaper to move goods and services from developing Asia to the markets of the rich world.

“In a world of triple-digit oil prices, distance costs money,” they write. “And while trade liberalization and technology may have flattened the world, rising transport prices will once again make it rounder.”

Mr. Rubin and Mr. Tal say the steel sector is a prime example of the world-is-round effect.

Chinese steel exports to the United States are falling by more than 20 per cent year over year. China's costs have risen because Chinese producers have to bring in their iron ore from faraway places such as Australia and Brazil, then ship the finished steel to the United States. As a result, U.S. steel producers actually have an advantage over Chinese rivals.

“Rising transport costs have already more than offset China's otherwise slim cost advantage, giving U.S. steel a competitive advantage in its own market for the first time in over a decade,” the economists write.

They say higher transport costs are affecting other “freight-intensive” sectors such as furniture and industrial machinery, too. These goods now account for 42 per cent of total Chinese exports to the United States, down from 52 per cent in 2004.

In fact, if oil prices had not risen so quickly and transport costs had not soared so dramatically, growth in Chinese exports since 2004 would have been 30 per cent stronger than the actual figure.

Of course, the rising cost of goods from China is hardly happy news for many Canadian companies that source parts from Chinese factories, sell imported goods from China or have their products assembled by Chinese workers.

They suggest that “instead of finding cheap labour half way around the world, the key will be to find the cheapest labour force within reasonable shipping distance of your market.”

While Canadian companies could benefit, the bigger winner will be Mexico, they say. “Look for Mexico's maquiladora plants to get another chance at bat when it comes to supplying the North American market,” they write.

Shipping costs to and from Asia have risen so much that they have eclipsed tariffs as a barrier to global trade, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Tal say, calling the cost of moving goods “the largest barrier to global trade today.”

“In fact,” they say, “in tariff-equivalent terms, the explosion in global transport costs has effectively offset all the trade liberalization efforts of the last three decades.”

When oil was $20 a barrel, transport costs were equivalent to a 3-per-cent tariff rate; now it's above 9 per cent.

Aggravating the problem is the fact that modern new container ships travel faster than old bulk carriers and so use up more fuel, doubling fuel consumption per unit of freight over the past 15 years.

“This is an environment in which shipping from the Pacific Rim may not make sense any more,” Mr. Tal said in an interview.

“If you're thinking, ‘maybe we should bring in a container from China,' you should think again.”

The Imploding US Economy, or the Economic Stimulus Package as Canary in the Coal Mine

2008-04-29T01:05:00.004-07:00

Roughly 20 years ago I was writing about how the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement was like handcuffing ourselves to a drowning man.

I've watch the American Empire defeat the Soviet Evil Empire. I've watch it champion Fukuyama's end of history, neoliberal globalization and outsourcing, and the rise of soft fascism in the w.Caesar era.

I remember as a kid watching Chinese acrobats on TV. One of the coolest things was the plate spinning where a person would put a dinner plate on top of a stick and spin it, then do another until there were many plates all spinning. The trick was to keep them spinning so none would crash to the ground. Then, I suppose, the trick was to stop them all without any breaking either.

This is the American economy. Well, it's the global economy really.

After 9/11, w.Caesar told everyone to go out and shop. An insane national directive in a time of existential crisis, but when you think about what it takes to maintain the American economy, that was exactly the right advice.

But let's look at a few things:

early in his presidency w.Caesar tried to get the Chinese to increase the value of what Americans believed to be their artificially deflated currency
when the Chinese refused, oddly, the US currency started tanking; it's now essentially on par with the Canadian dollar
America has an unmanageable and increasing trade deficit with China and others
American consumers are addicted to cheap Chinese goods, which creates the trade imbalance because the Chinese are not addicted to whatever it is that America produces these days [if you haven't yet seen the movie Other People's Money you need to watch it so you can enjoy the poignancy of Gregory Peck's speech at the end about how America doesn't actually make anything anymore]
the Chinese government invests its surplus US cash back into 90-day US treasury bills, essentially enabling the US currency to remain as solvent as it is; 35 years ago, the Saudis invested their petrodollars in US real estate and corporations
one day coming up, the Chinese will stop rolling over its newly cashed-out T-bills into the next series of T-bills because the 300 million Chinese who make up the middle class of their market economy [unlike the half a billion impoverished rural folk who enable that middle class to exist] will be able to do more business with Brazil, Venezuela, Russia and India [with its growing middle class], so who needs to keep American consumers able to buy cheap Chinese products anymore; this will thrust America into a depression that the Chinese will likely be able to just side-step
there are only 300 million Americans [in total]
the American middle class [the consumers of cheap Chinese products] is declining fast
the sub-prime mortgage implosion is indicative of the malaise of over-extended credit

So what does the US Congress do in all this? They run around faster trying to keep the plates spinning a little bit more. Echoes of "go shopping" abound as in classic neoliberal fashion, the US government defunds itself a little more by sending out a $150 billion economic stimulus package approved in February.

This package gives most Americans around $300 or more each to go shopping. This money comes from tax revenue, thereby making government smaller. It is essentially a tax cut which people will hopefully spend on WiiFit or something equally criminally stupid instead of paying off some 19-29% credit card debt. How do you spell usury anyway?

This is desperation, ladies and gentleman. This is the macro-economic equivalent to the sweat whipping of your brow as you run around the stage ever faster trying to keep the plates from crashing to the ground.

But the stimulus package isn't really the canary in the coal mine. We're well past that. The canary was the US real estate bubble, or maybe even NAFTA.

This package, though, is a desperate move 8 months before an election to keep the recession from turning into a Recession or d/Depression.

It's also a cynical method of pursuing neoliberal government downsizing at the expense of hundreds of millions of Americans who are going to be up to even more debt, needing more storage lockers for their consumer purchases they can't fit in their homes, and more vulnerable to insolvency--like their nation's economy--when the plates slow down and hit the ground.

And instead of the government pulling a Keynesian move by investing in infrastructure projects with the massive multiplier effects of robust economic spinoff in communities, it bleeds its collective wealth a little bit more.

And Canada, being handcuffed to this drowning man, will suffer as well since over 80% of our exports go to America. And while NAFTA requires Canada to never reduce the percentage of oil and gas, this imploding economic context may be what it takes to cancel NAFTA. It takes a letter of a couple sentences in length announcing our intention to bail on it, or parts of it 6 months from the date of the letter.

Keep your eyes peeled. Listen for the sound of plates smashing. Get resilient.

Four Lawn Signs Are Worth a Thousand Words

2008-03-07T00:43:00.001-08:00

My favourite is the third.

The Federal Liberals: Working Very Hard to Do Nothing About the Cadman Thing

2008-03-06T20:20:00.004-08:00

Well, by a few hours, someone beat me to this. Since its contents are virtually identical to what I was going to say, I'll just let you bask in this absolutely spectacular commentary:

Totally Unacceptable Response from Liberals on Cadscam

Comments inserted inside the Liberal email:

The Cadman Affair

Dear Liberal Friend,

Over the last week we have witnessed Canadians’ already fragile trust in the Harper Government dissolve as allegations of the Conservatives’ 2005 attempt to acquire the vote of former MP Chuck Cadman come to light.

If anything, the Conservatives’ knee-jerk reaction has been consistent over the years: when in trouble, intimidate, bristle and threaten litigation.

If the allegations prove correct, this attempted transaction is an affront to the democratic process and possibly a contravention of the law.

What the heck does that mean? If the “allegations prove correct” it’s not “possibly a contravention of the law”. It IS a bribe and HAS to be an affront to the democratic process of the country, if a criminal investigation leads to a conviction in the affair also known as Cadscam.

We Liberals will keep asking for the truth on the Chuck Cadman affair, both inside and outside of the House of Commons.

If your last paragraph is any indication, those questions aren’t nearly tough enough.

Stephen Harper has acknowledged that it is his voice caught on tape admitting there were discussions regarding “financial considerations” between Conservative party officials and Mr. Cadman. Now, Mr. Harper must explain – without any of the ambiguity we have witnessed all week — what the nature of those discussions was.

We need your help to keep the Conservatives’ feet to the fire on this disturbing issue. Canadians deserve the truth, and with your financial support, Liberals like Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Ken Dryden, Marlene Jennings and Ralph Goodale will get to the bottom of this.

No way. Did the Liberal President just ask people to pay the party if we want them to continue to get to the bottom of this? What happens if we don’t pay up? Will they stop asking questions in the House? Maybe they’ll avoid more votes? It sounds like they are asking for bribes to do their job! Asking questions in and out of the House of Commons is FREE.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

The Honourable Marie-P. (Charette) Poulin, Senator
President

PS. Visit www.liberal.ca to learn more about the facts concerning this very important issue.

Any why isn’t there an RCMP investigation into Cadscam yet? Did I miss the announcement of one starting? There’s an audio tape confirming the Prime Minister knew that party officials were offering Cadman replacements for “financial considerations”. That’s a BRIBE. You can’t offer a Member of Parliament financial incentives for their vote, it’s against the law. I’m completely ashamed of our country that we can let an entire week go by without formally investigating alleged criminal activity from the most powerful Canadian, caught on tape.

Maybe the new Liberal forum needs to be plagued with people asking the Liberals why they felt a donation request was a good idea in an email talking about politicians using bribery. They are turning a career ending move by Harper, into an “ethics probe”. As if Canadians could give a fig about the ethical status of politicians, it’s rarely been a reason to vote them out before. The Conservatives preach all about criminals serving the time if someone does the crime; Live by the sword, die by it!

Need Legal Aid? Get Stuffed!

2008-03-04T23:30:00.005-08:00

"Brenner said they were wrong and told them to get stuffed."
- Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun [see below]

Aside from the perverse standards of journalism at the Vancouver Sun, the above indicates that the BC Court of Appeals is not willing to contribute to a humane notion of legal aid for the resource-deprived embroiled in civil cases.

While legal aid for criminal cases was not the issue, after deep cuts across the country to legal aid for victims in civil cases, the Canadian Bar Association wanted the courts to establish a standard of justice that offends the neoliberal budget cutters that are particularly harsh in BC.

People deserving legal aid include those facing unjust eviction, mothers reeling from deadbeat dads ignoring court-ordered financial support and scores of others find themselves unable to afford effective representation in civil matters.

Of course, the rich do quite well since they can afford counsel to pursue their legal issues. Civil legal aid, however, is becoming far less civil than it deserves to be.

And in one sense, it all comes down to freedom. Political philosophers talk about negative and positive freedoms. Negative freedom refers to a way of defining freedom where individuals are free from "needless" meddling by the state, where we are not regulated and impeded in our pursuit of our liberty. Hyper-capitalists, libertarians and neoliberal governments look for ways to keep society from interfering with our god-given right to go about our business, regardless of how many people or watersheds we abuse.

Positive freedom defines freedom as a way of enabling those who are socially disempowered to have access to opportunity to function as well as those who are socially gifted: often groups like white, upper or middle class, English speaking males. Positive freedom efforts include things like affirmative action, or using tax dollars to fund legal aid for those not wealthy enough to pursue civil legal justice.

Obviously these two conceptions of freedom are mutually exclusive in their pure form. They also form a core conflict in our society: deregulate to the point where we have no society or gather together social and financial resources to empower those who are structurally vulnerable, thereby undermining the power of the economic, social and political elites.

The Court of Appeals has chosen to reject this effort to pursue positive freedom. It is not an isolated incident and it allows a neoliberal regime in our province and country to continue gutting social programs that allow people who aren't white men to have a better shot at success or even meaningful survival.

Legal aid not a right, court rules

B.C. Appeal Court judges quash lawyers' bid to force government to pay civil legal costs of poor people

Ian Mulgrew

Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

The B.C. Court of Appeal has backed B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Don Brenner's decision to kill the Canadian Bar Association's landmark attempt to force governments to provide adequate civil legal aid to poor people.

In a majority ruling Monday, the court agreed with the province's senior trial court judge and said he was also quite right to assess costs against the CBA.

Susan McGrath, past president of the bar association, said she was saddened because the decision means access to justice will continue being denied to those least able to help themselves.

"We're disappointed we continue to confront procedural hurdles trying to bring this case," the Ontario lawyer said in an interview. "We're going to have to study the ruling and consider our options. We had hoped the courts would have been more responsive to this novel approach. We're not giving up the fight."

The Appeal Court said the association failed to meet even the minimum threshold for launching such an action -- a reasonable claim.

"Although the action is intended to assist low-income members of the pubic and its spirit is commendable, I do not consider that the altruistic nature of the action should be afforded much weight until at least the [bar association] has established it can meet the minimal test of disclosing a reasonable claim," Justice Mary Saunders wrote.

Supported by Justice Peter Lowry, she quoted the Supreme Court of Canada saying there is no fundamental right to access to legal services:

"Access to legal services is fundamentally important in any free and democratic society. In some cases, it has been found essential to due process and a fair trial. But a review of the constitutional text, the jurisprudence and the history of the concept does not support the respondent's contention that there is a broad general right to legal counsel as an aspect of, or precondition to, the rule of law."

(Justice Allan Thackray, the third member of the appeal panel, heard arguments in the case but retired in October before the decision and did not participate in the ruling.)

In a clear and well-reasoned judgment, Justice Brenner said the bar association was the wrong group to launch such a lawsuit, and the remedy it sought was far too sweeping. (The Appeal Court didn't rule on whether the bar association was the proper body to bring such a lawsuit because it found its arguments had been so unpersuasive that that question didn't need to be answered.)

"Instead of considering a specific statute or a specific administrative act or expenditure for constitutional compliance, this case would ultimately require the court to define a constitutionally valid civil legal aid scheme and order its provision by the [federal and provincial governments]," Justice Brenner wrote.

For almost two decades, legal aid across Canada has been a growing concern because of government cutbacks.

Provinces have curtailed legal aid services, narrowing the types of cases they cover, raising the eligibility criteria, making it harder to qualify.

At the same time, the federal government assumes little responsibility, with the primary exception of serious criminal matters.

People often have no legal assistance even when critical issues are at stake and no government is accountable.

The legal community fears we are creating a system for the rich and stacking the deck against those without resources, yet extensive lobbying has proved useless.

In 2002, the bar association launched this lawsuit. It chose B.C. for the unique test case because of the deep, deep cuts to legal services by the Liberal government when it first took office.

"Our concern has always been access to justice," McGrath said.

The association filed a statement of claim in June 2005, alleging the provision of civil legal aid in B.C. is inadequate and those inadequacies amount to breaches of the Constitution and international human rights conventions.

It maintained that coverage was limited, that financial eligibility guidelines excluded many poor people, and that the services provided are too restrictive.

As the voice of some 36,000 members of the country's legal profession, the association said it was the most appropriate party to bring such a suit.

It maintained it was unreasonable to insist that poor individuals -- denied legal aid in cases where they are unjustly evicted or when they are threatened about the custody of their children -- be required to mount constitutional challenges themselves on a case-by-case basis.

The association wanted court-mandated civil legal aid across Canada with judges deciding what was necessary while taxpayers footed the bill.

Brenner said they were wrong and told them to get stuffed.

He said there are other ways to tackle the problem facing the poor, and like the Supreme Court of Canada, suggested individual litigants could raise their need on a case-by-case basis.

The Appeal Court agreed that this lawsuit as put forward by the association was the wrong way to proceed.

"We knew there would be setbacks," McGrath said. "But I don't think people without the financial resources and often without the emotional resources should be expected to mount this type of challenge and argue this case before the court. We're not giving up."

imulgrew@png.canwest.com

Justifying Invading Iran, Or Is It Iraq Again?

2008-03-04T01:05:00.003-08:00

In a strange deja vu, the build-up to the Iraq invasion is taking place again with Iran: this time with Canada on board with the UN Security Council rhetoric.

Where Chretien fell down, Prime Minister Steve is stepping up!

March 3, 2008 (8:00 p.m. EST)
No. 47

CANADA SUPPORTS ADOPTION OF NEW SANCTIONS RESOLUTION AGAINST IRAN

The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement regarding the adoption of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1803 imposing additional sanctions against Iran:

“Canada fully supports the adoption of this resolution by the Security Council, which results from Iran’s failure to comply with its international obligations under resolutions 1696, 1737 and 1747—namely, that Iran must suspend all sensitive nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing activities. Iran must also take steps to fully rebuild confidence that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes by, among other things, implementing the Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement, pursuant to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“We are deeply concerned that Iran has failed to clarify a number of outstanding issues around its nuclear program, as noted in the February 22, 2008, report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Agency has asked Iran to clarify remaining questions on reports that it is pursuing studies relevant to weaponization of nuclear materials. Iran must fully cooperate with the IAEA to resolve these outstanding issues in order to clearly demonstrate that its program is solely intended for peaceful purposes.

“New sanctions under Resolution 1803 include a travel ban for targeted Iranian officials, a freeze of assets of newly designated Iranian companies and officials, additional restrictions on the sale of identified dual-use items to Iran, and a call for governments to withdraw financial support for trade with Iran, to dissuade domestic financial institutions from entering into transactions that could support Iran’s nuclear activities, and to inspect cargo going in and out of Iran via identified carriers. As with UNSC resolutions 1737 and 1747, Canada will ensure its full compliance with the decisions of the Security Council through Canadian domestic law.

“Canada notes that China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have renewed their proposed package of incentives, which offers a suspension of further discussion of Iran’s nuclear program by the UN Security Council in exchange for Iran’s suspension of sensitive nuclear activities and implementation of the Additional Protocol. This proposal promotes a resumption of dialogue on broader political, security and economic issues. Canada strongly encourages Iran to pursue this proposal.”

- 30 -

For further information, media representatives may contact:

Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874

Mayor Sam: Once Again Merging His Civic and Personal Campaign Activities

2008-02-29T21:53:00.003-08:00

Below is an email I received tonight from Mayor Sam Sullivan's civic email address: mayor@vancouver.ca. It's the email address that the person who is elected to be mayor uses for formal civic business.

In this email, he directs us to his personal campaign website, http://mayorsamsullivan.ca. He is clearly still more irony-free than the last time I wrote about his lack of irony. That episode ended up with the webmaster of Sam's personal site admitting that the mayor's office used an email list from the mayor's personal website to send a message from his civic email address.

This time, after a few items of civic interest, his email promotes a negligibly-valuable earth-focused initiative that will make many of us feel good while leading to very little meaningful change. The kicker? We can read more about this initiative at his personal website.

Trouble viewing this mail? Click here to read it online.

Mayor's Communiqué: Securing Support from Senior Levels of Gov't

Federal Budget Update
Provincial Budget Update
Mayor welcomes IOC President to Vancouver
"Earth Hour" moving into high gear with new sponsors & Facebook

[The first three items are snipped.]

Earth Hour Vancouver on Facebook

Earth Hour is a global initiative put on by the World Wildlife Fund, encouraging people around the world to turn lights off for one hour, starting at 8:00pm on March 29, 2008. In addition to reducing our city's energy consumption, Earth Hour will raise awareness about conservation among our citizens and businesses.

Our government is working with WWF, BC Hydro and the Vancouver Sun to invite all Vancouver residents and businesses to turn their lights off to mark Earth Hour. I want to personally invite you to join other Vancouver citizens ready to make a difference by searching "Earth Hour Vancouver" on Facebook's group and event listings, or clicking the button at www.mayorsamsullivan.ca.

I want to thank BC Hydro, WWF and the Vancouver Sun for joining this international event. Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming weeks.

Thank you again for your ongoing interest and support on these initiatives. As always, I look forward to your ideas and feedback.

Yours truly,

Sam Sullivan
Mayor

* * *

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Merging Canada's and USA's Military

2008-02-24T00:11:00.002-08:00

Just call this another left-wing internet site promoting the news that DND and DFAIT hasn't yet bothered to mention.

Its surreal being in the same camp as the [often] radical, protectionist right-wing in the USA denouncing MexAmeriCanada-creep.

By the way, David Pugliese is an example of how despite its undermining of a free press, CanWest is not wholly a scourge.

Canada-U.S. pact allows cross-border military activity

Deal allows either country to send troops across the other's border to deal with an emergency

David Pugliese, Canwest News Service

Published: Saturday, February 23, 2008

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.

Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military's Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation in a civil emergency.

The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S.

The left-leaning Council of Canadians, which is campaigning against what it calls the increasing integration of the U.S. and Canadian militaries, is raising concerns about the deal.

"It's kind of a trend when it comes to issues of Canada-U.S. relations and contentious issues like military integration. We see that this government is reluctant to disclose information to Canadians that is readily available on American and Mexican websites," said Stuart Trew, a researcher with the Council of Canadians.

Trew said there is potential for the agreement to militarize civilian responses to emergency incidents. He noted that work is also underway for the two nations to put in place a joint plan to protect common infrastructure such as roadways and oil pipelines.

"Are we going to see [U.S.] troops on our soil for minor potential threats to a pipeline or a road?" he asked.

Trew also noted the U.S. military does not allow its soldiers to operate under foreign command so there are questions about who controls American forces if they are requested for service in Canada. "We don't know the answers because the government doesn't want to even announce the plan," he said.

But Canada Command spokesman Commander David Scanlon said it will be up to civilian authorities in both countries whether military assistance is requested or even used. He said the agreement is "benign" and simply sets the stage for military-to-military co-operation if the governments approve.

"But there's no agreement to allow troops to come in," he said. "It facilitates planning and co-ordination between the two militaries. The 'allow' piece is entirely up to the two governments."

If U.S. forces were to come into Canada they would be under tactical control of the Canadian Forces but still under the command of the U.S. military, Scanlon added.

News of the deal, and the allegation it was kept secret in Canada, is already making the rounds on left-wing blogs and Internet sites as an example of the dangers of the growing integration between the two militaries.

On right-wing blogs in the U.S. it is being used as evidence of a plan for a "North American union" where foreign troops, not bound by U.S. laws, could be used by the American federal government to override local authorities.

"Co-operative militaries on Home Soil!" notes one website. "The next time your town has a 'national emergency,' don't be surprised if Canadian soldiers respond."

Scanlon said there was no intent to keep the agreement secret on the Canadian side of the border. He noted it will be reported on in the Canadian Forces newspaper next week and that publication will be put on the Internet.

Scanlon said the actual agreement hasn't been released to the public as that requires approval from both nations.

Putting Race on the Table

2008-02-23T22:37:00.003-08:00

It has been a rather busy Saturday for the issue of racial and cultural awareness. Below is a notification of two significant events next month regarding a more progressive cultural awareness in our very white [but not really] community.

When I think about race and politics I look at BC's legislature and our nation's House of Parliament and see an unjustifiable abundance of white men.

I think about two StatsCan reports over the last several years that hit the front page of Vancouver's daily papers describing how in just under 10 years, white people in Canada will dip below 50% of our population. Short of putting racial and gender quotas into our legislatures, I don't see how that will stop over 50% of our legislators from continuing to be white men...unless, of course, there is an intentional, pro-active cultural dialogue about what representation really means. And we can't have that unless we put race on the table and not in a tokenist or affirmative action sense.

So as well as the events below, I received by email today this notice from the OECD, that grand promoter of corporate neo-feudalism and neoliberal homogenized globalization. In it we read that the OECD thinks that "OECD governments need to do more to help immigrants integrate and make better use of their skills." They are, of course, right. They are also, of course, wrong.

While OECD countries are domestically xenophobic about letting "them" exercise "their" vocations "here" because "they" may have learned to become brain surgeons or engineers in dodgy "overseas" "schools," we who are already running the OECD nations are also eager to shore up our national crises of declining birth rates and the threat of not being able to support the rapidly aging boomers--many of whom are the white men in legislatures who represent the corporate white men who run things around here.

The flip side is that while a generation ago Canadians were worried about the brain drain to the USA as all our "best" professionals and such gravitated to the great Horatio Alger-land of the USA, leaving us unable to perform our needed brain surgery and bridge building. But thanks to neoliberal globalization, Canada has also become a destination for brains to drain to--and that doesn't even count our strong dollar. Except we don't always use those brains. There used to be two Croatian engineers who delivered pizza at a nearby pizza restaurant. We've all met these folks...or maybe we haven't all met them, which might be part of the problem.

So many Canadians are really not in a position to interact with the vocationally dispossessed that we lure here. And the sociologists have a myriad of explanations for this, but for now, let's just say that this is something we need to put on the table--and fast.

And if we can shake our minds out of our heady stupor of the fast approaching Olympics surreal spectacle/corporate greed-fest to truly examine the cultural makeup of "Canada" for the next generation or so, we'll see that white men in power need to face the very real fact that we aren't in charge. We can hang on to it and functionally disempower other groups, or we can figure out that narcissistic xenophobia is just fear of emasculation. And a future of Canada with healthy cultural interaction is not really an emasculation threat at all--unless you think you, as a white man, have something personal to be ashamed of. And if that's the case, maybe you have it coming.

And while the OECD piece goes on about how "the better targeted immigration policies are, the more successful integration will be. This in turn will help reduce the risk of political backlash against immigrants," the enlightened of us who are now ready to face our cultural inter-subjectivity need to realize that it's not about marketing and luring the "right" people "here." It's about putting it on the table and seeing how a new Canada should be structured based on the reality that we are.

And if you can't handle that, then it's you who has the problem.

See you in March!

* mark your calenders for March 1 and March 21 . please forward. *

A series of events to commemorate March 21 International Day for the
Elimination of Racism. March 21 marks the anniversary of the 1960
Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa when police opened fire on hundreds
of South Africans protesting against Apartheid's passbook laws, killing 67
and wounding 186...

STRUGGLES AGAINST RACISM ARE NOT OVER!

*** March 1st: An evening of film, speakers, spoken word, and more ***

Award winning film CONTINUOUS JOURNEY; opening talk by critically
acclaimed writer and activist LEE MARACLE; spoken word and poetry from
inspiring community members SADHU BINNING, RITA WONG, and RAUL GATICA

------------------------------
SATURDAY MARCH 1
FOOD @ 4:30 PM
Multipurpose Room (2nd floor), Bonsor Community Centre
6550 Bonsor Avenue (1 block east of Metrotown Skytrain Station)

Pay what you can.
Wheel chair accessible. Bus tickets available
Childcare on site (pls call 604 220 0451 to register)
-------------------------------

* To mark the 100 YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the racist and exclusionary
Continuous Journey Rule passed in 1908 we are screening the highly
acclaimed and award-winning film “Continuous Journey”.

The Kamagata Maru entered the port of Vancouver in 1914. On board were 376
immigrants, who for two months, lived like prisoners, threatened by famine
and disease as the ship was refused permission to land with scores of
people, media, and government calling for “White Canada Forever.” The
incident marks a dark chapter in Canada’s immigration history and
contributed to the growing anti-colonial sentiment in India. The film,
which required eight years of research, is solidly documented, packed with
archival material, and resonates powerfully with contemporary events.

* Talk by LEE MARACLE: Lee is of Salish and Cree ancestry, and a member of
the Stó:lô Nation. She is a gifted orator and the author of critically
acclaimed "Ravensong", "I am Woman", "Bobbi Lee-Indian Rebel", "Daughters
are Forever" and the poetry collection "Bentbox". She has been an active
member of the Red Power Movement and Liberation Support Movement and her
writings reflect her efforts against racism, sexism, and white cultural
and colonial domination.

* Poetry by SADHU BINNING (Punjabi, English). Sadhu is at the forefront of
Punjabi/English diasporic writing with dozens of poetry collections, books
of fiction, and plays. He edited a literary monthly Watno Dur; co-edited a
quarterly Watan; and is a a founding member of Vancouver Sath, a theatre
collective. Nearly all his poems reflect on the legacy of the Komagatamaru
and other struggles of Indian immigrants agaist racism and labour
exploitation such as the farmworkers in BC.

* Poetry by RITA WONG. Rita is the author of monkeypuzzle and forage. Her
poems have appeared in anthologies such as Ribsauce: a CD/Anthology of
Words by Women, The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War, and
Shift and Switch: New Canadian Poetry, and more. Her work investigates the
intersections between decolonization, social justice, gender,
racialization, labour, migration, and contemporary poetics. She was a
founding member of Direct Action Against Refugee Exploitation (DARE).

* Poetry by RAUL GATICA (Spanish, English). Raul is a member in exile of
the Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM), an
indigenous community organization in Oaxaca, Mexico. His struggles embody
those of indigenous self-determination, against neoliberalism affecting
people of the Global South, and of a refugee to North America.

MARCH AGAINST RACISM!

Join us on March 21, International Day for the Elimination of Racism, to
show our communities collective strength in challenging ongoing racism.
Canadian multiculturalism is not enough!

//////////////////////////////////////
COMMUNITY MARCH
Friday March 21 at 1 pm
(Good Friday Holiday)
Meet at Clark Park on Commercial Drive and 14th
//////////////////////////////////////

==> Bring your children and family.
==> There will be food, water and snacks during the march.
==> Rest vehicles will accompany the march.
==> All welcome!

For centuries, communities have led countless courageous struggles against
racism and the many ways in which it manifests itself in our daily lives.
Although many would like to believe that racism no longer exists, we are
reclaiming the tradition of anti-racist marches to reveal the ugly truth
about the worsening reality of racism both locally and globally. Join us
on March 21 to celebrate the dignity, strength, and resilience of our
communities!

- End individual and institutional racism, racial violence, and racial
profiling!
- Stop the theft of indigenous lands!
- End all racist wars and occupations!
- Stop the deportations now!
- Living wages, healthcare, education, and housing for all!

[[[ Events organized and supported by a community network including No
One Is Illegal, Indigenous Action Movement, Komagata Maru Heritage
Foundation, Canadian Arab Federation, John Graham Support, Siraat
Collective, Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and Solidarity
Society, DTES Elders Council, SIKLAB - Overseas Filipino Workers
Organization, Anniversaries of Change, International Indigenous Youth
Conference Secretariat, Canadian Muslim Union, Asian Society for the
Intervention of AIDS, Justicia for Migrant Workers, Al-Awda Vancouver,
Salaam Vancouver, Iranian Federation of Refugees, Cafe Rebelde Coalition,
VIRSA, Latin American Connexions, Hogans Alley Memorial Project, Filipino
Nurses Support Group, La Surda Latin American Collective, Indigenous Free
School, Canadian Network for Democratic Nepal, Canada Palestine
Association, Group of Relatives and Friends of Political Prisoners in
Mexico, South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, Consejo Indigena
Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-Vancouver), Chetna Dalit
Association, Philippine Women Centre of BC, Coalition of South Asian Women
Against Violence, Vancouver Status of Women, The North Shore Women's
Centre, Battered Women Support Services, Friends of Women in the Middle
East Society, Women Against Violence Against Women, Canadian Union of
Postal Workers, Hospital Employees Union, Industrial Workers of the World,
SFU Teaching Support Staff Union, Vancouver District Labour Council,
Canadian Union of Public Employees - Local 1004, Gallery Gachet, Rhizome
Cafe, New World Theatre, Colouring Book Project, UBC Realities of Race,
SFU Public Interest Research Group, BC Committee for Human Rights in the
Philippines, StopWar.ca, Anti Poverty Committee, Politics Re-Spun,
Building Bridges to Chiapas, Alliance of People's Health, International
Solidarity Movement Vancouver, Vancouver District Labour Council Young
Workers Committee, Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance ]]]

MexAmeriCanada: The SPP and Our Class War

2008-02-19T22:01:00.002-08:00

Shining a light on cockroaches is always fascinating to watch as they scurry around with the “Who, Me?” look on their face. Too many people found out about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the late 1990s. Secretly implementing a corporate bill of rights was not terribly appealing for real human beings who found that the corporate “people” should not have more rights than us.

Try this on for size, though, from Luiza Savage’s “Meet NAFTA 2.0” in Maclean's of all things on September 11, 2006:

This is how the future of North America now promises to be written: not in a sweeping trade agreement on which elections will turn, but by the accretion of hundreds of incremental changes implemented by executive agencies, bureaucracies and regulators. "We've decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes," says [Ron] Covais [Lockheed Martin representative on the NACC]. "Because we won't get anywhere."

The North American Competitiveness Council is the corporate legislature of the North American Union. It is made up of 10 CEOs from each NAFTA country. They guide the deliberations of the three SPP amigos.

If you smell the makings of a class war, you haven’t been paying enough attention. It’s been waged for decades and has now gone underground. Whenever you see tens of thousands of police military and security forces protecting political meetings, you have spotted the New World Order at work.

And tonight, a community forum turned on that flashlight!

"From Behind Closed Doors, Into The Public Eye: Public Forum on the Security and Prosperity Partnership"

The forum is designed to inform citizens about the nature and implications of this secretive project for North American "deep integration". Co-sponsored by Libby Davies MP and the Vancouver Kingsway Federal NDP, the forum will feature the following panel of speakers:

Peter Julian MP (NDP International Trade Critic)
Don Davies (Director, Legal Resources, Teamsters Canada)
Murray Dobbin (Political commentator and author)
Dr. Douglas Ross (Professor, Dept. of Political Science, SFU)

If you missed it, you can watch it here: http://media.workingtv.com/website_archived.aspx?c=1

Peter Julian: Evaporating Canada Behind A 50,000 Person Security Force

Peter Julian’s talk concerned the Canadian trade experience over the last 20 years as it entered into the SPP. He set the groundwork for what everyone tonight was talking about by examining what the SPP is and why it is destroying what most of us considered to be “us.” The following speakers expanded on the SPP’s implications.

When he attends trade functions, corporate CEOs spew the filth that “NAFTA has brought unprecedented prosperity to Canada.” Average income is certainly up, but average income is an unreliable statistic of domestic economic justice because it shuffles all economic experiences together, masking the bifurcation of wealth that is spreading like a virus through the industrialized and economically developing world.

StatsCanada refused to release their studies of the trade realities of Canada since 1989. Sounds like a political policy decision to me. The NDP spent a year trying to have that information released. Here’s what they found:

the wealthiest quintile had a 20% increase in income; they now earn half of all income in Canada—clearly they love NAFTA
the upper middle class has stagnated
the middle class has lost the equivalent of one week of income from every year they work
the lower middle class has lost 2 weeks of income per year
the poorest income earners, under $20k have lost 1.5 months of income per year

Ten reasons why the NDP is opposed to the SPP:

It’s anti-democratic by nature as politicians feel that the public isn’t ready for this discussion because we’ve rejected integration since the 1980s [see the Maclean’s quote above]
It’s shrouded in profound secrecy, including massively redacted released documents
It’s about much more than Steve’s jelly beans
It’s about quality of life issues: eroding regulations to protect our safety [pesticide harmonization]
It includes the erosion of civil rights evident in the USA [MCA]
It integrates social policy with American standards: military harmonization, guest workers without rights and protections of citizens
We’re losing our sovereignty water stewardship
Energy is already bound to American priorities; this will get worse
The softwood sellout is the template for exporting our decision making
Abandoning decision making means giving away our sovereignty

And from this snapshot we have a solid grounding on the threat of the SPP.

Murray Dobbin: Let’s Just Call It the Class War It Really Is

“The power of our adversaries is our isolation from each other.”

When Margaret Thatcher screwed up and publicly admitted [well, bragged] that neoliberals reject society in lieu of individualism, those of us keeping track have noticed the constant and increasing assault on our social contract. They want us isolated as atomized individuals living as consumers in a market, not citizens in a society.

“Our ruling elite—economic and political—have betrayed us...willingly and enthusiastically.”

Peter Julian’s statistics above fully demonstrate that.

“Those who exercise power today are no longer interested in nation building”

The global market is the goal. Trade agreements are a means of de-compiling society through binding our sovereignty to international agreements. Now, agreeing to follow the Geneva Conventions or the Kyoto Protocol is a worthwhile means of restricting our potential choices because of the greater good they could bring to the world, though our American neighbours have rejected both of those agreements.

Neoliberal trade agreements, however, have a market good, a good for the elites in mind—not so much a goal for all of society largely because they reject the social contract’s legitimacy to constrain their greed.

Dobbin notes a sadly humourous point about the largest Canadian business lobbying group, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. It used to be called the Business Council on National Interests. Since there are no national issues any more when your goal is embracing the American political and economic machine, the last thing the CCCE wants to do is give anyone the impression that national interests matter more than American interests.

Canadians’ expectations of our society over the last two decades have not changed. Our ability to keep and improve the society we want is what is becoming restricted. I could call it class war, but that might sound reactionary. The reality, though, is that is simply is a class war—and we are losing.

Don Davies: Workers as SPP Chattel

As a Teamsters lawyer, he and all of labour are critically concerned with trade agreements. Canadian labour sees the SPP as part of a whole package of agreements including the FTA, NAFTA, and TILMA.

Labour in Canada is interested in a strong economy but when Canadian businesses make money, workers should have a share, along with rights, fair trade and domestic sovereignty. Corporate interests cannot be at the expense of citizens, as the NACC is comprised of 30 CEOs, with no representation from labour or the rest of civil society.

The SPP lacks input from a broad spectrum of our society. I believe this is intentional since society as a whole opposes the intentional erosion of our sovereignty, us being society and all.

Worker rights are also being undermined. Within extensive examples of this trend, in the interests of continental security, transportation workers but not managers, are required to provide extensive personal information to the American government so they can cross the border with the 80% of Canadian exports that go to America.

Finally, guest workers are becoming a new labour underclass that drive down everyone else’s worker rights, while they suffer from horribly restricted protections themselves.

Ultimately, the question facing Canada is one we must answer as a whole: Can we encourage trade and investment while ensuring workers and communities share equitably in the benefits, and while preserving our sovereignty and democratic control; does the SPP fail these tests? Absolutely.

Douglas Ross: Political and Military Insecurity Cannot Be Ignored

North American and global security concerns are significantly responsible for our integration trends.

Some highlights of his massively informative presentation indicate the tone of the global security scene that we need to recognize:

In the media, the SPP is mostly about only how we will be modestly inconvenienced.
The top 1/5th of 1% of American wealth has exploded, worse than in the 1920s.
We must get rid of NAFTA. Integration is only on American terms. Pipelines and the electrical grid are not impeded at borders, but labour certainly is.
“Our foreign policy is completely designed to make the US happy.”
Putin admitted last week that we are in a new arms race because the USA has stated its goal to be the supreme military power in the world. Fear and the military industrial complex has defeated the Cold War peace dividend. Russia is re-building their early warning capability and has been dabbling in a Doomsday system, along with planning to smuggle nuclear weapons into the USA for a second strike attack.
Highly authoritarian governments are accumulating massive petrodollars. They will spend this money in ways that threatens everyone’s security, not that others aren’t spending money in anti-social ways.
NORAD is now a treaty, not an executive agreement any more. Russian bombers carrying rather stealthy cruise missiles are already flying around the arctic. A few days ago Putin promised to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons if they joined NATO.
Recommendations:

We need to re-nationalize our political and economic approach to the world, including getting out of NATO unless it changes sufficiently, including moving away from its current exploration into the value of a nuclear first strike.

We need a council on national issues involving everyone, not just business.

As we fill our evenings with TV game shows and 4 second sound bites from US presidential candidates, we need to remember that the depth of real politics is lurking well past all that. We ignore it at our peril.

What Kind of Future Will We Craft?

I say craft because we really are a work in progress. We aren’t stuck with someone else’s vision of the future: sovereign nations or MexAmeriCanada. If we do nothing to take part in creating our future, we give up that right and responsibility to those who show up. If we don’t show up, we get what others plan for us.

One of the most telling features of anti-New World Order forums like tonight’s in Vancouver is the proportion of people over 50 to people under 50: usually it’s around 4:1. Tonight it was perhaps 3:1, slightly better. The real challenge will be to expand the role so that the youngest two generations are more informed and involved. Maybe they’re getting this knowledge on the internet and aren’t into community forums to become informed. If so, they may be missing a crucial element in social progressive movements: community, and not just the online, virtual communities so many know, but the face-to-face realities of seeing people from other social milieux in the same room. Rebuilding community means re-engaging in society with others of all walks of life.

Becoming informed is critical. Being physically a part of solutions means engaging with others in solutions. Murray Dobbin is right when he talks about our mutual isolation helping the neoliberal agenda remove our sovereignty.

Peter Julian closed with the idea of taking a 20-something to lunch! They need to be up to speed and motivated. When 25% of the youngest block of voters bothered to vote, we need to figure out why and fix it. Electoral reform is a good start, but it will take far more than that to ensure that we even have a society worth protecting into the future.

The Prime Minister Is In...Again!

2008-02-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

In his ongoing disdain for openness, accountability, transparency, and the "free" press in a democracy, and on a day of great manufactured import, Prime Minister Steve has given the national media a whopping 17 minutes notice for his statement to the press.

Artificial confidence motions around the crime bill and Afghanistan mission extension couched Parliament Hill today. Yet in keeping with Steve's reluctance to permit the media any real access to him, the PMO or cabinet, his communications staff sent an email [below] giving all media in the country 17 minutes to get to the Commons foyer for a Steve statement. Hurry! Hurry hard!

I can count on two hands the number of times Prime Minister Steve has stooped to speak to the media in 2 years. The last time Steve did this was in October. Then he gave 67 minutes notice. Perhaps now he has effectively trained the media so they only need 17 minutes lead time.

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Notice
Date:	Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:43:03 -0500
From:	PMO
To:	ALLNEWS_E@LSERV.PMO-CPM.GC.CA

From the Prime Minister's Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)

Public events for February 12, 2007

February 12, 2008
Ottawa, Ontario

Public event for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for today, Tuesday February 12th is:

12:00 p.m. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make a brief statement.

Foyer
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON

*Open to media*

The Prime Ministers Office - Communications
[Note: You are receiving this e-mail for information only, and because you have subscribed to our distribution list. To modify your subscription or to have your name removed from the list, go to: (http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/subscribe.asp?login)]

Wendy Yuan: The Next David Emerson for Vancouver-Kingsway

2008-02-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

So it turns out that in the tradition of Liberal candidates in Vancouver-Kingsway, like David Emerson's lack of commitment to the riding, the new Liberal candidate, Wendy Yuan, does not live in the riding, though her campaign claims she does.

Perhaps it was an error by anonymous correspondent on her campaign team to email me [above] with confirmation that she lives in the riding. Or maybe she's just another inauthentic constituency "representative."

NDP candidate Don Davies reported yesterday that she lives in Richmond and has not denied his repeated claims that she does not live in the riding:

Davies said that although Wendy Yuan, a long-time resident of Richmond, last year claimed that it's not important for an MP to live in the riding, the Yuan campaign office now says she is a resident of Vancouver Kingsway.

According to land title records as of February 1, 2008, Ms Yuan and her husband are the registered owners of a home in Richmond. Documents further show that Ms Yuan re-mortgaged this property in April, 2007. As of February 6, 2008, there is no record that they own a home in Vancouver.

"We also searched on-line telephone and address directories. We can find no record of any residence attributed to Ms Yuan in the riding," said Davies.

"I think Ms Yuan has some explaining to do: where does she live? Does she live in Vancouver Kingsway or not? If so, why has she kept her residence in Richmond?" Davies asked.

"Before [the last election], Ms Yuan stepped aside so Paul Martin could appoint Mr. Emerson as the candidate. Her personal reward was an appointment by the former prime minister as a representative on trade issues in Asia," said Davies.

"[She and Emerson] both came out ahead personally, while voters who cast - or wanted to cast - their ballots in good faith were betrayed.

"Now, we see Ms Yuan trying to fool the voters into thinking she lives in Vancouver Kingsway - which is either directly untrue, or without telling them she retains her main residence in Richmond.

Meanwhile on Wendy Yuan's website we read all sorts of feel-good statements about representative democracy.

As a Chinese Canadian woman and as an immigrant who came to Canada twenty-three years ago, I feel that Canada has given me so much and it's high time for me to give something back to this great country of ours by serving the people and making a difference. And a great way to do this of course is to work with all of you and the residents of Vancouver Kingsway so that together we can build a more just, a more prosperous and a greener Canada.

"All of you and the residents of Vancouver Kingsway," not all of "us."

Yes, I am relatively new to politics, but I am ready to bring a fresh approach to the residents of Vancouver Kingsway.

Again, no mention of belonging to the community, just a group of people she will service. And it's not that fresh approach if her style of honesty and full disclosure is similar to Emerson's--that's just cynical.

I am ready to listen to you and deal with the real issues and I want to prove to you that we as Liberals are here for the long haul. I believe that the Liberal Party’s principles, its core values and its vision are the means to build a stronger community in Vancouver Kingsway and indeed, a stronger Canada.

It's too bad that the Liberals define long haul by sending in a candidate from another city. Are there no quality Liberal candidates who actually live in our riding?

My first responsibility will be to represent you and all the residents in this constituency. I will keep my promises to you and I will hold myself accountable if given the honour to work for the people of Vancouver Kingsway. As we get ready for the next election I will continue to knock on doors, engage with people, and learn more about how we can work together to address our concerns and aspirations.

Again, "this" constituency, not "our." "Our" concerns and aspirations? Would those be the concerns of Richmond residents?

I will use my skills in international business to contribute to Canada's success in the Pacific Rim and my experience as a working parent, an immigrant and a woman to address the issues and challenges that we face in our riding.

Well, now it's "our" riding. Unless she can demonstrates that she lives in our riding, this is an unacceptable word.

Before I ask you for your support and for your vote, I say let me earn it first. I invite you to engage with me in our democratic process, to participate in discussions and concrete actions that will help turn a new page in Vancouver Kingsway's diverse and growing neighbourhoods and communities.

Well, I engaged with her by asking if she lives in the riding. She says she does, but the evidence contradicts that.

When her campaign office calls me back to explain their email to me from December and try to prove to me that she lives in the riding, I'll update this post.

Society's Celebrity Bloodlust Complex and Britney Spears: Part 2

2008-02-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

In Part 1 I compared society's fascination with Britney Spears to the new movie Untraceable where people visit a website to accelerate the murder of a prone victim. Now that she's out of the psych ward, there seems to be a new level of intimacy between Britney and the "journalists" out to get the best shots of her. It's almost as if whatever pretense there had recently been about not literally swarming and stalking her has evaporated.

These two stills from CNN video are courtesy of a media helicopter that followed her car away from the hospital. It was stopped at least twice on the road for the swarmings.

It's hard to imagine how much of this a person can take. If she "snaps" we would get to say, "yeah, that figures" but how much of a chance does this woman have to be able to regain mental health.

It reminds me of a tunnel in Paris in the late 1990s, except this time it's not taking place in one evening of speeding drivers, but stretched out slow motion over weeks and months, almost as if someone is storyboarding it for maximum extraction of images during her whole descent into madness.

On one level she has merely drifted from one entertainment sector to another: pop music to tabloid spectacle. Once a Disney prop, she's now a media character. I wonder if she's ever had much time to be a self-contained individual.

Rich Coleman Has a Home; How Many Thousands Don't?

2008-02-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a debate about how many homeless people there are in BC right now. 5,000 up to 15,000?

At any rate, quite a few.

Rich Coleman, minister responsible for homelessness, however is happy to have a home. I don't begrudge him being able to afford a home. I just wish he'd do more for the many thousands who cannot enjoy all of what he does.

Minister Coleman's Facebook page tonight [above] has this juicy little bit [a close-up of the above page]:

In The Tyee you can read the debate about numbers. And my freedom of information requests to BC Housing about their definition of and methodology for counting the homeless may be instructive, whenever they arrive. Even if we go with Coleman's sad, low number, we read in The Tyee that the government isn't interested in addressing the needs of more than 1/3 of them.

I know from an ideological standpoint, the Campbell neoLiberal government doesn't like social housing; nor does Vancouver's NPA. That communitarian response undermines the market approach of worshiping market housing and just providing grants to some needy [and able to jump through administrative hoops] folks, leaving many of the desperate shivering under overpasses and such.

While there may be a myriad of hidden assistance programs [not that the government is interested in making it hard to apply for assistance for things!], BC Housing's Rental Assistance Program requires you to have some income from employment to get rental assistance as well as a dependent child under 19 and be regularly filing income tax returns: not conditions that apply to everyone on the street tonight.

I wonder if Coleman's "it won't last" is some cosmic, karmic omen...

Happy winter, everyone!

Sam Sullivan: Still Irony-Free

2008-01-31T15:21:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm only being charitable when I say he's free of irony.

In truth, I think he's a scheming, narcissistic megalomaniac with the same kind of worship of his own opinions as George w.Caesar.

Below is an email I received from an employee in Vancouver's mayor's office today. In it, we are told not to pester city employees with our rabid desire to give money to Sam Sullivan or help him get re-elected.

That I received this email is a testament to Sam's use of civic resources to tell [presumably] anyone who's ever emailed MayorAndCouncil@city.Vancouver.bc.ca that we should not use civic resources to help Sam's campaign. I can't stand him. I want him to get zero votes in November. I have no interest in supporting his campaign. Yet, I receive this spam...from a city official.

I call it irony, as I said, out of perhaps uncharacteristic graciousness towards our mayor. He has essentially used the City Clerk's instruction as an excuse to campaign to anyone who has contacted him as mayor.

Essentially, this demonstrates Sullivan's opportunism, disrespect for the proper role of civic resources, and willingness to cut whatever corner he can to get re-elected, including turning a City Clerk directive on its head.

Memo regarding political campaign inquiries

Over the past several weeks, our office has received many inquiries as to how to purchase memberships, financially contribute or become a volunteer to help support Mayor Sam Sullivan in this year's civic election.

As noted in a recent memo from the City Clerk to all of Council, City resources are only to be used for matters directly related to civic business.

Therefore, should you wish to learn more about Mayor Sullivan's election campaign or how to become involved, please direct your inquiries to his campaign via www.samsullivan.ca.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation!

Anna Lucarino
Manager of Community Relations
Office of the Mayor
City of Vancouver
Tel: (604) 873-7661
Fax: (604) 873-7685

Society's Celebrity Bloodlust Complex and Britney Spears

2008-01-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, I sadly missed a special presentation of something called "The Fall of Britney Spears" or something like that on E! Channel, a sad commentary on our society that used to be Vancouver Island's TV station.

I don't like Britney Spears' music or PR thing very much at all, but we are both parents of two children so suddenly I have a good degree of empathy for her. I've also always been rather concerned about celebrity microscope effect, long before the death of Princess Diana.

But this show on E! Channel was about reviewing recent events detailing Britney's "fall."

Though I missed the show, I thought about it every time I saw the trailer for the film Untraceable. I haven't seen the movie yet, but it seems that one of the plot elements of the movie is that some killer fellow has set up some sort of murder machine that will kill someone at some point, a point which accelerates closer when a greater number of people visit some website. So people's participation in the spectacle makes them complicit in a murder.

You can even try out http://www.killwithme.com and take part in the movie/murder/complicity spectacle on your own in an ironic, self-reflexive nod to the plot device.

It seems to me that everyone who watched that Britney Spears show on E! Channel last week [and every other act of celebrity obsession] is complicit in the struggles she is now enduring. And while we can callously wipe it all away by saying she voluntarily chose to become a celebrity, that is insufficient to excuse what truly appears to be a celebrity bloodlust complex. We like to build up people to be larger than life, but at the same time we are always looking for excuses to bring them back down to earth to make sure they aren't better than us.

I expect sociologists have much more to say on this, and those who have seen Untraceable will be able to confirm how much this observer complicity is significant in the movie, but in the end, the movie may be a strong metaphor for our role in Britney Spears' tribulations.

Gordon's New Hoax: Informed Climate Change Policy

2008-01-26T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hot on the heals of Steve in Ottawa, Gordon in Victoria is trying to look like he knows what he is talking about with the climate change thing.

Embracing the Gateway Project goals that link in with the North American SuperCorridor, worshiping the car and pretending to care about transit while removing democracy from the TransLink board are pretty cynical.

But worse is Gordon's idiocy when he was being interviewed by Vaughn Palmer on theVoice of BC TV program last fall almost bragging about how he just made up a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions without any real scientific backing. He should have at least read George Monbiot's Heat. Here is how Palmer described it in his column on January 16, 2008:

It has been almost a year since the throne speech announced the premier's goal of reducing greenhouse gases by one-third.

Where did he get the target? I asked him a while back.

"I don't want to pretend that I went out and asked a scientific panel about how to get there," Campbell replied. "I didn't."

Rather he picked the target out of the air, then set his officials the task of determining the means and cost of hitting it.

It's clear that window dressing is important as Gordon traipses around the left half of the continent signing non-binding memoranda of understanding with various other jurisdictions on fixing the climate change problem...while twinning our bridges and building more roads.

But today, when my email Inbox received Steve's crazy treaty ratification nonsense, I received Gordon's announcement [and below] that he's going to actually try to come up with some science from a new wonderful scientific panel to back up his desire to be the green premier with the brand new Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Not trusting the fellow at all, I watched his government flip from promoting racist policy towards First Nations with a treaty referendum which facilitated open discrimination, to one that uses treaties to skim land from the Agricultural Land Reserve. Now our leader is trying to come up with some semblance of expert backing for his whimsical climate change solutions.

Despite not trusting the premier, I expect that there is a chance that this Institute can actually come up with some real contributions to the issue. I worry, though, that its creation--being significantly political and optical--may confine its work to solutions that will allow the climate change deniers and avoiders, as well as the rich and SUV-lovers to keep driving on our smoothly paved, privatized toll roads and bridges.

And in the end, the first sentence of the announcement just made my stomach spin. The province will seek legislative approval for the Institute. It's almost as if folks in Victoria and Ottawa co-ordinated their press releases to capitalize on the idea that legislative oversight actually matters. BC signed a new corporate bill of rights combined with a de facto economic union with Alberta in TILMA after secret negotiations and won't allow the agreement to be ratified in the ledge. BC has removed democratic accountability from TransLink, but they are promoting how important it is to get legislative approval for building this Institute.

It's just too much to bear in one day.

And to rub in the gall is the constant reference to the role of the private sector in the Institute. P3s are so sexy these days for neoliberals. Governments, academics and the private sector: nice. What of labour, NGOs, environmental groups, the rest of civil society? No need. In the privatized commons view of Gordon's neoliberalism, the business sector is sufficient.

And quite frankly, I don't want the private sector to have anything to do with the kind of socio-behavioural change required in our society to avert climate change disaster.

Premier's Office PREM:EX wrote:

January 25, 2008
B.C. to Fund World-Leading Climate Research

Vancouver – The Province will seek legislative approval for $94.5 million to create the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, which will bring together top scientists, researchers, governments and the private sector to develop innovative climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions, Premier Gordon Campbell announced today.

“British Columbia universities have some of the top climate scientists and researchers in the world,” said Campbell. “This institute will bring together those academics, along with others from around the world, with business and the private sector to develop new policy alternatives, to find ways to educate and encourage greener lifestyles, and to develop new, green technologies into products that can be used by consumers around the globe.”

The Institute will be a unique joint collaboration between the province’s four research-intensive universities – the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and University of Northern British Columbia – the private sector and government. It will bring provincial, national and international climate researchers together to work with governments and the private sector to develop ideas that can be applied and transferred to government, industry and the public.

Besides providing research support and developing innovative alternatives such as new energy systems, new forms of transportation, alternative technologies, and socio-behavioral change, the Institute will also provide the public with information and ideas on how to reduce individual greenhouse gas emissions through public forums, publications and online information. It will provide education, training and outreach to business leaders, government staff and non-government organizations via workshops, short courses and publications.

The Institute will be founded on four pillars: Research on climate change impacts; assessment of mitigation and adaptation options, including technology development; education and capacity building; and outreach through knowledge management and technology transfer.

The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions will be hosted and the collaboration led by the University of Victoria, utilizing existing space. The proposed funding will be used to support research projects, staff salaries, graduate fellowships and internships. The endowment will ensure the Institute will operate in perpetuity.

“Linking British Columbia’s climate researchers together and with other national and international researchers will help us develop and apply knowledge to British Columbia situations,” said University of Victoria president David Turpin. “It will also ensure that research is meaningfully transferred to government, industry and the public and secure B.C.’s leadership in this important area.”

“Developing technologies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions represents not only a challenge, but an economic opportunity,” said Environment Minister Barry Penner. “We have at least 18,000 people working on leading-edge technological solutions in B.C., which we can market to the world.”

Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell said the Institute will build on existing climate research initiatives currently operating in B.C., such as the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium.

“This will serve as a linchpin for a Pacific regional network that includes key scholars from B.C.’s four research-intensive universities, major Alberta universities, and universities from Washington, California and others,” said Coell. “The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions will be a valuable resource to government and the private sector by providing access to the considerable climate change expertise found in British Columbia’s universities.”

The Institute will be governed by a consortium of British Columbia’s four research universities and will receive advice and guidance from an advisory board made up of public and private sector stakeholders.

The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions’ mission will be: ‘To partner with governments, the private sector, other researchers and civil society, in order to undertake research on, monitor, and assess the potential impacts of climate change and to assess, develop and promote viable mitigation and adaptation options to better inform climate change policies and actions.’

The Institute will stimulate and promote the development and commercialization of world-leading climate change solutions and assist government and the private sector in selecting the best possible solutions to be applied to mitigation and adaptation. It will support and promote societal change and use the synergies of a broad collaboration to leverage funding coming into the province. The Institute will also be a key partner in providing education and training opportunities for graduate students, both in British Columbia and globally.

British Columbia is legally mandated to reduce B.C. greenhouse gases by 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020; reduce emissions by at least 80 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050; and make all provincial government operations carbon-neutral by 2010.

Link to More Information:

Backgrounder -- B.C. Founds Cutting-Edge Climate Solutions Institute

Steve's New Hoax: Legislative Ratification of Treaties

2008-01-25T23:52:00.000-08:00

I've taken to calling it Executive Overdrive: the urge in BC, Ottawa and elsewhere for the executive branch of government to find ways of secretly doing constitutionally significant things [like the SPP or creating a de facto economic union between BC and Alberta with TILMA [which you've probably never heard of]] without legislative oversight or a large public referendum.

But now I see that the Harper government is pledging to actually put international treaties before the House of Commons. On first blush I got very excited to see something so awesome coming from someone so clearly tyrannical.

But then I read past the first sentence. The whole steaming mess is below and here if you want to see it with its DFAIT webpage background.

Putting a treaty before the House like the Americans do with their Senate is a fascinating nod to the appearance of "democracy"[tm]. But allowing voting to merely be an option is cynical. Calling the idea of legislative ratification "unnecessary and cumbersome" is more Steve's style.

But the worst part is reserving the right to just skip the whole charade if cabinet thinks it is an exceptional circumstance.

In the end, there is no binding substance to the announcement. It looks like democracy matters, but in the end, it's just cruel window dressing.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: News Release 20 - CANADA ANNOUNCES POLICY TO TABLE INTERNATIONAL TREATIES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:30:07 -0500

January 25, 2008 (11:30 a.m. EST)
No. 20

CANADA ANNOUNCES POLICY TO TABLE INTERNATIONAL TREATIES IN HOUSE OF COMMONS

The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today announced that the Government of Canada has changed the way it signs on to international treaties.

“As of today, all treaties between Canada and other states or entities, and which are considered to be governed by public international law, will be tabled in the House of Commons,” said Minister Bernier. “This reflects our government’s commitment to democracy and accountability. By submitting our international treaties to public scrutiny, we are delivering on our promise for a more open and transparent government.”

In the 2006 Speech from the Throne, Prime Minister Stephen Harper committed to bringing international treaties before the House of Commons to give Parliament a role in reviewing international agreements.

A treaty creates legal obligations for Canada under international law and the government believes that further engaging Parliament in the international treaty process will give it a greater role in ensuring that these treaties serve the interests of all Canadians. Under the new process, members of the House of Commons may review and discuss the treaty—examining, debating or voting—before Canada formally agrees to ratify it.

With the new policy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will have the responsibility for tabling all treaties to be signed for Canada.

- 30 -

A backgrounder follows.

For further information, media representatives may contact:

Foreign Affairs Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
613-995-1874
www.international.gc.ca/index.aspx

Backgrounder

TREATY PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

The government intends to table all international treaties in the House of Commons before taking further steps to bring these treaties into force. It is committed to giving the House an important role in reviewing Canadian treaties.

Description

The procedure is similar to procedures used for a long time in the United Kingdom and Australia.

The government will maintain the executive role in negotiating agreements.

Prior to the government finally binding Canada to an agreement, it will table the treaty in the House of Commons. The Clerk of the House will distribute the full text of the agreement and an explanatory memorandum giving the salient issues in the treaty to each Member of Parliament.

The government will observe a waiting period of 21 sitting days from the date of the tabling before taking any action to bring the treaty into effect. When treaties require legislative amendment, the government is committed to delaying the legislation until this 21-sitting-day period has passed.

The House may debate the agreement, if it chooses to do so. The government offers the House the opportunity to discuss treaties that it judges important.

This is similar to practice in the UK. It avoids an unnecessary and cumbersome procedure where every agreement would be put to a resolution of the House.

Role of the House

Members of the House of Commons may wish to review and discuss the policy of the treaty.

The government will maintain the legal authority to decide whether to ratify the treaty. It will, of course, give consideration to the view of the House in coming to a decision.

Very exceptionally the Government may have to bind Canada to the treaty before the treaty is tabled, informing the House of the treaty at the earliest opportunity.

More Corporate Fascism at TransLink

2008-01-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

Through a possible combination of a TransLink half-truth, incompetent journalism or the chronic problem of insufficient space for sufficient depth in Metro [and the other crappy free daily commuter papers], TransLink is able to hide another element of its new corporate fascist structure.

The new TransLink "board" [sic] will meet in secret. Its directors were appointed by business interests [almost predominantly]. The directors are accountable to themselves only, not the mayors, provincial government or the public as none can fire them but themselves. The new council of mayors is empowered to approve one of three plan options given it by the "board." If the council of mayors rejects them all, the "board" has the power to pick one, essentially allowing the board to offer a crappy, crappier and crappiest option to the mayors, wait for them to reject them all, then go ahead with whatever the hell they want anyway.

In today's Metro [above, click it to see it in full], you can see that TransLink spokesperson failing to claim the above rule about the mayors. Perhaps the Metro reporter didn't push enough to get that, or perhaps the paper simply can't be bothered to include enough actual words to complete the story.

Either way, this is nothing new. Since Falcon's TransLink nightmare came to light last spring, we knew this was coming. How much unaccountable spending of public funds, especially for something so important to the public, will it take to get us mobilized?

Why Celebrities Should Be Political Reporters

2007-12-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

Today I read an interesting commentary on the negative reaction people have against Oprah Winfrey endorsing Barack Obama. People seem to think she shouldn't be all that partisan. I think that's an interesting--and ignorant--point of view that undermines democracy.

These days in Alberta, teachers are not allowed to run for school board, even in districts where they don't teach. Absurdly, the Supreme Court of Canada supports that decision because a democracy should ensure participation for all, but not necessarily all kinds of participation [like running for public office] for all. In Alberta, then, there are two classes of citizens.

Oprah Winfrey, despite her fame, should not be equally disenfranchised. We all know...actually we don't really have a clue of the extent...that rich and often famous conservatives [unlike Oprah] support right wing politicians. We don't express shock at that. No double standards should be allowed.

Then today, as I was preparing my other piece on Vancouver's private thug corps, the Downtown Ambassadors, I found this poll on the 24 Hours website.

Luckily I was the first to answer the poll. Maybe I'll set the sane trend. But, who do we think we are that we think it's fine to stop celebrities from addressing political causes? Should they not be political reporters? Based on the often atrocious reporting in not just the free "newspapers" in town, many celebrities could do no worse than what the "professionals" are pumping out.

And the logical extension of this is that celebrities shouldn't make political movies. George Clooney will be stuck in Oceans 14+ forever and Leonardo DiCaprio cannot discuss environmental policy ever again.

In the end, when schlock media like 24 Hours even entertains the notion that celebrities are not legitimate political reporters, their goal is to devalue whatever they may be able to contribute. Naomi Campbell may be awful at political reporting, as may other celebrities. But to negate their contribute based on their celebrity status is just foolish. It also serves the purpose of devaluing their critique if they happen to hit a nerve that the corporate media is not interested in being hit.

And when you take a google at what she's up to, you can see why they're after her, that Bush hating supermodel: "Campbell meets Chavez" in the Guardian. And now she's off to meet Castro, which I suppose is what all the buzz is about.

In the end, when we pre-emptively limit people's participation in political affairs of any sort, we do a disservice to the notion of democracy. Let her try. If she can make a difference, great. If she fails, she will still have succeeded at trying to participate in a democracy. And if she fails, she'll do no worse than many who are already "professional" political reporters.

Downtown Ambassadors: Subsidizing the Thug Class

2007-12-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

Well, it took a great deal of digging in the hopelessly inadequate free daily "newspapers" today, but it was eventually possible to get the full story on the city of Vancouver spending almost 3/4 of a million dollars to match the funding for the downtown's Business Improvement Association's private thug force.

The privatization-happy neoliberal Non-Partisan Association [sic]-dominated Vancouver city council finds it easier to use our money to fund a private security force than to just privatize the police. Vision City Councillor Tim Stevenson said public money should go to a public police force; the flip side is that public money should not be subsidizing a private security force accountable to the Business Improvement Association. Let them pay for their thugs to criminalize the poor.

But that makes us wonder if even that is such a good idea. In the article above, Irwin Loy "examines" the other side of the story by including Stevenson's comment and another idea that the money should be spent helping the needy.

The real other side of the story, though, is that the Downtown Ambassadors are the thug class that Naomi Wolf is writing about in The End of America: a group of private enforcers for the business class to do more than just help tourists find the nearest Starbucks and ask the homeless to not spit in front of Roots on Robson Street.

The Downtown Ambassadors used to look like innocuous doormen from an almost swanky hotel in 1976, with garish red costumes and big hats. Today, as the picture above shows, they look like the rent-a-cops that they are, complete with red stripes down their pants. Their mandate includes tasks like "report crime and 'quality of life' concerns to appropriate agencies and assist in mitigating these from taking root." Quality of life concerns have in the past been moving the homeless out of public lanes and alleys because that is too close to a business. Assisting in mitigating these from taking root is far more than reporting them to the real police. The Downtown Ambassadors have been roundly hated by the poor and their advocates for some time now.

And lackey Dave Jones explains that the real police are so professionally trained that they shouldn't be bothered with asking those homeless to stop spitting. The flip side of that is that the Downtown Ambassadors are not so very professionally trained. And they are far from sufficiently trained to deal with the levels of mental illness among our street people. And why should they be...they aren't being tasked with fixing that problem, just with sending them back to the Main and Hastings ghetto and off Robson and Granville.

But the rest of the story is to be found in the city's other terrible free "newspaper" where David Eby from the Pivot Legal Society is announcing the plan to give blankets to the homeless. On those blankets are listed their rights as citizens of the country, though as the poor, their rights are being squashed by neoliberals like Lorne Mayencourt, Geoff Plant and Sam Sullivan in their plans to sanitize and criminalize the poor.

If you look carefully in the photograph you can actually read one of the rights of the homeless in our society. In distinguishing between private and public property, security guards are allowed to move people from private space, but they have no power to move people from sidewalks and alleys.

And that is the point of the whole mess. Pivot actually cares about the rights of the rapidly disenfranchised poor. The Downtown Ambassador thug class is all about tracking them to better shunt them out of the business realms.

But you had to actually read both rag "newspapers" to get the whole picture. Oh, the humanity.

Why I'd Rather Cast a Ballot in Venezuela than Canada or the USA

2007-12-06T14:31:00.000-08:00

With Canada's 19th-century first past the post electoral system and the USA's rampant electoral fraud and conflicts of interest, voting in Venezuela seems like a tonic.

And in Venezuela's recent referendum on political change that failed by roughly the same infinitesimal vote as Quebec's referendum failed a decade or so ago, the North American media cabal is decrying it a triumphant victory for freedom fighters.

Despite that hyperbole, Venezuela's democracy receives most of my envy. Why?

Here's why:

Venezuela is Not Florida

By Mark Weisbrot

December 5, 2007, McClatchy Tribune Information Services

Last Monday, with less than 90 percent of the vote counted and the opposition leading by just 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent, President Chavez congratulated his opponents on their victory. They had defeated his proposed constitutional reforms, including the abolition of term limits for the presidency.

No one should have been surprised by Chavez's immediate concession: Venezuela is a constitutional democracy, and its government has stuck to the democratic rules of the game since he was first elected in 1998. Despite the non-renewal of the broadcast license for a major TV station in May – one that wouldn't have gotten a license in any democratic country – Venezuela still has the most oppositional media in the hemisphere. But the U.S. media has managed to convey the impression to most Americans that Venezuela is some sort of dictatorship or near-dictatorship.

Some of this disinformation takes place through mere repetition and association (e.g. "communist Cuba" appearing in thousands of news reports) -- just as 70 percent of Americans were convinced, prior to the Iraq war, that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the massacres of September 11. In that case, the major media didn't even believe the message, but somehow it got across and provided justification for the war.

In the case of Venezuela, the media is more pro-active, with lots of grossly exaggerated editorials and op-eds, news articles that sometimes read like editorials, and a general lack of balance in sources and subject matter.

But Venezuela is not Pakistan. In fact, it's not Florida or Ohio either. One reason that Chavez could be confident of the vote count is that Venezuela has a very secure voting system. This is very different from the United States, where millions of citizens cast electronic votes with no paper record. Venezuelan voters mark their choice on a touch-screen machine, which then records the vote and prints out a paper receipt for the voter. The voter then deposits the vote in a ballot box. An extremely large random sample – about 54 percent – of the paper ballots are counted and compared with the electronic tally.

If the two counts match, then that is a pretty solid guarantee against electronic fraud. Any such fraud would have to rig the machines and stuff the ballot boxes to match them – a trick that strains the imagination.

In 2007, Venezuelans once again came in second for all of Latin America in the percentage of citizens who are satisfied or very satisfied with their democracy, according to the prestigious Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro – 59 percent, far above the Latin American average of 37 percent.

It is not only the secure elections that are responsible for this result – it is also that the government has delivered on its promises to share the nation's oil wealth with the poor and the majority. For most people – unlike the pundits here – voting for something and actually getting what you voted for are also an important part of democracy.

The Bush Administration has consistently sought regime change in Venezuela, even before Chavez began regularly denouncing "the Empire." According to the U.S. State Department, Washington funded leaders and organizations involved in the coup which briefly overthrew Chavez's democratically elected government in April 2002. The Washington Post reported this week that the Bush Administration has been funding unnamed student groups, presumably opposition, up to and including this year.

Venezuela must be seen as undemocratic, and Chavez as the aggressor against the United States, in order to justify the Bush Administration's objective of regime change. As in the run-up to the Iraq war, most of the major media are advancing the Administration's goals, regardless of the intentions of individual journalists.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

COPE's Ideas Conference and Re-Inspiring a Robust Democracy

2007-12-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

In our society citizens are rapidly being re-framed as consumers. We need to seriously question just what democracy means to us. Politics is not an event that a bunch of us take part in every few years at an election. It is something that happens every day. If we choose to ignore politics except during elections, that itself is a political decision.

So on Saturday, December 1, Vancouver’s Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) held their 2007 Ideas Conference, “A Vancouver for Everyone.” With panelists and discussions focussing on our increasingly disastrous symbiotic relationship with our environment, transportation and transit, safety and housing, several dozen members and non-members addressed the issues with a focus on defeating the highly neoliberal and fully partisan Non-Partisan Association (NPA) in Vancouver next November.

The NPA wants to think of us all as consumers. Their neoliberal agenda presumes we are individuals and as their goddess, Margaret Thatcher, has often proclaimed, “there is no such thing as society.” For as individuals, we act in our own self-interest so the market can provide all we need.

Contrasting with that (literally) anti-social philosophy are the recently famous Antarctic emperor penguins where patriarchy oddly does not rule and more importantly, daddies shelter their eggs over the winter by huddling together with all the other daddies, cycling from the centre to the periphery of the huddle to keep warm during the -60 degree Antarctic winters.

Humans, however, are more like the emperor penguins than Adam Smith’s vision of entrepreneurial man (and Mrs. Thatcher).

So COPE, not the party of corporate funding, has explored the reality of community, society and populist politics. Citizens should not view politics as they do a movie in a theatre: we cannot be passive consumers. We must be involved. We don’t all have to run for office, but we do all need to realize that our democracy needs us to engage. That can be attending the Ideas Conference or attending a friend’s living room some Friday evening for coffee to talk about a new car-free festival in the community next summer, or what the new #1 Kingsway community centre should provide in programs for pre-teens.

Highlights from the Ideas Conference can be fodder for any civic discussion among neighbours or friends: a do-it-yourself political meeting that takes no real effort beyond the desire to be a part of our floundering democracy.

Ecologically, Vancouver, is embracing the 19th century model of social planning. We have not yet even conducted a study on the impact on Vancouver of a 1, 2 or 3 metre rise in the sea level. We could become like Venice unless we quickly and drastically reduce our contributions to global warming and mitigate the effects that are already in the pipeline.

Mitigation? How about increasing the height of the dykes that protect our large cities and vulnerable small communities from sea level rises. How about all the dump trucks clogging up Main Street with the fill from underneath Cambie Street in the privatized SNC-Lavalin Line (I’ve just stopped calling it the Canada Line altogether)? Those trucks are dumping the fill into the sea. Did we think ahead to shore up the dykes? No.

In the 19th century, progress was god, just like in Gordon Campbell’s BC where we’ve got a hopelessly inadequate climate change plan and TransLink being turned over to corporate appointees to build more bridges and highways for cars and trucks and the NAFTA Supercorridor’s local network: our Gateway project. We need a transportation agenda for people and the environment.

Our worship of the car shows up with a subsidy from public funds of over $5,000 per year per car while each transit ride is subsidized by $5. A transit commuter’s subsidy, then, is worth only $2,500 per year.

The wildly popular car-free festivals on Commercial Drive over the last 3 summers will take place in 5 Vancouver neighbourhoods next summer. If 5 more neighbourhoods in 2009 join in, we could shut down much of the city to cars on these days by the end of the decade. On the Drive, at the end of the car-free days, people felt displaced and annoyed by the presence of cars again, stealing their space.

And throughout the Ideas Conference we were signing a petition to turn the defunct and squandered Storyeum into a shelter. But prime space like that and other boarded up blocks in the downtown east side are instead being lined up for gentrification by Concord Pacific and other groups.

And in the era when the South False Creek lands no longer have any guaranteed social housing, when the NPA is using creative arithmetic to claim up to 2,000 more social housing units when it’s far less than 1,000, we need to ramp up agitation.

There are 2,300 homeless people in Vancouver, up from 1,200 in 2005 and 600 in 2003. There are 10,500 in BC, up from 5,000 in 2005. Last year the provincial government had a $4.1 billion budget surplus. Next year’s provincial budget will largely pay off the debt and cut personal and corporate taxes, including removing enormous taxes on the big banks, who we all know are highly vulnerable to their net income dipping below $1 billion each quarter next year.

If you didn’t know this, you might be able to blame the most highly corporate-concentrated media in North America for paying more attention to their government, not their role as a free press in a democracy.

And as Jean Swanson and others have recently asked the UN for foreign aid for our housing crisis, officials in the UN say we actually qualify because of this issue, despite our nation’s wealth. Groups in Vancouver are planning on asking other OECD countries for aid for social housing.

If all this doesn’t pressure the anti-social NPA into recognizing we are more like emperor penguins than emperors in training, we all need to get political and work for the next 11 months to vote them out so those of us who actually believe in society can run it, instead of giving it away in cynical corporate welfare programs.

The Media Eats Us Alive--And We Pass it the Salt

2007-11-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

The CRTC in Canada and the FCC in the USA are not designed to ensure the media plays its role as a free press educating citizens of the issues required for us all to be active participants in healthy functioning democracies.

Those organizations are regulatory bodies designed to toss in a few show trial constraints on the feeding frenzy that is corporate concentrated media. But for the most part, they are consolidation lubrication.

If you aren't completely convinced of the reality of concentration in media ownership browse through these:

Bill Moyers presents an FCC-hate in. The best line: "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for not respecting the democracy you live in." The sad truth, is that as North America slides into a closed, un-free, soft-gliding-to-hard-fascist state [have you read Naomi Wolf's new book yet?], democracy is actually a threat to global corporate imperialism. Government protection of the right to a free press is an impediment to be exorcised from the sick body politic. Democracy is being damned.

And some thoughts on the beginning of a media war...it's about bloody time.

The Liberal Party: The Other Half of Harper's Majority

2007-11-16T20:48:00.000-08:00

As much as this photo just plays into Stephen Harper's quest for a majority government, it also truthfully reflects the tone of the Liberals: don't vote, don't act, choose to do nothing and let the Harper government have a functional majority.

But as Jack Layton spoke to the BC NDP convention tonight, the tone of the federal NDP as the unofficial, yet effective opposition continued to ring.

In reference to Dion et al and their penchant for abstention "for the good of Canada," they are providing a de facto majority government for Harper. Their internal incoherence and lack of effective support of Dion makes the Liberal Party afraid to force an election despite Harper's poison pills.

At the same time they abrogate their responsibility as "official opposition" as the party with the second largest number of seats.

Since the Bloc voted for Harper's budget last spring, we can't really call them much of an opposition.

That leaves the NDP actually opposing Harper's anti-social tax cuts in an era of surplus.

And when do we start docking the pay of MPs who abstain in a vote?

Logical Absurdities: Only Anti-Government Sentiments Are Political

2007-11-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

So, US Iraqi war veterans who oppose the political mission, though presumably they support the troops [themselves, their comrades and friends], aren't allowed to march in a Veterans Day Parade in Long Beach.

"They do not fit the spirit of the parade," she said. "The spirit being one of gratitude for what the veterans have done. We do not want groups of a political nature, advocating the troops' withdrawal from Iraq." Parade coordinators work hard to keep the event free from politics.

This is the absurd double standard that plagues people cursed with an inability to understand paradoxes.

I remember the early 1990s and how hard it was to make it through the relativist paradox of elements of post-modernism. As an early post-modern zealot, I rejected absolute truths because I rejected any truth as being able to be absolute. I was trying to embrace that concept while rejecting the arguments that have supported the human misery that resulted from absolute truths: white supremacy, genocide in the Americas, heterosexism, two millennia of imperial Christianity.

But at the same time, there is the relativist paradox that rejecting absolutes is itself an absolute.

This inability to contend with the modernist-postmodernist tension shows up in the "support our troops" nonsense, whereby anyone who rejects Canada's presence in Afghanistan doesn't support the troops, even though the troops didn't make the politician send them there.

It also shows up in the more single-minded culture in the USA. If you oppose the government, you are being political. Yet it is not a political act to support it. So a Veterans Day parade is for apolitical people.

It also shows up in this surreal Flickr group, America, America!

It is hard to fathom:

About AMERICA, AMERICA! 1200+ members & growing! **** WE ARE NOW A GROUP OF 1200+ MEMBERS! AWESOME! YAY! WOW!
GOD BLESS AMERICA, AMERICA! THANKS TO ALL OF OUR MEMBERS, OUR FAMILY!
****************************************************************************************
OUR PERMANENT THREAD IS FLAG DAY, PLEASE ALL MEMBERS POST ALL PHOTOS OF OLD GLORY IN THE "FLAG DAY" THREAD! We are building the biggest best collection of American Flag photos on Flickr!! Let's do it together!!
****************************************************************************************
THESE THREADS ARE CURRENTLY OPEN FOR POSTING:
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL,
MY HOMETOWN;
SPORTS STORIES;
SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER!
PLANES, TRAINS AND MOTOR VEHICLES
FLAG DAY (PERMANENT THREAD)
Anyone who posts in any thread receives a special award and will be eligible for front page exposure!

GROUP RULES: NEW RULE, POSTING LIMIT IN POOL 1O PER DAY! Any pictures, photoart, digital art that depicts the good and positive things about America or any place that loves freedom! Photos and photoart that depict patriotism, the spirit of America, family life, and that which shows the ways God has Blessed America and the world. Please *NO POLITICS OF ANY KIND*, *NO CAMPAIGN PHOTOS FOR ANY PARTY*! NO AMERICA BASHING, NO rude or BAD LANGUAGE, and NO nudes. This is a wholesome family oriented group about America and the people who make her the greatest nation in the world.
If you have a gripe about something, write a letter to the editor at your local newspaper -THIS is NOT a forum for anger. Thanks and enjoy! Fantartsy AKA JJ

IMPORTANT NOTICE: ANYONE who blocks administrators will be banned from the group and all their photos WILL BE REMOVED!JJ/ administrator

GROUP MOTTO: FOR THOSE WHO LIVE IN OR LOVE THE IDEALS OF FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE FOR WHICH AMERICA STANDS. Thanks to each and every member for making this a great AMERICAN group! JJ and all the administrators and helpers!

Beyond the planes, trains and motor vehicles fossil fuel worshiping, the philosophy of the group is similarly blind to the reality that they themselves are expressing a political view of supporting the government, an act they ban by definition. I remember in the 1980s Bruce Springsteen said blind faith in your leaders or in anything will get you killed.

The good and positive things about America or any place that loves freedom, however that is defined by the group leaders. Patriotism, the spirit of America, family life [defined again I suspect by the group leaders], how God has blessed America and the world [again, defined by the group leaders]. No politics of any kind shows they have no sense that their whole group is a political expression of rigid, uncritical conformity with the government line.

And yes, America is the greatest nation in the world. I'm always wondering what criteria people use to say that. Constant overt and covert invasions and subversion of other countries for over two centuries? Largest military expenditure? Only country to use nuclear weapons on civilians? Economic imperialist supporting multi-national corporations creating global feudalism with half the world's 6.6 billion people in the world dying on less than $2/day?

Anger and "gripe" belong in newspapers. And while they have the right to have Flickr group that shows blind support of America's junta, saying they brook nothing political is just silly.

They also say this for a current event:

fantartsy (a group admin) says:
04 Nov 07 - YAY!!1000+ members!!** .VETERANS' DAY THREAD, open for 2 weeks only! Post a photo of the veteran you want to honor> ANYONE FROM ANY COUNTRY may post in this "special" thread!OPEN NOW! JJ/admns

I suspect that if Iraq Veterans Against the War members try to post pictures of events that are critical of the policy in Iraq, those pictures will be removed.

Canada: "Economic Injustice for the Poor!"[tm]

2007-11-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

Just to start off, any country that spends the post-Cold War period eroding its progressive tax system so that the richest 1% of families pay a lower tax rate than the poorest 10% of families is just offensive. And I don't care about the relative dollar value of tax paid by these two groups. The principle itself is regressive and abhorrent.

Welcome to Canada!

Welcome also to the reality of federal Liberal and Conservative governments. It doesn't matter which is in, the rich get a windfall and the poor subsidize it.

The latest CCPA study is full of shock and further offense:

Provincial tax cuts are the key culprit for the increasingly regressive nature of Canada’s tax system but the problem has been exacerbated at the federal level with billions of dollars worth of post-2000 tax cuts.
The richest one percent of taxpayers saw their tax rate drop by four percentage points between 1990 and 2005.
Most Canadians saw their tax rate fall by two percentage points of income, but not so for the poorest 20 percent of taxpayers, who pay three to five percentage points more in taxes.
Middle-income families pay about six percentage points more in total taxes than a family in the top 1 percent.

Sam Sullivan's Latest Re-Election Schemes, 54 Weeks[!] Before the Election

2007-11-06T23:25:00.000-08:00

Today's fresh new email from Mayor Sam Sullivan [see below] graced my email inbox with an upfront expression of his concern for the recent shootings in Vancouver. After the debacle of his attempt at union-breaking strike management he now wants to assure us he's out to protect our lives.

Start the email with fear and the calming words of a leader out to protect us all. Boo. Truly scary is during the civic strike he spoke in similarly glowing terms of municipal employees. His walk did not match his talk there. Further, invoking Stockwell Day shows how much Sam is out of touch with the kind of figures who resonate with Vancouverites.

Then Sam moves on to his personal, unscientific, but sure to be quoted for the next 54 weeks of the municipal election campaign [and even longer] survey of citizens on the necessity of extending Skytrain to UBC.

The context of this is important. In order to force the TransLink leadership [democratically elected, pesky as that was] to commit to the Canada Line privateer-megaproject for the Olympics, after failed votes, eventually northeast suburb politicians were bribed with the Evergreen Line to Coquitlam Centre in exchange for voting for the Canada Line.

Democracy is an inconvenient truth in BC. The BC neoLiberal government is currently in the legislature ramming through a bill that will remove all democracy from TransLink and put the board directly in the hands of corporate appointees.

I seem to remember something before our time about the American revolution being about taxation without representation. Now in the 21st century we are embracing it in BC, legislatively so. Shame.

Back to Sam, though. His personal, unscientific, qualitative survey is all about justifying a future bid to supplant the Evergreen Line timeline to get the next Skytrain leg out West Broadway to UBC. Maybe this isn't his plan, but since it may be a decade before this extension is supposed to occur, after the northeast sector, what is Sam's rush to meet with West Broadway businesses now and embark on this poll on his personal website?

The pdf on his site on why we should complete the Millenium Line [to UBC] has some sound arguments. As a fan of transit, I think they're great. But they're second in line behind the Evergreen Line. The day Sam starts squawking about why the northeast sector should wait--again--is the day I look back to his website survey with complete cynicism.

Message from Mayor Sullivan regarding recent shootings

Like all residents, I am very concerned about the recent shootings that have taken place. We are taking this situation very seriously.

Late this afternoon I held a meeting with Chief Constable Jim Chu to discuss the issue of gang violence in our city. Yesterday I met with federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, and Chief Chu and I will be meeting with the federal Justice Minister tomorrow. In addition, I have written to the provincial government and will be meeting with mayors from Metro Vancouver next week to discuss ways to coordinate our efforts and attack organized crime.

I want to reassure residents that the men and women of the Vancouver Police Department are among the best in the world. They are working with our partners in the region to solve these crimes and bring these criminals to justice.

The solution to addressing these problems requires a coordinated and intelligent response. We will deliver that for our citizens.

- Mayor Sam Sullivan

Mayor's Millennium Line Survey – Have Your Say

Mayor Sam Sullivan invites residents, businesses and community organizations to provide their views about plans to complete the Millennium Rapid Transit Line from VCC Station to Central Broadway - and ultimately UBC.

Disclaimer: this is a qualitative survey of website visitors. Results are not considered as scientific.

Child Sexual Abuse Treatment: BC Government Lies About Underfunding

2007-11-01T23:38:00.000-07:00

Some lessons to heed from question period this week:

1. BC's neoLiberal party abuses Freedom of Information requests to make themselves look good and justify leaving abused children vulnerable.

2. BC's neoLiberal party has lied about the need for better funding for treating children who have suffered sexual abuse.

3. The installation of a Representative for Children and Youth last fall should be viewed in this new light.

4. The government should actually hold legislative sessions for public accountability.

5. Tom Christensen's offices are just gorgeous [see above] with their new renovations using money that could have paid for child sexual abuse counsellors.

It was a sick, sick Halloween when in question period, Minister of Children and Family Development Tom Christensen tried to dance around being caught by the Times Colonist [see below] in redacting critical elements of a report, thus allowing the Ministry to deny providing poor service to child sexual abuse victims.

Christensen, with no sense of irony: "It's unfortunate that the opposition is choosing to politicize this issue."

Then NDP MLA Rob Flemming followed up the questioning, "Sadly, it isn't the first time they've tried to cover up failings when it comes to protecting children. Last fall the opposition revealed an FOI which was sent inadvertently to the opposition, complete with handwritten sticky-notes. That FOI about child protection in the Coroner's Service had a handwritten note from the Deputy Solicitor General asking for more severing because it 'contradicts what we've said to this point.' The FOI also showed the public affairs bureau has been given sign-off authority by this government."

Christensen's ass-covering reply: "I can tell you that the Ministry of Children and Family Development receives well over a thousand FOI requests each year. I have nothing to do with a single one of those, but in fact we have a piece of legislation that balances access to information with a number of other considerations."

So much for ministerial responsibility. I know he doesn't process FOI requests, but the minister is responsible for the ministry's actions. Further, the FOI legislation isn't designed for the government to sever information in FOIs that contradicts their public messaging to keep from appearing duplicitous.

Christensen, later: "I'm proud of what this government has accomplished for children and youth with mental health issues across this province — a child and youth mental health plan that is the envy of jurisdictions across Canada."

I wonder if those jurisdictions envy the BC neoLiberals' ability to redact documents to justify defunding child sexual abuse treatment programs.

And now I think back to last November when the government reluctantly decided to actually hold a legislative session to appoint a Representative for Children and Youth, a session that the NDP stretched out to a whopping 3 days. Knowing now that at that time the government was hiding the report that was critical of their funding of child sexual abuse treatment, maybe that helps explain why that Representative appointment was enough to justify actually holding a fall legislative session.

2006 report identified problems with B.C.'s child abuse programs
Lindsay Kines
Times Colonist
Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The B.C. government has known for 18 months that its program to help sexually abused children is in trouble and needs help, documents obtained by the Times Colonist show.

Long before stories broke last spring about children waiting months for counselling, a review by the Ministry of Children and Family Development uncovered extensive problems with its Sexual Abuse Intervention Program (SAIP).

The April 2006 review concluded that the 47 agencies and societies helping abused children felt neglected, isolated and short-changed by government.

"Providers were unanimous in their view that program funding is insufficient to meet the needs for SAIP services," the 26-page review stated.

The report said the program was a "critical element" of services related to child and youth mental health and "deserving of a more explicit focus."

"There is a pervasive view among providers that the program has been neglected by government decision-makers over the past several years," the report stated

The ministry blanked out those comments from a copy of the review released under the province's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

But the TC has obtained an unedited version of the report that shows many of the agencies complained about a lack of money for training, poor wages for counsellors, an inability to travel to provide services in remote geographic areas, isolation from decision-makers and deteriorating relationships over the past 10 years.

"A more intensive focus on sexual-abuse intervention programming should yield greater satisfaction among providers and improved access and quality of services for clients, resulting in a more consistent standard of care across the province," the report said.

The province's sexual abuse program made headlines last spring when Victoria's Mary Manning Centre was forced to issue layoff notices to three part-time therapists because of a lack of funding. The subsequent publicity prompted public donations totaling more than $130,000 that allowed the centre to re-hire therapists and eliminate a waitlist for sexually abused children.

A TC investigation at the time found that other agencies were also struggling, that sexually abused children were waiting up to six months for treatment in some regions, and that the program's budget had been frozen at $3 million for 17 years.

Children's Minister Tom Christensen expressed concern last May that the budget had been frozen for so long.

"I'm asking my staff questions about that to see if it's something we need to be looking at more closely," he said.

The ministry's review a year earlier, however, had already identified key areas requiring attention, including "establishing appropriate funding."

"Providers maintain that funding has not kept pace with population growth, particularly in high-growth geographic areas, or inflation," the review said.

Christensen said in an interview this week that he did not know all the details of the review last spring, though he was aware his ministry had been looking at the sexual abuse program. The review was done about five months before he was appointed minister.

"Having said that, quite frankly my answers in the spring wouldn't have been any different," he said.

Christensen said it's no surprise that when the ministry surveys agencies to see if they have a shortage of cash, "you get the answer, 'Yes, there is.'"

He noted the review found little consistency among how agencies run sexual-abuse counselling programs across the province, and stressed the need to establish standards before dealing with money matters.

"That's the work that's been underway for the last number of months," Christensen said. Draft standards are ready for review, and the ministry recently held a training session on trauma counselling, he said.

"We are moving forward in terms of trying to ensure that this is an effective program and that the public can be assured of quality services, regardless of where they may access them in the province, and that there's some consistency of standards," he said.

Once that's done, he hinted at a possible budget boost for the program in the 2008-2009 fiscal year. "I didn't make any secret of it in the spring that I was surprised that the funding had been frozen, and I certainly am of the view that when people have suffered sexual abuse and we have effective counselling that can help them to deal with that, then we need to be working hard to make it available."

Sears is into Union Busting in the Lower Mainland

2007-11-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

Taking a cue from the morally-repugnant labour tactics of Vancouver's NPA, Sears has locked out IBEW 213 after they refused a take-it-or-leave-it concession-filled contract without even bringing it to their membership.

Sears has also been involved in impeding unionization in Belleville in 2006.

I'm sure Sears will blame it on the strong Canadian dollar.

Service Technicians employed by Sears in the lower
mainland of BC were locked out on October 1, 2007
because they would not work under a collective
agreement that was imposed. Bargaining broke off
on September 27 when Sears demanded that the
Bargaining Committee either reject or accept the
offer right then and there prior to taking it to
their members. Sears locked them out On October 1,
first thing in the morning and then offered them a
chance to come in and work under the company's new
agreement. The "agreement" contained many
concessions and was inferior to what the employees
had previously. These long term employees joined
the Union in 1997 because of poor management and a
constant chipping away at terms and conditions of
employment by Sears. They are represented by IBEW
Local 213. They are asking that others do not
patronize Sears until this dispute is resolved
regardless of where they live in Canada.

We are asking all of our members to show support
for these workers who are fighting for dignity and
respect by not doing any business with this unfair
employer. If you would like to express your
opinion to Sears management, call: 1-800-973-7579
(Sears President's Line) or 1-800-469-4663.

Thank you for not shopping at Sears until this
dispute is resolved.

USA vs. Iran and Cubazuela

2007-10-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

When w.Caesar should be gracefully entering his presidential lame duck status and thinking about who to pardon [whoops, he already got on that with Scooter Libby], he is instead feeding warm, bleeding horse meat to the dogs of war.

From today's Washington Post:

In approving far-reaching, new unilateral sanctions against Iran, President Bush signaled yesterday that he intends to pursue a strategy of gradually escalating financial, diplomatic and political pressure on Tehran, aimed not at starting a new war in the Middle East, his advisers said, but at preventing one. ...With yesterday's actions, which included the long-awaited designations of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and of the elite Quds Force as a supporter of terrorism, Bush made clear that he is willing to seek such leverage even without the support of his European allies.

I seem to remember the rhetoric in late 2002. Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and that despite all the OCD midnight rifle barrel cleaning, w.Caesar only wanted peace, until the UN Security Council wouldn't sanction the US invasion plans making him invade with his ethereal Coalition of the Willing instead of Old Europe.

Life is rarely this simple: listen to politicians so that we can believe the opposite of what they say. w.Caesar is good for that.

Moving on to our own hemisphere, w.Caesar can't stand anti-neoliberal, democratically elected leftist governments in Latin America.

Responding to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said that Hugo Chavez is a "threat to regional stability," Venezuelan Vice-President Jorge Rodriguez affirmed that Hugo Chavez is indeed a "tremendous threat" to the "empires of the world," and assured they would continue to be a "greater threat" as time goes on. "Of course he [Chavez] is a threat to the stability of the empires of the world, for those who consider themselves the world police, for those who think they have a right to invade countries and massively murder the population," replied the Venezuelan vice-president to a recent statement made by Robert Gates during a visit to El Salvador. ...

Gates then warned that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was mainly a "threat to the freedom and economic prosperity of the people of Venezuela." According to Gates, Chavez "has been very generous in offering their resources to people around the world, when perhaps these resources could be better used to alleviate some of the economic problems facing the people of Venezuela."

Gates should have said the word "rich" when he called Chavez a "threat to the freedom and economic prosperity of the rich people of Venezuela." Conveniently, Gates ignored all domestic economic and social reform in Venezuela.

I'm not entirely comfortable with Hugo Chavez's desire to have decree power. When he has such legislative support, I'm not sure it's necessary. The USA criticizes Venezuela as being dictatorial, despite its electoral unambiguity compared with Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 and hundreds of other jurisdictions with Republican electoral fraud this decade. Add to this a steaming pile of soft fascism in the USA and we get a sense of US hypocrisy: w.Caesar's signing statements asserting which parts of legislation the executive branch will not obey, and this tasty list of Amnesty International's worries about the land of the free and the home of the brave that sounds quite a bit like Chile after 9.11.1973:

Secret detention
Enforced disappearance
Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
Outrages upon personal dignity, including humiliating treatment
Denial and restriction of habeas corpus
Indefinite detention without charge or trial
Prolonged incommunicado detention
Arbitrary detention
Unfair trial procedures

So then yesterday when w.Caesar warned the world that there will be a transition coming in Cuba [presumably when Castro dies], but Cubazuela responded assertively:

"He spoke like an imperialist and a colonialist," said Venezuelan parliamentarian Saul Ortega about Bush's statements. Ortega assured that the reaction to these threats will be increased unity among the people of Latin America. "In response we have to close ranks in defense of the principles of sovereignty and self-determination," he said.

Vice-foreign minister Rodolfo Sanz assured that the United States was making a mistake with their statements towards Cuba and maintained that the "times have changed."

"We aren't going to sit here with our arms crossed before some diabolic adventure," he said. Sanz assured that the Cuban people can count on support from nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, among others, stating that "Cuba is not alone."

The boldness of the Latin American political economic agenda in the last decade is a testament to the recovery of economic shock, terror and genocide visited upon them by Milton Friedman and his neoliberal storm troopers over the last 35 years. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine's final chapter talks about how when people or cultures rebuild their communities and name their oppressors when they recover from shock. This is the spirit in which Cubazuela has responded to w.Caesar's signaling of regime change in Cuba. Let's be honest. The US corporate interests in Cuba are legion. Cuba will become the next Haiti as Canada and the US have squashed hope into desperation there.

Words like diabolic, imperialist, colonialist, sovereignty, self-determination and the simple phrase--times have changed--indicate that a Grenada-style hemispheric military excursion into Cuba will not easily guarantee the Republicans' retention of the White House or a recovery of Congress.

Cuba is indeed not alone. The whole hemisphere is tilted against w.Caesar with the exception of business/media elites and the apolitical or ignorant, RRSP-hoarding, gadget-worshipping [dwindling numbers of the] middle class in NAFTAland and Latin American compradors.

And with the record oil profits that w.Caesar has facilitated as he helped oil pass $80 a barrel, he has ended up funding Venezuela's upgrading of its military.

Back to Naomi Klein, however, to follow her thesis: war is good for corporate profitability and the GDP. Peace impairs economic growth. So it might not even matter to the disaster/conflict capitalists that a war with Iran or Cubazuela is just, desirable or winnable. It's just another opportunity to bankrupt governments and shift public wealth to global corporations.

Luckily the other Naomi [Wolf] and thousands of others including sitdownfortheconstitution.org have started what will hopefully be a 54 week campaign for Americans to steal back their constitution.

The rest of our hemisphere better get on [not off!] our asses and support them in their attempt to stifle w.Caesar's soft fascism before it grows horns and starts sending Blackwater mercenaries into US streets. Oh, I forgot. It is already be too late for that since they've been in New Orleans.

Children of Poor Families in NDP Ridings are Worth Less than Children in neoLiberal Ridings

2007-10-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

“The provincial distribution goals were met.” - Minister of State for Childcare, Linda Reid, October 24, 2007.

I’m sure the government isn’t lying when they say that 53% of the 2,000 booster seats handed out to poor families in BC went to people in NDP ridings.

“We achieved geographic reach across British Columbia.” - Linda Reid

The seats were handed out only by neoLiberal MLAs at their constituency offices where elegant photo ops took place.

Only 5 booster seats were distributed through all of north Vancouver Island and none in Haida Gwaii, despite government offices that could have distributed seats.

The premier’s Point Grey riding is not filled with the poor. It wasn’t on the government’s list for provincial distribution. Yet the NDP found he had a photo of himself handing out a booster seat on his website yesterday, until they pulled it.

Linda Reid said during question period today that she regrets the distribution method, but says their goals were met.

It is clear their goal was more than just handing out booster seats to the poor.

Even if 53% did go to children in poor families in NDP ridings, the neoLiberal MLAs took the photo ops instead of distributing the seats through government agencies.

When a person in Surrey phoned the BCAA to see if they could get a booster seat, they were asked if their MLA was a neoLiberal. No seat was available for them.

"We do not believe that constituency offices are partisan." - Linda Reid

While technically true that constituency offices represent all constituents regardless of who they voted for, when neoLiberal MLAs and the premier take pictures of themselves handing out booster seats, constituency offices are being politicized.

Sassy Indian Squaw: Imagine, Create, Transform?

2007-10-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

"This sexy indian costume comes with suede corsetted dress with leather fringe and matching anklet."

It's the "Sassy Indian Squaw" Halloween costume and shock of shocks, it is going around the internet as a symbol of offense to all sorts of people. A few ironies lurk in the background, particularly in BC.

1. Halloween Mart's website boasts Imagine, Create and Transform as their motto. It's hard to see how this costume accomplishes any of that.

2. For the second time this year, a local First Nation has voted to ratify a treaty with the Crown. Regardless of where you stand on the content/process of these treaties this year, the Maa-Nulth have voted to imagine, create and transform.

At least some are able to move past the past. Too bad we all can't.

You can contact Halloween Mart here to let them know what you think of their sexy Indian squaw and her matching anklet.

Racist Survey Questions on a Survey about Multi-Culturalism

2007-10-15T01:25:00.000-07:00

OK. Click on this image. I dare you. I'll go into how offended I am by it below. If you find the questions fine, you can stop reading now and go here.

I'm starting to become far more than mildly concerned about Innovative Research Group. I've already written about the creative nature of interpreting reality that goes on at Robbins SCE Research. Now I can't help but wonder about the validity of IRG's polling.

Among whatever else they do, they conduct monthly polls in an online format. They ask about political support and current events.

Their online polling methodology is questionable. To sign up for their Canada 20/20 polls, you must provide an incredibly personal dossier on yourself, which they can use to pre-determine who gets to answer each month's poll. Maybe they request participation randomly. If so, why bother with all the up-front data-mining? I suppose we should just trust them on this. Here are your views and information they ask about [a poll in itself] before you can participate in their polls:

federal party support
our presence in Afghanistan
Medicare and prescription drugs
gender
birthdate
postal code
citizenship
residency
whether you work in media or polling
whether and who you voted for in the last federal election
whether Quebec is a distinct society
federal party affiliation
your registered and non-registered investments
your personal financial asset wealth
your charitable giving habits
the role of newspapers, tv and the internet in your news gathering, and which media outlets
whether you rent or own your home
employment status, sector, job category and authority position
formal education
union membership
religion!
language at home
and of course the money shot, household income [which you can decline to answer, as with some but not all other questions]
the country where you and your parents were born
whether you wish to be in a focus group

Aside from the poll not being a random sample of British Columbians [the homeless and others on the wrong side of the digital divide don't always check their email promptly enough], their August poll asked "473 British Columbians" from around the province to comment on Vancouver's strike. Asking people far from Vancouver what they think of Vancouver's strike is questionable. This might explain how on page 10 of their August poll report, we find that 62% of those polled found the strike to not have affected them at all while 18% were affected "not much." Perhaps they don't live in Vancouver? Their heading on page 10 is "Most feel no impact from strike." Really.

They do break down the 17% of 473 people [or 80] who reported being affected and 96% of them [77 people] ]live in Vancouver or the lower mainland. I am not thrilled by that sample size. Good thing the Vancouver Sun reported on the poll that includes merely 77 of the over 2 million living in the lower mainland [that's .00386% of the population].

In all, they conclude that poll participants think the union had been more unreasonable than the city. Presumably this includes people from the rest of BC who may have virtually no knowledge of the machinations of the strike itself. In the end it doesn't matter because the percentages blaming each side were within the margin of error. So no one really loses. They interpret this to mean a pox on both your houses. Perhaps the conclusion is lack of information due to living in Fort St. John or Cranbrook.

So I've been wary of IRG's methodology for some time now. But this evening I participated in one of their polls. Why not? I have a chance to win $500.

After many reasonable questions in the monthly online survey, many having to do with general views of federal and provincial politics and multi-cultural acceptance [perhaps having to do with Bruce Allen and his idiocy], I encountered a series of questions asking how I felt about living in a society with so many cultures.

I was even asked to reflect on the idea that after all, our nation is a land of immigrants. [I agreed.]

Then I clicked on the next page button and saw this piece of garbage above.

I thought I had learned to stuff down the bile in my throat after Gordon Campbell's BC neoLiberal party has gone all in favour of treaty negotiations after their racist First Nations treaty referendum, but now we have a "major" polling group asking these ridiculous questions.

Below is the letter I sent to their support@canada2020.com. Feel free to share with them how you feel about asking these ridiculous questions. And pop back here to see any updates. I expect a response from them. If I don't get one, I'll comment on that as well.

Attached is a screenshot of a question in your current web survey [the same image as above].

It is irresponsible, inflammatory and impossible to answer by anyone but the ignorant or at best highly uninformed.

It can provide no meaningful information.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

While most of the other questions were highly or mostly answerable without having to over-simplify thought, this entire page is an affront. I await your apology and a public apology to all who have answered this survey.

I will be tracking how you disseminate the results of this survey. If you demonstrate that you have included information from this question, I will publicly be demanding a public apology.

Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Some Simple Homelessness Arithmetic

2007-10-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

BC's 2006-2007 Budget Surplus: $4.1 billion

Homeless people in Vancouver: 2,000

Homeless people in BC: 5,000

Cost of a home we could have purchased for each of BC's homeless people with last year's budget surplus: $820,000

Here are a few options.

Please Urinate BEFORE Reading This

2007-10-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

I HAVE warned you. It's from here, Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About [bookmark it now]:

It's getting worse. I've mentioned this, in passing, before, but it's getting worse. We were watching Hannibal on DVD the other week, and Margret was sitting beside me, looking at the screen, right from the moment I hit 'play'. This, incidentally, is because before we watch any DVD or video we have this ritual.
Mil - 'Are you ready?'
Margret - 'Yes.'
Mil - 'No you're not, you're clearly not. Sit down here.'
Margret - 'I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm just cutting out this magazine article and putting the kids toys away in an order based on the psychological warmth of their respective colours and making a cup of tea and wondering if we should move that mirror six inches to the left, but I'm ready - go ahead, start the film.'
Mil - 'No. I'll start the film when you're sitting here. If I start the film now, you'll sit down in three minutes time and say, "What's happened?" and I'll have to do that thing with my mouth. Not going to happen. You sit here right from the beginning.'
[Margret makes an injured pantomime of dragging herself over to the sofa and sitting down beside me.]
Mil - 'Thank you.'
[I press 'play'. The FBI copyright warning comes up and, knowing full well it won't work, I repeatedly try to fast forward through it for the annoying amount of time - precisely long enough for me to fully hate the FBI and the entire motion picture industry - it takes to fade. A logo swirls around the screen. Darkness. A single, threatening, bass note rumbles low. Swelling in volume as the first image seeps into life.]
Margret - 'I've just remembered, I need to phone Jo.'
Mil - 'Arrrrggghhheeeiiiiiieeeeerrrrgghhhhhhhhgkkkkk-kkk-kk-k!'
Margret - 'I only need to ask if she has a text book - carry on.'
Mil - 'No. Make the phone call. I'll wait.'
[Three hours later. Margret returns; I am still on the sofa, remote control poised in my hand, but now visibly older and covered in a light film of dust.]
Margret - 'OK, done.'
Mil - 'Right.'
[I wind back four or five seconds to have the moody intro again, Margret complains we've already seen this bit and - as it's getting late now - there's no need. I reply it's important for setting the mood, she thinks it's a stupid thing to do, the exchange degenerates into a twenty minute row about foreplay, and then we finally begin to watch the film.]
So, that's what happens, every time, and thus on this occasion as with all others, Margret has been sitting beside me since the very beginning of the film. Which, casting your mind back, you'll recall is Hannibal.
Titles. Silence. A face appears.
Margret - 'Who's that?'
Getting worse. I was watching the Davis Cup on TV and, as the players are sitting down for a of change ends, the camera idly pans round the crowd, pausing on a woman eating an ice cream. Margret says?... Louder - I can't hear you... Yes, yes she does.
I'm here to make an appeal for the population of the Earth to wear name tags at all times, three tags if you're an actor: your character's name, your real name and a list of things you've been in before. Please, do it. They only cost a few pence - please don't make me beg.

I'm Done with the Olympics

2007-10-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

So Bruce Allen is a xenophobic bigot. Nothing new there.

And having been turned off the Olympics from decades of drug scandals and corporate co-optation, VANOC's de facto copyrighting of the number 2010, not to mention the International Olympic Committee [a global entity owned by who, regulated by who and accountable to who?], and during my preparations to boycott the China Olympics next summer because China is a murderous, totalitarian regime [but then Hitler hosted the Olympics too] I find myself stuck with how to boycott the 2010 Olympics in my home town.

Not that I could afford to go, so that's something off my 2009 Christmas List. But really it's only the hockey I'd miss, but when I think about it, the Olympics are much like an all-star game. Curious, but not as compelling as the Stanley Cup playoffs. So now I'm feeling easy about skipping the whole nonsense.

But now Bruce Allen, the bigot, is connected to the Olympics. So I whip off a quick note to our Olympic organizers [whose meetings and financial books are not open to scrutiny, though they are spending public money] saying how I feel, then they reply, then I reply [I can't wait for their next reply, I suspect it will be a "we agree to disagree, respectfully"]:

Here's how I started it off:

bruce allen is an embarrassment to canada. there is no place for him representing us with your organization in any capacity.

his perspective of multiculturalism is shameful and an offense to all canadians.

And I receive a polite FOAD email saying not to fret, he's only a minor player:

Vancouver 2010 Info wrote:

Hello, Thank you for your interest in the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. We wish to acknowledge your e-mail. At Vancouver 2010, we welcome everybody's comments, ideas and opinions.

We're committed to creating spectacular Ceremonies that celebrate Canada's diversity and rich heritage - Ceremonies that make all Canadians proud. We will also showcase some of Canada's top musical talent every night of the Games at the Victory Ceremonies.

Bruce Allen's participation on the Ceremonies team is limited to helping us secure some of the biggest music stars in the Canadian music industry. There are other members of the Ceremonies team who will be responsible for developing our Canadian messaging, themes and tone.

Bruce Allen's work for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) is and will remain entirely separate and distinct from other work he does including his public commentary and opinions on the radio.

He has communicated his regret over the controversy and he has strongly reconfirmed and emphasized his support for our goal of showcasing Canada's cultures and celebrating our diversity through the 2010 Winter Games Ceremonies.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your views.

Thanks again,
Vancouver Info

And then I replied:

true, he regrets the controversy [only someone of questionable sanity wouldn't], but he stands by his views that oppose the diversity and rich heritage you wish to celebrate.

having a limited role for bruce allen is no solution. his presence in your organization stains your whole organization.

you need to remove him from organization completely.

I have no respect for, or faith in our Olympic organizers. I also think that if someone not famous or in the music biz who works for them phoned up all the great Canadian [and the relatively unknown ones] and asked if they'd like to be involved in the Olympics, they'd jump at the free marketing. You don't need Bruce Allen to secure them.

Yet another reason for boycotting these pathetic games. We have last year a $4.1 billion provincial surplus, social service cuts that make Bill Vander Zalm look like Dave Barrett, thousands of homeless, tens of thousands living below the poverty line, and privatization galore. We also have what someone once said, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

And I'm supposed to support the Olympics? Get a grip.

Note to TransLink: Your Riders Are Not Customers

2007-10-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

I went to the TransLink website just now to search for the word "customer". I found 376 references.

I also have noticed that in recent days a canned announcement pops onto Skytrains regularly asking "Skytrain customers" to not leave their lame faux-news free daily newspapers [Metro, 24] lying all over the trains cluttering them up and creating a slipping hazard for most everyone.

As part of the large trend to commodify all things public and common, riders are no longer riders, we are customers purchasing a service: mass transit. As customers we are told the class of our existence on what used to be public transit.

Now the new TransLink board is being appointed by a gang of mostly business-folk, a board not accountable to the token Council of Mayors who will be "consulted" on decisions. Public money spent by unaccountable directors appointed by mostly business interests.

If you resent being classed as a "public" transit customer instead of a co-owner of a commonly held public "public" transit system, you had better start paying more attention to the Campbell neoLiberal government's agenda to sell us [and everything held in common] down the river.

And it would help to read Naomi Klein's new book to get a primer on the last few decades of rationale behind the premier's manifestation of neoliberal cancer. And if you don't have time to read it all, you can get the 6 minute primer here.

And a few facts to make you wonder just what price we pay for a privatized, deregulated world.

Global TV: Thoroughly Free of Irony

2007-10-04T23:39:00.000-07:00

It's one thing to criticize Global for being the brunt of the corporate concentrated media nonsense that pretends to be a free press in this country.

It's another thing to watch them physically concentrate their media [see below] with the plan to create new monster broadcast facilities in four locations in the country allowing them to drop 250 jobs while adding 50.

Not to be too cynical, but why don't they just run with one office in Toronto and stop the pretense of actually providing local news. With the new internet machine, they can probably skip reporters all together.

=================

Global Television is cutting 200 jobs across Canada as it develops new "state of the art" broadcast centres in four cities, CanWest announced on Thursday.

The company said the centres, to be located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto, will use the latest in broadcast technology. It will also mean local news programs can immediately begin the transition to high definition, CanWest MediaWorks Inc. said.

Although CanWest is adding 50 positions as part of the process, it will lose 250 jobs, meaning a net loss of 200.

Across the Maritimes, 30 positions in Halifax and 11 in New Brunswick are being cut.

Network employees in Halifax said they were shocked by the news.

"It came as a complete surprise. There was no warning," said Paul Saulnier, a union leader with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers and a technical director who's losing his job.

The layoffs take effect next spring around the time the first centre is planned to be opened in Vancouver. The other three are expected to be operational over the next 18 months.

Unspinning the Bush Veto Spin

2007-10-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

Not that Bush needs to veto much. He simply issues signing statements indicating the executive branch will not abide by this or that of the legislation he's signing. Soft Fascism 'R Us.

But now the folks at the radically right Media Research Center have spun coverage of this nasty veto thusly:

Again exploiting children and mothers to advance the goal of expanding federal spending and dependency, ABC's World News led Wednesday night by giving voice to the media-political establishment's astonishment that President Bush would veto a bill to provide health insurance "for children."

It's hard to reply to this other than to say that the very first clause has simply been spun backwards. Poor children cannot depend on private insurers, so they depend on the government to keep them from illness and death. Bastards, eh!

And black is white, war is peace...

So after 4 decades of socialized medicine in Canada, it turns out that all progressives do is look for excuses to increase government budgets, not the other way around.

The Prime Minister is In

2007-10-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

Maverick! Visionary Leader! Champion of Accountable Government!

The prime minister announces...[trumpets]...that he will enter the National Press Building and stand before...[pinch nose here]...journalists, to answer questions. Maybe.

And in the spirit of open government, he makes this announcement 20 months into his mandate, after using the PMO to stonewall the "free" press [such as it is] in its attempts to...I don't know...ask questions of our elected leaders.

Further, he gives you all an extravagant amount of notice! 67 minutes. See below for the notification, which took over 15 minutes to make it into my email box...but then again, I live in Vancouver.

I shit you not.

The throne speech is on October 16th, World Food Day. Expect a non-confidence motion and a winter election.

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Notice
Date:	Wed, 3 Oct 2007 14:38:38 -0400
From:	PMO
To:	ALLNEWS_E@LSERV.PMO-CPM.GC.CA

>From the Prime Minister's Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)

Public events for October 3, 2007

October 3, 2007
Ottawa, Ontario

Public event for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for today, October 3rd are:

3:45 p.m. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be available to take questions from the media.

Press Theatre
National Press Building
150 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario

*Open to media*

The Prime Minister’s Office - Communications
[Note: You are receiving this e-mail for information only, and because you have subscribed to our distribution list. To modify your subscription or to have your name removed from the list, go to: (http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/subscribe.asp?login)]

More on the Myth of Media Objectivity

2007-09-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

What the evening news shows need is less "objectivity" and more analysis. The problem with objective journalism is that it doesn't exist and never did. Molly Ivins disposed of the objectivity question for all time when she observed in 1993, "The fact is that I am a 49-year-old white female, a college-educated Texan. All of that affects the way I see the world. There's no way in hell that I'm going to see anything the same way that a 15-year-old black high school dropout does. We all see the world from where we stand. Anybody who's ever interviewed five eyewitnesses to an automobile accident knows there's no such thing as objectivity."

I've said it before and Molly Ivins has said it too [see above]. There is no objectivity in the media. Amira Hass has said it: being fair and objective aren't the same thing.

If you don't yet know who Keith Olbermann is yet, you owe it to yourself to YouTube him. Journalism with a soul. Don't bother settling for anything less.

If you don't believe what Ivins is talking about above, you probably don't understand the multiple subjectivity of post-modernism and your value to a 21st century world is limited. Time to get with the program.

Crossing the 49th: Dangerous for the Majority of Canadians Now

2007-09-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

Alison Bodine had it right when she explained the intimidation intent of the Canadian Border Services as they nabbed her the other day: "This was a bit of a test, to see what happens when they arrest someone who isn't agreeing with their current foreign policy."

Carrying literature opposing Canada's occupation of Afghanistan and an extremely threatening book of Ansel Adams photos, she was detained by Canadians. Her possessions were confiscated a few days ago when she was entering the country. When she returned to claim them, they arrested her with no intention of releasing her before her September 17th hearing. After a significant impromptu rally and her participating in radio interviews from jail, it appears the feds' red faces found the gumption to actually release her.

Since the majority of Canadians oppose our presence in Afghanistan, driving south then returning with literature critical of our mission there may land any of us in the pokey.

Border Services claim she was misrepresenting herself. Perhaps she was. Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding. If it wasn't, it is intimidation...and a warning to us all to toe the line.

And after the agents provocateurs in Quebec last month, the establishment doesn't have a great deal of goodwill to waste here.

Moving Past Complacency in Protest

2007-08-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

Activists need some inspiration. Salutin's piece in the Globe today [see below] is key to reminding us of the necessity of a fight, not just a polite march through some streets to a park for a peaceful rally. That's important. However, the injustices seeping into the fabric of our rapidly decaying democracy need to be challenged radically, in part to wake up a complacent public distracted by Canadian Idol, iPhones and the fall TV line up.

Neglect of social, political and economic for First Nations, the creeping SPP and our recent success in outing the agent provocateurs at Montebello [though we still need an inquiry and a government to topple because of it] all should remind us of what is at stake.

Indeed, the success with the rock-carrying masked cops in Quebec should let us know that the anti-democratic elites running our country are desperate to undermine dissent.

Their desperation is our vindication of the importance of what they are doing and what we need to do to stop them.

Mild social change can be polite. But when elites are transforming our democracies into soft fascism, the stakes are incredibly higher. Perhaps the biggest indication of this is in the USA where habeas corpus has now been declared optional and the population is largely unaware of it and certainly too complacent to do anything about it.

George w.Caesar is not Jack Bauer. In the backs of too many people's minds, I think he is seen that way. This kind of complacency will be our undoing.

Salutin's piece is a welcome tonic.

A Canadian labour moment: Don't apologize, never placate
The Globe And Mail
Friday, August 31, 2007
Rick Salutin

Labour Day weekend, 2007.

Canadian labour had a good moment two weeks ago at the Montebello protest. Union leader Dave Coles denounced three undercover cops posing as anarchists and cradling rocks to give the protest a bad name. They retreated behind police lines, not a normal anarchist tactic. But he went a step too far for my taste, in shouting, "This is a peaceful demonstration." He sounded perhaps overeager to placate TV viewers or police or maybe the people who write editorials in places such as The Globe and Mail. To be sure, it was a peaceful protest, but radical movements such as labour have been most effective when they had a touch of menace.

Uh-oh, I'm having a Dave Coles moment. I don't mean they should be violent or threaten violence. But they need a sense of implacable determination that takes them beyond any desire to seem respectable. The best example is the movement for Indian independence led by Gandhi. He more or less invented non- violence as a political tactic. Yet, he didn't shun violence when it arose and, in cases, courted it. He wouldn't instigate or retaliate, but lots of bloodshed was involved. Here's 90-year-old Baji Mohammed, "one of India's last living freedom fighters," interviewed recently: "On August 25, 1942, we were all arrested and held. Nineteen people died on the spot in police firing ... Many died thereafter ... Over 300 were injured. More than a thousand were jailed ... Several were shot or executed. There were over a hundred shaheed (martyrs) ... " Others, such as Nelson Mandela, went to jail for causes that did involve armed resistance. But I'm saying the key is not violence, it's relentless determination.

A sense of commitment at any cost draws the attention of others, and sometimes their respect, especially if every normal recourse has failed, sometimes for centuries. I'm thinking of the case of Shawn Brant, the Mohawk leader who spoke eloquently for native protests that recently closed Highway 401 and the CN rail line. He was jailed and has twice been denied bail. In an eloquent plea of her own, his wife, Sue Collis, compared his situation to labour protests against Mike Harris in Ontario 11 years ago. Then, she says, "economic repercussions ... far surpassed" those of the recent one, "yet no labour leader was ever jailed, let alone charged." So why is Shawn Brant in jail? I'd say there was an implacability in his expression; he cut his opponents no moral slack. He didn't threaten, but he didn't try to mollify, either.

In its heyday, the labour movement had this kind of single-minded, almost stoic conviction. Its main weapon, the strike, was non-violent but aroused feelings comparable to those during war, toward scabs or bosses. In that frame of mind, there is no need felt to placate the other side and none at all for respectability. What would you want it for?

I think a society benefits from this kind of challenge. It clarifies choices and discourages endless avoidance. Sue Collis writes that, after the Mohawk blockades in June, polls showed "71 per cent of Canadians wanting actions on land claims and 41 per cent of Ontarians prepared to acknowledge rail blockades as justified." There's also a social loss when fierceness and passion vanish almost entirely from movements such as labour or the environment. I sympathize with the dismay of green veterans at the rise as a green icon of Al Gore - who couldn't even beat George Bush in his home state in 2000 or fight the battle of the Florida recount with bloody-mindedness, despite its dire implications.

Sue Collis writes that, after the second bail hearing, she found herself "contemplating the best way to tell my children that they would have to wait an unknown period of time before seeing their dad, and wondering how to explain ... why." From a very minimally comparable experience, I'd recommend playing them a Peter, Paul and Mary song: "Have you been to jail for justice? I want to shake your hand ..."

Maybe John Edwards Has Been a Progressive Democrat All Along?

2007-08-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

[Doesn't he look a little bit like early Elvis here?]:

I'd like to think he's been progressive all along. I'd like to think the 2004 run was a time when he had to be just the running mate.

But now that Edwards is sounding all anti-Republican-Lite and anti corporate cronyism, I can't help but think that the Hegelian dialectic of thesis-antithesis-synthesis is at play...from Dennis Kucinich.

Kucinich's messages of peace, multilateralism, progressive values and anti-graft...populist among a jaded American public...have been anointed by ABC's recent attempts to censor his airtime.

The messages are resonating and Edwards is sliding left to pull them to the media-designated top tier of candidates, perhaps only as a wedge to use against more establishment Democrats like Clinton and Obama.

Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but not when you're running for president, I think.

Please Stop It!

2007-08-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

What kind of scheme is needed to deliver the line "Please buy it" with a straight face? See here...

Now that's balls.

Spreading Ignorance about Global Warming

2007-08-21T17:53:00.001-07:00

Global warming deniers are really starting to annoy me. I've already compared them to Holocaust deniers because of their techniques and self-serving conflicts of interest.

Now I get to lump in the Media Research Center with them all. The MRC is a neutral, almost academic sounding institution that "tracks liberal media bias" ["liberal" used as a pejorative like commie] in their never-ending pursuit of "truth". They are a hyper-conservative spin organization whose regular emails inflame in me a clear sense of just how far the global corporate elites will go to maintain their stranglehold on power.

I enjoy the irony of rich, well-funded conservatives claiming there's a great media bias. With such intense corporate concentration of ownership in the media in the western world, there still exists a remnant of the liberal journalist. And I truly believe that many in the media are more liberal or left-wing than not, for why go into journalism if you don't believe in the responsibility of a free press for rooting out corruption, from the left or right.

And while self-censorship is clearly alive among journalists as they continually remember which corporate neofeudalist owns them and their work, there is occasionally some good work in the press.

But the MRC's approach to hunting down the liberal bias and balancing it out with another truth is astonishing sometimes. Today's missive from our MRC friends is called NBC's Today Show Champions Global Warming Alarmist. I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.

They introduce their criticism thusly:

On Monday's Today show, NBC's Bob Dotson profiled Will Steger, a polar explorer who is indoctrinating America's youth about "collapsing" ice shelves and global warming. Dotson never doubted the explorer's theories, instead he chose to portray Steger's crusade as nothing short of much needed charity work: "Pitching back in between and forth between the Poles, Will began to notice our warming world, wrote one of the first books about it. Now the old explorer has set himself a new challenge. Here in his home of the great northern Minnesota woods he's teaching the next generation how to rally support and solve the problem."

Dotson didn't ask any skeptical questions or air any soundbites from global warming critics, preferring to set up Steger to pontificate about climate change.

Misrepresenting controversy about global warming, opponents who gain from denying it do a disservice to the truth and humanity's responsibility to fix our mess by cleaning up how we are treating our planet like a sewer.

What the MRC doesn't get is what Amira Hass does get: "being fair and being objective are not the same thing. What journalism is really about--it's to monitor power and the centers of power." They don't get it because they reflect the centres of power.

Fairness in reporting does not mean treating both sides of an issue as equally merited with equal time to both. Demanding identical treatment mis-represents the merit of the argument for the global warming deniers who are wildly outnumbered and often funded by corporations that profit from global warming.

It's important to watch the MRC though, because watching the watchers helps us all. And to top it off today, I just joined Ann Coulter's email list. That should be exciting.

No to MexAmeriCanada: Vancouver Protests the SPP

2007-08-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

Tearing up the Magna Carta

We are witnessing the dismantling of the Magna Carta with the North American Union, The Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP] and the North American Competitiveness Council.

Almost 800 years ago we somehow wrestled the elites of the British monarchy to issue the Magna Carta, a bill of rights for humanity, optimistically anyway.

Business elites in government and the corporate world are now taking over, completely unapologetically, in an almost Taoist spin. The SPP, against which there was vigorous protest today across the country, is a secretly negotiated international agreement/treaty designed to harmonize and integrate the NAFTA countries. It is not being ratified by the "democratically" elected legislatures in the three countries, nor are citizens able to provide input into its design. There is no national election or referendum on our embrace of it.

This is the height of arrogance, and people are mostly in the dark, thanks to highly concentrated corporate media that fails to exercise its free press responsibilities by ignoring much criticism and playing down its threats to democracy and sovereignty.

With rallies across the country, at times up to 250 people marched and rallied in Vancouver in a coordinated effort to educate the largely oblivious pedestrians surrounding them about the SPP and its threat to democracy.

The North American Union, or Security and Prosperity Partnership, moved one step closer to its anti-democratic formation today as Prime Sinister Stephen Harper decided to not receive an anti-SPP petition with over 10,000 signatures:

The Council of Canadians is demanding that the Harper government cease all SPP talks until the agreement is brought before parliament and the public.

“If they are unwilling to accept paper petitions, how credible is the claim that leaders will view or hear, through video feed, the message of protesters outside the summit?”

I have no faith that the "Three Amigos" will respect democracy. In fact, Mexico's Fox wasn't an original amigo as he preceded the newly "elected" Calderon and Paul Martin was Canada's first friendly representative to this cabal. This is a strong indication of how similar the Liberals and Conservatives are in selling out democracy.

Even the moniker "Three Amigos" has the happy benefit of painting the trio as a group of benign beer buddies shooting pool, having some good clean fun. Maybe watching some NASCAR, perhaps.

So as the Amigos of MexAmeriCanada meet to rubber stamp what their ministers have been hacking together for months now, all in secret with no legislative oversight or sanctioning, we get the odd happy, grinning, hand-shaking announcements from the goodfellas now and then.

Meanwhile, the toxic, parasitical plague virus that is capitalism is Borg-ifying North America with the massive North American SuperCorridor, a quarter-mile wide stretch of movement from Mexico to Canada containing car, truck, rail, data, oil and water transportation. Resistance is futile. You will become one with the Borg. It will be a secure zone like behind the metal detectors at airports and it will convert the pathetic 20th-century attempts at efficient transportation into a highly assimilated movement system. Click to see the images in their full glory!

The top point of the highway is Winnipeg, which will extend north to Churchill and West to Vancouver. And oh, do they have plans from the Winnipeg node. Note the flourish of movement out west and to the Asia-Pacific. This is special because the recent treaty signed between BC and the Tsawwassen First Nation allows land to be sucked out of the Agricultural Land Reserve for parking intermodal containers at DeltaPort.

And Churchill allows us to go polar to trade with Asia.

The Face of Vancouver Protest

The almost 200 marchers flowed through downtown Vancouver late this afternoon from Canada Place to the Robson Street steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, stopping and blocking key intersections for up to 15 minutes for speeches and chants. The occasional burst of horns lasted only 20-30 seconds at most.

Speeches in intersections reflected how much the SPP is becoming a focal point for broad social protest. First Nations activists, anti-imperialists, Marxists, socialists, civil society advocacy groups, nationalist groups and scores of individuals came together to reject various elements that the SPP is entrenching in our new North American Union.

The march took a winding tour of some of the corporations who now belong to the NACC's Corporate Legislature: Manulife, Scotia Bank, Bell Canada.

They stopped at the Canadian Forces Recruitment Centre to protest our military partnership with US imperialism, smearing red paint on the sidewalk, walls and windows, laying symbolic corpses, and posting large stickers. When protesters and police came too close to each other at times, dueling video cameras from members of each side appeared to document each other.

Some semblance of democracy still exists in Canada, albeit over 2,000 kilometres away from Montebello as Vancouver city policy on bikes and in cars blocked traffic while the protest occupied streets. They also blocked the entrance to the CF Recruitment Centre and other targets of protest, all the while filming elements of the protest and taking notes like the mostly non-corporate media present.

The march ended at the Art Gallery with the Raging Grannies, the Carnival Band, representatives from MAWO, StopWar.ca, and the Council of Canadians supporting a garish effigy of George w.Caesar dangling a Stephen Harper puppet behind a security barricade.

Signs reflected the general mood of the rally: "SPP is Treason", "Stop the North American Union, We'd Rather Be Canadian, Eh!", "Harper=Sellout".

While corporate, government and media elites in North America continue to smooth over the neoliberal globalizing western imperialism introducing us to a well-marketed Soft Fascism, the hundreds of millions of North Americans need to get aware, educated and mobilized.

The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement ended up being the subject of the 1998 federal election. The federal Liberals seized power in 1993 on a promise to not sign NAFTA. They did anyway. MAI died in the late 1990s because citizen groups objected to corporate rights trumping democracies. The lesson? Democracy is bad for business.

After the MAI, though, the corporate neo-feudalists just got craftier by negotiating these agreements in secret, often under the cover of post-9/11 hysteria, ignored legislative ratification and began to alter our whole social, economic and political landscape regardless of citizens' thoughts.

Democracy is something to fight for, something wrestle away from the grasp of the government, media and corporate elites whose 21st century neoliberal, neo-feudal imperial agenda is now marching almost effortlessly over the dying corpse of our democratic institutions. If we don't fight for our democracy, perhaps we deserve to have it euthanized while we're watching American Idol and checking out the best price on plasma TVs at Future Shop.

NASCAR Dads and "Canada's New Government"

2007-08-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the NASCAR dads are definitely wearing the Prime Sinister's college ring this year [see below]. Not only are they into one of the best global warming sports around, they work hard, pay their taxes and play by the rules.

The height of pandering to some red state United States Everyman is a shallow ticket used, however, to operatic degree by George w.Caesar twice now.

This from the party of Peter MacKay, king maker of the Reform/Alliance-Progressive Conservative shotgun wedding with the big lie to David Orchard: stealing his delegates at the leadership convention to become PC leader on the promise that he would not merge with the Reform/Alliance, would review Canada's participation in NAFTA, and a host of other internal party cleansing rituals. Of course, MacKay was not to live up to his agreement, leaving us in the mess we have now.

So, go car 29! The disastrously ignorant hopes of a party [and all its deluded supporters] unwilling to really deal with climate change are riding on your tailpipe, like Slim Pickens from Dr. Strangelove! But in the end, as our climate chokes our symbiotic relationship with our ecology, rest well that you play fair...even if your party doesn't.

Conservative Party Supports Grand Prix of Trois-Rivières

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 19, 2007

TROIS-RIVIÈRES – Today, Conservative Party Members of Parliament unveiled the Conservative Party NASCAR car at the Grand Prix of Trois Rivières.

The partnership between the Conservative Party of Canada and Whitlock Motor Sports includes the Conservative Party of Canada logo being placed on the hood and front side panels of car number 29 in the Canadian Tire NASCAR Series.

“This is a unique opportunity for the Conservative Party to reach out to Canadians,” said Conservative Party Member of Parliament Christian Paradis. “The Conservative Party supports Canadians that work hard, pay their taxes and play by the rules and those are the same Canadians that watch sports like NASCAR.”

“I am proud to be part of this partnership,” said Whitlock Motor Sports owner, Dave Whitlock. “It is great to see the Conservative Party support an entry into a series that is growing in popularity in Canada.”

The partnership included three Canadian Tire NASCAR Series races in Bowmanville, Ontario, Edmonton, Alberta and Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.

"Progress", Redux

2007-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Before I post my larger review of it, George Monbiot's new book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning has a poignant line about our sense of progress:

"We have come to believe we can do anything. We can do anything....Progress now depends upon the exercise of fewer opportunities." [p. 188]

If progress is an ever-improving standard of living, then faster double-decker jets, SUVs [or FU-V's], the mere existence of cruise ships, and 5000 square foot homes are just plain titillating. But if our recent centuries' industrial progress is destroying our environment, air, biodiversity and climate, we'd be fools to continue on as we are. If our relationship with ecology is going to suffer, we should stop doing things that will impede our survival.

Thus, progress means voluntarily embracing fewer freedoms if those freedoms are killing us. It's a no-brainer.

As one put it, "progress isn't always inevitable":

Click Me:

Psst, Wanna Buy a BC River?

2007-08-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

September 30, 2007 is British Columbia Rivers Day!

This is a time to celebrate the role BC rivers has played in the history of our province, from before Europeans came [though we don't really seem to actually care too much about that] until today: British imperialism, economics, recreation, [ecology, yes], etc.

Wouldn't it be great in celebrating BC's rivers that you had the opportunity to, I don't know, buy the water rights in perpetuity for up to $10,000?

If that sounds like a nice way to spend $10k for the chance to make your own electricity plant, you know how to spot a bargain! Well, the government, anyway, sure knows how to offer a bargain...everyone's water at fire sale prices. Then you too can contribute to rolling brownouts, regional blackouts and price gouging just like the fatcats!

Green tags represent many of the 62 current water licenses for power generation or storage. Yell tags represent many of the 350+ pending applications. Red lines indicate parks.

Hurry! The offer doesn't last forever! Once BC rivers have all been bought up, there literally will be none left for you to snatch up. Get on it!

And if you aren't so much in favour of selling our water rights for any price, let alone less than $10,000, they it's time to get involved in stopping the continued privatization of the commons: Citizens for Public Power is a good place to start.

Gay pride versus the mayor of Truro

2007-08-11T20:23:00.000-07:00

As a change of pace from the usual west coast madness on this blog, I present a bit of madness from the east coast.

This weekend's Gay Pride parades and other activities in Nova Scotia's Pictou County have been in the news for the last week. It seems that the city council of Truro decided not to fly the Pride flag.

That decision, in and of itself, would not have drawn a comment from me. I don't know what the precedents are. I don't know what it means for a city hall to fly, or not to fly, a flag. Must they fly a flag for every little event that happens in their city? Nah, not worth commenting on.

Except for one thing: the way the mayor explained the decision.

It boils down to this. Truro mayor Bob Mills is a conservative, traditional Christian. According to him, it's simply not OK to be gay, and that's that. He won't pick on gays in any illegal way, but neither will he do anything that expresses approval of their lifestyle.

Predictably, there has been a lot of noise (on both sides) in our local (Halifax) paper. Here's my contribution (just now emailed):

- - - -

To the editor:

How curious that Truro mayor Bob Mills has raised the spectre of a slippery slope from the acceptance of homosexuality to the acceptance of pedophilia. I wonder on what basis he worries about such a thing as pedophilia, since the Bible has nothing to say about it. For that matter, the Bible never condemns rape, or even recognizes a distinction between rape and seduction. The fact that we are all horrified by pedophilia (and by rape) is a legacy of the very same modern, secular, humanist moral trend that has brought about our society’s greater acceptance of homosexuality. It is modern humanist morality, not Biblical morality, that emphasizes the importance of consent, and of the power balance that makes consent meaningful. The more secular and less Biblical our public morality becomes, the safer my children will be.

Daniel Peters

The NPA Union-Busters: an Open Letter to Vancouver City Council

2007-08-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

If you agree with this posting, I strongly encourage you to email the Vancouver Mayor and City Council with a letter explaining just what you expect of them. Feel free to even copy this letter, sign it and send it to them at mayorandcouncil@city.vancouver.bc.ca which will forward to each of them.

Dear Mayor and Council,

For those of you who have no interest in vindictively punishing your highly valued staff in your 3 unions, I commend you. I encourage you to continue to lobby the others of you, the NPA I assume (correct me if I'm wrong), to bargain fairly.

I don't know if you NPA union-busters are trying to save enough money from wages to pay off the Wilcox consultants or if you just like watching people suffer, but your refusal to meet your workers for more than 5 hours over THE LAST 6 DAYS is abhorrent and offensive to me.

I am ashamed that I live in this wonderful city when our "leaders" sink to this level of crass disrespect for the workers who support our social fabric, the workers you speak so highly of.

Your behaviour will not go unpunished in November 2008 when citizens wielding ballots all over the city will remember each one of you NPA social pariahs.

"Sam's Strike" can only exist with 5 NPA councillors continually supporting him.

17% over 5 years for workers in neighbouring municipalities is a fair settlement. As a citizen of Vancouver I would support those kind of numbers. Pay equity for library workers who suffer from gender discrimination IN THE 21ST CENTURY, IN CANADA, is due. We should be ashamed to delay it any longer.

This is the end of the NPA in Vancouver: your obvious desire to corrode our civil society is your undoing.

Your offense is obscene.

It is time to bargain a contract, not rewind our labour culture to the 19th century. Get to the table and do your job!

Four Dogs, a Bone, Some Inner Truths and Rich Hilarity

2007-08-09T08:30:00.001-07:00

Four Dogs and a Bone, playing at Havana Theatre on Commercial Drive
until Sunday, August 12, is an effortlessly funny play that has just
enough meandering through core identity neuroses for the audience to
appreciate the gravity of being, particularly the being of expressive,
artistic people. It quite simply succeeds.

As a movie producer, screenwriter and two hapless ingénues endure the
petty interpersonal dynamics and corporate demands of completing a film,
each ends up exposing their desperation as they try to find their
centre. Throughout, their base yet authentic struggles frequently leave
the audience in comedic bliss.

The play has the needling uncomfortability of enduring an evening in
Archie Bunker's living room, complete with the rich circumstantial,
sometimes narcissistic, sometimes brutal humour that attends needy
people working out their self-acceptance. The intimate environment of
the seating in Havana's theatre adds to the experience of being trapped
in someone else's melt-down.

The characters drift through priceless, occasional moments of gaudy
caricature to a place of honesty. Like all of us, they each seek moments
of safety to share their truths with those who are worthy of listening
and supporting them.

Artists struggle with self-acceptance while balancing the need to be
vulnerable as individuals and performers. When they are thrust together
to create such a collaborative project as a film, the situation invites
the kinds of clashes that force each person to rise above their persona
and their character to achieve true human honesty. Their ineptitude,
though, is often just hilarious.

As Bradley, the psychologically and physiologically decomposing
producer, Michael Q. Adams embodies the physical manifestation of
pressure with grit and acute comedic suffering. Brenda, played by Olesia
Shewchuk, projects a pristinely false vulnerability within a struggling
superficiality that masks her particular neediness.

Lori Watt's magnetic Collette, while at times almost glancing around for
Mr. DeMille's closeup, carries her truths so close to the surface that
the others, if they were not so engrossed in their own internal
psychological minefield, would undoubtedly grow to know. Finally,
Gabriel Carter's emotionally spent screenwriter, Victor, unknowingly and
ironically holds the central situational power despite the drifting
through the fog of his own emptiness.

While each character clashes with the others in their desire to be
heard, the audience ends up enjoying the comedy inherent in the human
soul as it clumsily seeks its surface. And the laughing flows—from
delightful physical humour to the guilty pleasure of chuckling at
caricatures that are trite masks for the struggle for truth that we all
face.

As the characters strive to make their art mean something—for itself and
for them—they show us how we all struggle to overcome our own masks to
find true liberation. And because so many of us are so bad at it, we
stumble and then get to learn the lesson of laughing at ourselves.

Four Dogs and a Bone reminds us of the necessity of exposing our truths
while keeping a healthy sense of humour about us.

The End of "Mayor" Sam Sullivan

2007-08-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome Peter Ladner, NPA's next mayoral candidate.

Sam Sullivan has unofficially ended his term as mayor at 11:03AM today as CUPE announced a tentative settlement in North Vancouver. We have passed the tipping point in the regional dispute.

Sullivan's strategy has been absurd, ill-conceived and ill-informed at best, arrogant and destructive at worst. In fact, however, it is not a new strategy: it has a historic [and historically foolish] basis: Boulwarism.

It's all about rejecting bargaining entirely and starting "negotiating" with a final offer that won't budge from threats or strikes. It inherently opposes the rights of workers to negotiate with management.

In light of the Supreme Court of Canada's recent ruling that BC's Bill 29 is illegal and that collective bargaining is protected under the Charter, "Mayor" Sam's tactics are in the spirit of what the Supreme Court opposes, as are the abuses the HEU suffered earlier in the decade and BC teachers' loss of the right to bargain wages, working conditions and class sizes.

But "Mayor" Sam is always right. Until he is embarrassingly wrong. Here's how it looks today:

Richmond, Surrey, Delta, Burnaby and North Vancouver have got Vancouver surrounded with contracts that aren't punitively designed to punish labour because it is organized. Vancouver has had the strength to bargain unfairly with the GVRD's bargaining support, until now as the 5 largest municipalities around Vancouver have or will settle by tomorrow. Vancouver's bargaining strength is virtually gone. Richmond and Surrey, that do not use the GVRD bargaining stick, helped set a pattern that the other 3 cities have recognized, and in doing so have constrained the GVRD's scope to push Vancouver's agenda and support Vancouver's internal turmoil.

Keith Baldrey wrote in the Coquitlam Now on July 25, 2007, “the BC economy has undergone significant changes (forestry, while still big, is not the huge industry it once was) and the power of organized labour has diminished in the past two decades. …The economy is doing well, and employees consider themselves deserving of a bigger portion of that richer economic pie.”

The truth is broader though. Sure, the better economy means the workers ought to share in it. But the truth is that even when the economy was not so good in recent decades, corporate profits and management salaries have done well, often at the expense of workers, whose purchasing power today is close to half of what it was 30 years ago.

People often complain—especially during civic strikes like now--that union workers are lazy whiners who seek opportunities to strike while “real” workers in the private sector don’t have job security or finite hours of work or good working conditions. Their goal seems to be to make unionized workers have to suck it up and suffer the same kind of crappy jobs, wages, working conditions, hours of work and lack of protections that non-union workers are forced to endure.

Unions have spent the better part of two centuries agitating for change: weekends, a 40 hour work week [hopefully to decline further for quality of life concerns and higher meaningful employment rates], no children working 12-hour 7-day weeks in coal mines [except in BC now, thanks to Campbell’s neoLiberal regime, children as young as 12 can get their asses to work], overtime pay, holidays, vacations, health and safety provisions, etc. So many of these benefits have become so valued that society as a whole has adopted them into legislation: the Labour Code, minimum wages, collective bargaining rights to support democracy in the workplace. And now the Supreme Court has joined our side.

So while many non-union workers think unionized workers get too much, my question to them is don’t you deserve as much too? Why try to stop others from being treated with dignity at work because you aren’t. Should we all have a labour race to the bottom so we’re all back in sweatshops? Stop the insanity.

And as Baldry writes that the power of unions has declined, it is because unionization, particularly private sector unionization, has declined. Instead of trying to drag other workers down to lower levels of treatment, it’s time increase the level and breadth of unionization, particularly in the private sectors. Why aren’t bank workers unionized? They are often treated like moronic cogs on a product-shilling wheel while the big banks in Canada regularly post quarterly profits [not revenues!] in the billions?

Sam Sullivan doesn’t get it. Actually, he does get it. It’s just that he rejects it while claiming in his inaugural address to support it:

“Vancouver is blessed with highly skilled staff who maintain our status as the most liveable city in the world. Tightening labour markets will present challenges over the next five years to attract, retain and develop our work force. All of us should be grateful for the front line workers who serve us so well. Our recruitment theme ‘Powered by Innovation’ should be more than a slogan as we provide interesting and rewarding careers."

Intelligent city councils surrounding Vancouver get it too and they don’t reject it. CUPE workers get it because they know they deserve to be treated with respect…as do all other workers, despite what our arrogant, anti-social premier and mayor believe.

So thanks for the memories, "Mayor" Sam Sullivan. Let your lame duck mayoralty begin.

And, Peter Ladner, the tide is turning. Remember that as you build your NPA leadership campaign.

Post-Post-Modernist, Non-Ironic Self-Reflexivity in Advertising: It Bores/Annoys Me Already

2007-07-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

Click on that image above to view it in a nice, big size. You won't regret it.

So, every once in a while, the free daily Metro does away with...I don't know how to say this...any actual news on the front page. It just puts an ad there. The whole page. And the next page too.

Then they start the "paper" on page 3.

When they first did it, I was flabbergasted, though I shouldn't have been.

On Tuesday, July 21st, 2007 they did it again.

But this time it was a highly self-reflexive post-post-modern joke about there being no news and alas there was no news on the front page.

The joke several layers deep, or maybe just 2 layers deep [it's hard to count] is that there is no real news in Metro. There is just soft news masquerading as substance and substantial news with so little length that depth and thorough understanding is impossible. It all just seems to be news: a simulacra.

So as they and all the other free dailies unapologetically offer fluff over real news, they are even content to mock their own emptiness by profiting from their vacuousness with an ad skating so close to the truth.

But what happens to the population when they "read" this paper with this ad. Do they get it? Do they just skate over it mentally? Do they not care? I'm afraid to know the truth.

Metro is hip and connected to the vibe of its people:

"Our reporters get to the point quickly and cover Vancouver politics, up-and-coming local artists, events and much more. Our columnists keep readers informed about the latest celebrities visiting our city, shopping and restaurants – everything readers want, right at their fingertips."

By quickly does that mean without any slow stuff like background or analysis? And news columnists write about news. I have a hard time seeing fluff topics as being covered by columnists. But then, I suppose if you get a column in a paper on shopping, then that's news[?].

"Which is great, because since the beginning our readers have maintained a special relationship with Metro."

What the hell kind of relationship have we got with Metro? Is Metro our barber, therapist, confidante, bookie, work-spouse? Who started this relationship? Is it consensual? Was I informed that I'm in a relationship? Is it one-sided, completely constructed by a newspaper, its marketing arm, its focus groups and studies of target audiences, and its will to determine for us what news is so when we're asked we say news is that thing we're fed?

"They’re an established and loyal group who believe in, connect with and respond."

Established by Metro? Who decides how that amorphous group is loyal to anything, let alone a newspaper? Is it loyalty like to the Canucks or an extended family or belief system? And what does this loyal group believe in about Metro? This is just lunacy.

In the end, Metro's self-description sounds like a church. Metro isn't a product we consume as much as a lifestyle we choose and identify with. Psychology + Marketing = Mind Control. And if we actually believe Metro speaks to us, I've got some Kool-Aid I'd like you to drink.

I tell ya, Pravda never had it so good: at least there, everyone knew it was all the same, here we have the illusion of a free press because the papers and media outlets have different names.

In the end, the CanWestMedia whore owns the Vancouver Sun, The Province, The National Post, the Times-Colonist, 14 lower mainland weeklies, Global and CH TV and Showcase [with their purchase of Alliance Atlantis], all of the Dose free daily paper and until recently, 1/3 of Metro. The CRTC without any real concern for corporate concentration of media [unless it impedes free advertiser access] gives us all a snapshot of the media empire [see below or see here]. And in the end, regardless of which media robber baron is in charge of the "truth" we are allowed to see, the corporate media filter censors reality daily.

Sam's Strike: The Arrogance of the Man and "The Man"

2007-07-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

It is clear to me that Sam's Strike is all about the Vancouver mayor's deluded sense of autocracy [see below].

While other municipalities are being lined up to support Vancouver's mean-spirited refusal to bargain in good faith, we wait to watch how long Sam can go thinking that the world will actually revolve around him and his idea that through his immense, sheer will, thousands of people who are actually committed to building community will crack under his might and give in to his petty demands.

His mayoralty is a shame.

Vancouver is the only city in Canada that has had three strikes in the last decade. In a strong economy, to not reward public workers, but instead to demand job insecurity and a contract term to expire days after the Olympics ends is just plain mean. It's also representative of the grand golden straitjacket of neoliberalism that erodes the social fabric we've spent generations building.

Talks with CUPE 15 break down, city fails again to bargain worker issues

[July 28, 2007 08:53 PM]

VANCOUVER – CUPE 15, the union representing striking Vancouver inside workers, returned to the bargaining table yesterday at 9:30 a.m. tabling a 5 year package that addressed Mayor Sullivan’s concern about labour stability through the Olympics, with an understanding that the city was prepared to deal with issues that were also important to the union.

Despite this CUPE 15 movement, the City of Vancouver once again refused to bargain and spent less than 2 hours and 22 minutes over a period of two full days speaking with the union. The rest of the time, the city committee “caucused” while union negotiators sat and waited.

“We knew something was wrong when we arrived at the table and the City of Vancouver did not even have their two top decision makers in the room or in the building,” says CUPE 15 president, Paul Faoro. “You would have thought that with a strike coming into its second week, civic services at a halt and nearly 5,500 Vancouver city workers on the street, that General Manager Mike Zora and City Manager Judy Rogers would have made it a priority to attend and negotiate a settlement. What else could be more important?”

“There is one thing I give the city credit for,” says Faoro. “Consistency. The City of Vancouver has consistently failed to bargain and continues to frustrate the process to this day.”

CUPE 15 presented a complete written package to the city for negotiation on Friday morning. The city refused to respond in writing to the proposal.

“Frankly, we have had enough of this circus, and we suspect the public has had enough too. What is it going to take for the city to realize that manipulation and game-playing is not going to bring about a collective agreement?” says Faoro. “How much does the public have to be inconvenienced and how long do our members have to walk the picket-line without a paycheque, unable to provide the services they are proud to deliver to the residents of Vancouver?”

CUPE 15’s chief negotiator, Keith Graham, says the city is still holding onto their “final offer”, tabled on July 9th, 2007. This is the same offer that union members voted down by an overwhelming 89% because it had takeaways and failed to address issues of importance to the union, like job security (no-contracting out language), improvements for auxiliaries, whistleblower protection and harassment resolution language.

Description of major CUPE 15 issues:

Contrary to common belief, CUPE 15’s current collective agreement has no language in it that protects Vancouver’s inside workers from contracting out. At any moment, the city of Vancouver can outsource whatever services they choose, eliminating jobs and compromising the quality and stability of public services. It is for this reason that CUPE 15’s primary concern is to negotiate language that provides them with job security through the term of the agreement.

“We recognize that is it reasonable for the city of Vancouver to secure labour stability through the Olympics, but it is also reasonable for city workers to seek job security,” says Faoro. “Mayor Sullivan and his management staff have given us no reason to trust that they won’t just contract out our jobs one-by-one over the next 5-years.”

Another major issue that the union would like to see addressed is improvements for auxiliary workers, whom have no right to be scheduled by seniority, no benefits, no statutory holiday pay and have gone from temporary and occasional work relief to a massive under-compensated labour pool. In parks, for instance, two-thirds of the workforce is made up of “auxiliary workers” who are kept in this position for years and years.

CUPE 15 would like to see more of these jobs converted into full-time jobs with benefits and negotiate improvements for remaining auxiliaries that include scheduling by seniority. Right now, management can and does decide to call into work an auxiliary with less than a day on the job over an auxiliary worker with 14 years service with the city.

The union has also made it a priority at the bargaining table to negotiate harassment resolution language and whistleblower protection - contract language that protects workers from discipline and/or job loss when they speak out on an issue of public concern, like water safety, equipment maintenance, safety procedures, etc.

Union package to city of Vancouver, July 27, 2007:

Using the contract ratified in Richmond as a starting point, CUPE 15 tabled a wage increase of 21 percent over 5 years that they clearly stated was negotiable. The package also included proposed benefit improvements and the above-mentioned priorities.

The city claimed that the union’s package amounted to a total cost of 30 percent and was not “affordable and reasonable”. Faoro says the city’s calculation is more “phantom costing” and just an excuse not to begin negotiations in earnest.

“It is frustrating to be at the bargaining table with people who clearly do not understand or are pretending not to understand how negotiations work,” says Faoro. “The idea is both sides present their position and you end up somewhere in between.”

Robin Jones, CUPE National representative and chief negotiator for CUPE 394 and CUPE 718, the two Richmond locals that ratified a deal last week is available to comment to the media on the total cost of his committee’s initial proposal to the city, which he says began at about 40% cost to the city of Richmond.

“We asked for almost 12 benefit improvements, we agreed to only two in the end, glasses and dietician services. We asked for a $2 an hour shift differential, we agreed to only $1 an hour in the end. We asked for $1.50 an hour dirty pay, we agreed to 75 cents, we asked for 100 percent benefit coverage and we ended up with only 80 percent in the end and the list goes on,” says Jones. “That’s how negotiations work and today we have a signed collective agreement and both sides are happy. But you can’t get there if one party is not willing to negotiate.”

CUPE 15 represents Vancouver’s 2,500 inside city workers who normally work at city, parks, Ray-Cam, and Britannia Community Centre.

Gordon Campbell's Greedy, Sticky Fingers in Riverview and Tsawwassen

2007-07-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

On Friday, July 27, 2007, Rich Coleman set his status on his Facebook page as "thinking big about Riverview." Once a mental health facility, it closed down in the 1990s as the model for mental health administration changed.

But now, Coleman, Minister of Forests and Range and a-ha! Minister Responsible for Housing, sees great things for the vast under-[market]-utilized tract of land: condos!

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, not one to embrace humility, consensus, community-building or progressive social change, has embraced the province's decision to develop Riverview. And why not. Why bother with pesky social housing in Vancouver itself. Why bother with dealing with social decay, homelessness, abject poverty and drug addiction by accommodating people actually in our city when the province is thinking of sucking land out of decades of imprisonment at Riverview for market housing...oh yes, let's send the ne'er-do-wells out there. NIMBY institutionalized!

Why bother developing the land solely for mental health and social needs when you can plunk some market housing there. After all, people live on the former BC Penitentiary site.

Coleman mentally meanders about like this: "We should blend in some social housing and seniors housing for folks [folks=the kind of people George w.Caesar talks to/about] who need it, and also some types of supportive housing for families and for seniors and the health side [and the health side? this is now in the running for political vagueness sound bite of the month] and then you have a lot of land there that may be allowed to where you could maybe do some market housing would help pay for those facilities on behalf of taxpayers, I think it's something that we'd have to look at." [my emphasis]

Absolutely, Mr. I-Want-To-Defeat-Carole-Taylor-As-Next-BC-Premier, we kinda think that maybe there's land there so maybe kinda we could I dunno, sell it?...and make some cash to pay for, you know, all the cost and stuff for taking care of like old people and the mentally and socially challenged...yeah.

God only knows that taxes are an evil burden, even to pay for, hmmm, "supportive housing for families and for seniors and the health side" because the taxpayer wants value for their money. Value in the form of massive tax cuts so we don't to pay for them. Shudder.

But not to be outdone by the Riverview condo fire sale, we also have the new treaty between the province and the Tsawwassen First Nation. Sure, there are many points on the political continuum of First Nations relations with this "Canada" thing and while the Tsawwassen First Nation will certainly gain from the deal in some tangible ways, many see it as a sell-out doing dirty deals with occupiers in many other ways.

Despite whatever spin whoever wants to put on the treaty, a potent template for urban treaty negotiations, there are several facts here that make Gordon Campbell et al grin. Land will be removed from the socialist Agricultural Land Reserve. That land will be paved so containers coming in and out of DeltaPort can rest on their long Pacific Rim journey inside BC's great golden Gateway Plan of fossil fuel worship that includes twinning the Port Mann Bridge. Instead of just pulling land out of the ALR despite legislative processes, it is certainly less politically ugly for the province to sign a treaty and co-opt one of so many generationally oppressed First Nations to get the land out of the ALR for container storage.

In all, it has been a good week for the BC Liberals neoliberal land reform program.

I see it as a bad week for mental health programs, socially progressive housing, government as service provider for the needy and disenfranchised, social and economic justice, sound ecological stewardship, respect for aboriginal title, and universality and equality in society.

Or maybe I should just stop complaining, invest in a container shipping firm and buy a river view condo in Coquitlam.

Revolt, then Dance

2007-07-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

It's one thing to try to stop a "peaceful" country like Canada from continuing its imperial designs in Afghanistan [let alone Haiti].

It's another thing to see traction in your efforts.

Our beloved Prime Sinister Harper recently squeaked out "Canada's New Government"'s backtrack on occupying Afghanistan to virtually no media fanfare.

The thing to do when you want to change the world is to support community. Revolting against oligarchic tyranny is on behalf of authentic democracy and community and social capital.

This is why after a day of civil advocacy and protest it is important to go to someone's home, have a pot luck dinner and a kitchen party, get some people playing music and dance until dawn.

A revolution without dancing is not worth having.

So this weekend, MAWO is having its 3rd annual Hip Hop Festival Against War and Occupation. Saturday in Surrey. Sunday in East Van. This brings the revolution to otherwise sleeping bedroom-community suburbs.

The 8mb poster is here.

I like my poetry. I like my music. I see hip-hop as a vehicle for transforming lives through art and politics. Its power is immense. I cannot fathom its depths. When I was asked to endorse this event, it was an easy yes. I happened to be around for part of the show last year and I saw its effect in a several block radius. Almost mezmerizing.

To know social and political change is to know optimism. To see that as this decade of 9/11 hysteria winds down, sanity is threating to lift its head out of the sand. Having a dance festival to celebrate political gains and agitate for more recovery from tyranny is welcome, necessary and something perhaps containing the power to end the rain in the lower mainland so we can maybe enjoy some summer.

I urge you to find the blocks of free time in your life this weekend, then find those you love and don't see enough of and find your way to one of the venues. And if you have something against or hesitant about hip-hop, open your mind to its power to affect the 21st century in ways that folk music may have reflected in the 1960s.

Wear comfortable dancing shoes.

What is Your Definition of "Easily" and "Overwhelmingly"?

2007-07-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

On the homepage of Robbins Sce Research, it says:

"Harper popular as PM, Canadians easily support Afghan extension. Jun 29, 2007"

The poll it links to says Canadians support an Afghan extension based on this question:

"The United Nations is desirous of having Canada extend its participation in Afghanistan past the current term ending in early 2009. Are you agreeable to extending Canada's involvement?"
Yes 52 %
No 48 %

I have a hard time seeing how 52-48 "easily" supports anything. Plus, every other poll I've seen in the last several weeks has support for Afghanistan about split.

But then it gets worse. On the commentary of that poll it says:

"Canadians overwhelmingly support an extension to Canada's participation in Afghanistan."

OVERWHELMINGLY! 52-48?

Astonishing.

And then the commentary continues:

"The PM may want to change his Defense Minister. ROBBINS likes current Conservative House Leader Van Loan for the job. Although non-descript, he is excellent in the House of Commons and can articulate a reconfigured Canadian involvement in Afghanistan."

How is this unbiased polling? The first thing that popped into my head is that the third sponsor of this poll, requesting anonymity, is Van Loan.

So, what do you think they mean by "easily" and "overwhelmingly"?

Police States 'R Us

2007-07-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

A 25 km security perimeter is fascinating, as is turning away cars with more than 5 people in them.

But forcing a public centre to not rent space for a public meeting is astonishing.

Essentially, the right to free public association is arbitrarily over.

This is the context in which the new North American Union is being negotiated. Democracy and transparency and civil rights as variables. Welcome to the New World Order.

MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 11, 2007

RCMP, U.S. Army block public forum on the Security and Prosperity Partnership

The Council of Canadians has been told it will not be allowed to rent a municipal community centre for a public forum it had planned to coincide with the next Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit in Montebello, Quebec on August 20 and 21.

The Municipality of Papineauville, which is about six kilometres from Montebello, has informed the Council of Canadians that the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the U.S. Army will not allow the municipality to rent the Centre Communautaire de Papineauville for a public forum on Sunday August 19, on the eve of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership Leaders Summit.

“It is deplorable that we are being prevented from bringing together a panel of writers, academics and parliamentarians to share their concerns about the Security and Prosperity Partnership with Canadians,” said Brent Patterson, director of organizing with the Council of Canadians. “Meanwhile, six kilometres away, corporate leaders from the United States, Mexico and Canada will have unimpeded access to our political leaders.”

As well as being shut out of Papineauville, the Council of Canadians has been told that the RCMP and the SQ will be enforcing a 25-kilometre security perimeter around the Chateau Montebello, where Stephen Harper will meet with George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón on August 20 and 21. According to officials in Montebello, there will be checkpoints at Thurso and Hawkesbury, and vehicles carrying more than five people will be turned back.

Founded in 1985, the Council of Canadians is Canada’s largest citizens’ organization, with members and chapters across the country. The organization works to protect Canadian independence by promoting progressive policies on fair trade, clean water, safe food, public health care, and other issues of social and economic concern to Canadians.

The Nexus Between Garbage Media and Climate Change

2007-07-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

Rupert Murdoch, a ghoul of corporate concentrated media ownership, is appearing to be moved by criticisms that Fox Network is irrational and damaging to society, particularly on their flat earth approach to global warming opposition.

Brave New World Films has produced a 2.5 minute piece [above] in their ongoing campaign against the rationality-challenged, sensationalist Fox Network.

It is combined with a campaign to encourage green-positioned Home Depot to stop advertising with Fox. More information is at Brave New World Films' Fox Attacks site.

And if you have never seen the movie Network, or if it has been more than a few years, you truly owe it to yourself to see how this 1976 film predicted the irrational soup of media today that currently shackles the role of an intelligent, free press in a representative democracy.

Chevy, the Vanguard of Climate Change Activism!

2007-07-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

I'm getting quite excited about Live Earth coming up on 7.7.07 next Saturday. I'm having a day-long open house house party. I'm pumping the pledge and I'm always encouraging people to go car free.

The Live Earth website is full of important information, but the MSN portal for Live Earth is a serious bother.

Chevy is the key sponsor of the online coverage. It's much like how Translink buses sell car advertising in and on its buses and trains. Irony? I think not.

Hyper consumerism...cars...greenhouse gas emission...I must be missing something here.

The Minority World Getting More Exclusive...

2007-06-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

The UN Population Fund knows a little bit about humans. This week they released their annual State of the World Population report. You should read it.

I think First World, Third World, Developing and Developed Countries are unfortunate terms. The end of the Cold War made the first two obsolete. The last two are overly economistic. So, I prefer Minority and Majority World in an intentionally economistic context to describe the rich and powerful [those of us in the OECD oases of economic health] minority of humans versus the impoverished majority.

One of the most disturbing elements is in a table on page 90, "Democratic and Social Indicators."

6.62 billion: world population 2007
9.08 billion: world population 2050 [projected, duh]
1.22 billion: more developed regions 2007
1.24 billion: more developed regions 2050 [projected]

This is remarkable. As the population is expected to increase by almost 50% in the next 43 years, the proportion expected to live in the wealth of the current minority world is expected to increase by just over 1%.

Now, the minority world makes up about 18.4%. It is expected to be only 13.8%. So much for having much faith in the world leading to more economic equality if things continue the way they are!

It's online here as a .pdf, "Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth":
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/

A multimedia online or downloadable introductory piece is here:
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/multimedia/index.html

There is also a supplementary piece on the duality of Vancouver's urban climate, focusing on the downtown eastside:
"Vancouver: Prosperity and poverty make for uneasy bedfellows in world’s most ‘liveable’ city"
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/docs/vancouver_feature_eng.doc

And some work on "Top Misconceptions about Urban Growth":
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/docs/misconceptions.doc

In all, the Press Kit & Resources section has good supplementary work:
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/presskit/index.htm

I've Decided to Become a Paris Hilton Fan, So Should You!

2007-06-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

The Old, Debauched Paris:

The New, Squeaky Clean, Adorable Paris:

I'm sold!

It is clear to me that Paris Hilton has embraced a tone of contrition. She has embarked on life after incarceration with a brand new image of humility and a sparkling new girl next door haircut.

Perhaps she is concerned that it is time to grow up and leave her partying ways behind her. She was rebellious and disrespectful of her adoring public. She is "serious about leaving her famously party-loving past behind."

Perhaps jail was her equivalent of Drew Barrymore flashing her boobs at Letterman, but now Paris seeks the kind of respectability and success that Drew now knows.

In the end, you be the judge. Media has nurtured a month-long boner over her tribulations. It lives to create an international obsession to milk ad dollars with a compliant public.

Paris is doing her job. She is keeping the "news"[sic] industry/business rolling right along.

God bless Paris Hilton.

Harper: Canada to Leave Afghanistan in 2009...You Missed it, Right?

2007-06-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

Well, after a weekend to thoroughly digest Prime Sinister Harper's speech to mark the end of Canada's sad and waning 39th parliament, I feel moved to grumble about something he didn't bother to mention formally and officially.

I was going to talk about how he frames taxation as slavery from which we need emancipation, despite all the rich social, educational and health services we receive and largely take for granted: "Largely as a result of our tax reductions in budget 2006, tax freedom day arrived Wednesday, four days earlier than last year."

Instead I want to comment on what he said in a rare moment when he stooped to speak to the press. So many emails from the PMO describe Harper's upcoming schedule. "Photo op only" has become scripture.

So instead of in a formal political speech to end the session of parliament, Harper, on a Friday at the end of the week's new cycle, mutters that Canada will leave Afghanistan in 2009.

Huh? I kid you not:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who once insisted that Canadian troops will stay in Afghanistan until the job is done, now says the military mission will end in February, 2009, unless the opposition agrees it should be extended.

The acceptance that the mission's lifespan may be limited comes as the Prime Minister faces growing opposition to Canada's combat role in the Afghan south - a decline in support that has been particularly pronounced in Quebec.

"This mission will end in February, 2009," Mr. Harper said yesterday at a rare House of Commons news conference held to mark the end of the spring sitting.

Isn't this major news? The most significant Canadian military mission in decades, the most controversial episode of Canadian imperialism will end because Harper said quietly that we'll stay past 2009 only if all parties in parliament agree.

The NDP is opposed to our presence. Unless they see the light of imperialism in the next dozen or so months, our support for our troops will be supporting them home.

The Globe and Mail covered it on Saturday. Thanks.

But the volitional decision to end our occupation of Afghanistan and cease our imperial agenda there was not plastered all over the front pages of the Sunday and Monday morning papers.

This is a major victory for sanity in Canada. It is also a major reversal of Harper's militarism in the face of growing national opposition to the stupidity of what we have been trying to convince ourselves we could do there.

And Harper's embarrassment over his decision to radically change his entire war prime minister image made him squeak it out on a Friday afternoon in Ottawa in front of reporters, for whom he holds shocking and tremendous disdain.

Thank God for Harper that they haven't skewered him for it. Lucky man.

Maybe Harper's American Idol speech ending "God Bless Canada" has returned to save him from having to blush over changing his over-inflated sense of his military legacy.

The poor fool.

Who Wants To Be An Amerikan?

2007-06-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

There is a fantastic short film by the Vancouver Film School called “Who Wants to Be an Amerikan?”

Someone commented thusly:

“Ive been following this video since it first went on YouTube, and every time i see someone say something along the lines of "this video attack/ makes fun of/ is against the united states" someone asks "why do you think that?". funny thing is, nobody ever responds. im very curious how anyone thinks this attacks america could someone give me a real answer?”

I think it attacks America because it tells the truth that America[tm] is a marketing concept. Disneyland, the Cosby Show, American Idol. The idea of mom, apple pie and lemonade. It's surreal, not real. It also minimizes what a lot of Americans think America is: An awesome place. But it is really a myth covering a reality of 2 centuries of military and economic imperialism, domestic racism, xenophobia, soft fascism, poverty and shattered dreams.

The whole totalitarian game show thing is a separate commentary, I think, on totalitarianism that is somehow reaffirmed by the comment on the postcard about people being more important than places. And America is a place where his father left his family and the son was willing to leave his mother.

And I guess this does relate to America in that lots of Americans love America though they cannot explain why in the face of 40 million without health care, institutionalized racism and segregation still in practice, rampant poverty in the face of obscene wealth and millions who don't know the names of their neighbours in their cookie cutter suburbs.

It's a movie that tells truths that are uncomfortable for many Americans to think, let alone understand.

So many cannot say why it attacks America because they aren't stepping back to look at how their country looks to others outside and inside the nation.

And as a Canadian, I think even without carrying a myth like America, we carry our own myths of superiority to America, but we suffer from similar isolation as well as similar neglect of others' true material, social, emotional and psychological needs.

This is a wonderful film. Challenging, and beautiful.

Canada Races to the Bottom with Pesticides

2007-05-08T23:27:00.000-07:00

The Four Horsemen of Structural Adjustment in the global neoliberal world of 21st century corporate neofeudalism are free trade, free capital flows, and government deregulation and privatization. They are the most insidious elements of the pathetic and discredited Washington Consensus development model: neoliberal toadie and current w.Caesar Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has declared that neoliberalism has not reduced poverty in our hemisphere. Despite this, neoliberalism marches on, and not just in destroying lives in the majority world.

But that doesn't stop minority world countries like Canada from seeking harmonization with its master, the US. Our government regulations on pesticide limits are "too high" because they are higher than someone else's.

Government regulation is bad. If some state has lower regulations, we should all meet their level. Ideally, no regulation is best. Let the market god take care of us all. I sprinkle DDT and Thalidomide on my Mini Wheats[tm] each morning.

But below we read of the necessity of lowering our regulations because that's an inherent good. So much for the race to the bottom being just majority world nations wooing global capital with lower wages and environmental standards, and better union busting. Now we've joined the race.

By the way, a "trade irritant" is an excuse in neoliberal-land for one nation to spank another because the other isn't being as free a trader.

Canada boosts pesticide limit
More residue to be allowed on fruit, vegetables to match U.S. levels; current strict rules pose a 'trade irritant'

Kelly Patterson
CanWest News Service

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

OTTAWA -- Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables for hundreds of products.

The move is part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.

Differences in residue limits, which apply both to domestic and imported food, pose a potential "trade irritant," said Richard Aucoin, chief registrar of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which sets Canada's pesticide rules.

However, Canada will only raise its limits "where this poses no risks," he stressed.

U.S. pesticide residue limits are often higher because their warmer climate means they are plagued by more pests, Aucoin said.

Canadian caps are higher in only 10 per cent of cases, he explained, adding these may be lowered under the harmonization plan. Aucoin said Canada won't be raising its limits for all of the cases where its rules are stricter, but "will likely be asked to raise them" for cases now being identified as priorities by growers.

The agency is reviewing its limits on a case-by-case basis, he said.

But Canada should never lower its standards in the name of harmonization, said David Boyd, an environmental lawyer and author of a 2006 study of international pesticide regulations.

"We should look to equal or surpass the best in the world, not only measure ourselves against the U.S.," where regulations are weaker than in jurisdictions such as the European Union, he said.

Canadian regulators and their U.S. counterparts have been working to harmonize their pesticide regulations since 1996, as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Now the effort is being fast-tracked as an initiative under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a wide-ranging plan to streamline regulatory and security protocols across North America.

The SPP's 2006 report identified stricter residue limits as "barriers to trade."

Boyd's report, published by the B.C.-based David Suzuki Foundation, raised concerns about the levels of pesticide residue allowed both in the U.S. and Canada.

Comparing 40 U.S. limits with those set by Canada, the European Union, Australia and the World Health Organization, he found the U.S. had the weakest rules for more than half of the pesticide uses studied.

In some cases the differences were dramatic: The U.S. allows 50 times more vinclozolin on cherries as the E.U., and 100 times as much lindane on pineapples.

Canada fared no better: For permethrin on leaf lettuce and spinach, the Canadian and U.S. limit was 400 times higher than in Europe, and the Canadian cap on methoxychlor was 1,400 times the European limit.

Both countries also allow pesticides that have been banned not only in Europe but also in some developing countries, Boyd noted.

Methamidophos, for example, is permitted in Canada but banned in Indonesia and other developing nations, he found.

The pesticide is now being re-evaluated in Canada.

Aucoin said residue limits are set according to exacting standards in Canada, adding that differences in ecosystems and patterns of use can account for the variation from country to country.

Raising the limits "will not change the amount of pesticides coming into the country," he said, noting the residue levels on imported produce are usually well below even the Canadian limits.

"The trend in both Canada and the U.S. is to use less, not more," he said, explaining the high cost of bug-killers has prompted farmers to cut back.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which monitors residue levels, has found "a relatively small number of violations" of Canada's maximum levels in recent years, he said.

But Boyd's study also raises questions about Canada's monitoring system.

He noted the federal food inspection agency found residues in only 10 per cent of the produce it tested in 2004-05. In the same period, U.S. regulators found residues in 76 per cent of the fresh fruit and vegetables they tested.

British officials found pesticides in 40 per cent of their produce in 2006.

In the cases of Canada and the U.S., less than one per cent of the residues exceeded the legal limits.