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Most
of the news is now at -
Federal Election 2001 news
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Canada, U.S., Climate & the Revolution
-
May 10, 2001
From: The David Suzuki Foundation
The David Suzuki Foundation launched
http://www.energyrevolution.net
on Earth Day.
At www.EnergyRevolution.net, you
can walk through a simulated "Canada Town" to explore climate solutions
and impacts. The affects of climate change on Canadian communities
are clear: more violent weather, more forest fires, more water problems,
more disruption of species and ecosystems, and more smog. Air pollution
from fossil fuel is already responsible for 16,000 premature deaths in
Canada every year.
The campaign site will outline developments
and action opportunities leading up to the U.N. Climate Summit this July.
Countries around the world will be meeting in Germany to revitalize the
international effort to fight climate change. President Bush is trying
to derail this process and Canada is threatening to join the U.S.
In cyberspace and in the streets, tell your friends about the revolution.
Order campaign materials online.
Every revolution is about power
--------
GM Food: Public Wants the Right to Know
– May.2001
OTTAWA - New Democrat agriculture critic Dick
Proctor this week called on the federal government to take immediate steps
to implement a labeling process that will make consumers aware of all genetically
modified products, produce and components in processed foods.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr. Proctor
said: "One of the reasons consumers are interested and concerned about
this issue is that they believe genetically modified foods may contain
allergenic, toxic or even carcinogenic aspects. They do not know and they
darn well want the right to know."
He said, "Public opinion polls indicate
that in excess of 90 percent of Canadians believe they should have the
right to know what is in the food they are ingesting. I have difficulty
understanding why the government has been dragging its heels to the extent
that it has on this issue."
---------
Free Trade/Globalization – a simpler argument
against it.
* I usually do write-ups covering what other
people say on the issues. Their arguments are often complex so I've done
a simple one in this letter to a friend.
- read the article.
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NDP Mounts Attack on Druf Profiteering Bill
– May.2001
OTTAWA - New Democrat Members of Parliament this
week expanded their attack on a government bill to amend the Patent Act
that would raise the price of prescription drugs in Canada and take over
$200 million from Canadians families.
Introduced in the Senate, the bill
(S-17) is intended to comply with a World Trade Organization ruling that
Canada lengthen the term of patent protection on drugs from 17 years to
20 years, making cheaper generic drugs less available.
"The bill is intended to come into
compliance with World Trade Organization rulings" NDP industry critic Bev
Desjarlais said in the Commons Thursday. "It is not intended to do what
is best for Canadians, what is best for Canada or, for that matter, what
is best for the people of the world."
Winnipeg-Transcona MP Bill Blaikie
said: "… today we are against Bill S-17 which is part of a sequence
of bills that have progressively eliminated the ability of Canada to have
its own independent drug patent and drug pricing policy. The fact that
we could not and cannot maintain a system that worked so well for Canada,
which was the result of a political decision taken in this country many
years ago, is for us transparently what is wrong with the free trade agreement."
--------
MarijuanaJ Party ballot initiative tour
http://www.bcmarijuanaparty.ca
We are hammering the Liberals at every whistlestop regarding
ballot initiatives. We had our first platform stolen by Unity today when
Delaney saw the sense in our "NO RCMP in BC" platform and adopted
it as his own.
--------
See the BC Election
Circus Site by Guerrilla
Media - April.18.2001
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NDPer Lorne Nystrom Presents PROPORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION BILL - April.2.2001
OTTAWA - NDP electoral reform critic Lorne Nystrom
took another step Thursday in his ongoing campaign to modernize Canada's
electoral system by introducing in the House of Commons a private member's
bill calling for proportional representation.
Mr. Nystrom's bill would initiate
a process of public consultation that might lead to a national referendum
on proportional representation.
"Canada's current electoral system
betrays the will of the voters," Mr. Nystrom said. "The composition of
Parliament does not mirror the way people vote. Only three governments
have been elected with a genuine majority of the votes in the last 24 federal
elections. It's no wonder that only 60 per cent of eligible voters went
to the polls last November. The very idea of democracy is increasingly
at risk."
The introduction of Mr. Nystrom's
bill also coincides with the founding meeting of Fair Vote Canada, a coalition
of citizens dedicated to raising awareness and assisting in the implementation
of a fairer electoral system. The meeting sponsored by Mr. Nystrom and
was held on March 30 and 31 in the Parliament Buildings.
---------
Parliament to Debate FTAA – March.2001
OTTAWA - The House of Commons will hold a special debate on the
proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas Tuesday, March 27, starting at
6:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time).
This is a so-called take-part debate, which does not end with a vote,
and there is no time limit. The debate will be carried live on CPAC.
--------
NDP Globalization Web Site – March.2001
New Democrat Members of Parliament have established a
web site focusing on World Trade and Globalization. Please
visit the site at www.ndpontrade.parl.gc.ca
--------
Some Facts on Energy Conservation
– March.2001
- If existing buildings were retrofitted, and new ones were designed,
to be energy efficient, Toronto and all of Ontario would need no more electricity
than what is produced at Niagara Falls and at the various hydro dams around
the province?
- Two-and-a-half to five times more jobs are created by developing
energy efficiency than are created by building and operating a new power
generating station?
- It is cheaper to increase energy efficiency than it is to continue
operating a thermal generating plant - regardless of whether it is run
on coal, natural gas or nuclear energy - even when the cost of building
the plant and delivering its power are not counted in the
equation?
- Through energy efficiency, Seattle saved twice as much energy as
Chicago did. As a result, its electricity prices were half those in Chicago?
- Nearly 70 per cent of the energy in the fuel used to generate electricity
at Ontario's coal-fired and nuclear generating stations is wasted and released
as heat emissions?
http://www.rmi.org
http://www.tellus.org
http://www.eren.doe.gov
--------
NDP Attacks Toll Highway Plan –
March.2001
OTTAWA - Canadians already pay enough taxes and should not have to
pay tolls to use public roads, NDP Transportation Critic Bev Desjarlais
told the House of Commons this week.
Earlier Liberal Transportation Minister David Collenette admitted under
questioning by Ms.Desjarlais the federal government is considering toll
roads as a solution to the massive under funding of the national highway
system.
--------
At Straight Goods – March.2001
- Dummy’s Guide
to Quebec City Protest - Darryl Leroux. An activists’ manual
--------
Democracy Watch Calls for Investigation of
Cash-for-Access Scheme at Summit of the Americas
– March.23.2001
OTTAWA
- Today, in an open letter to federal Ethics
Counsellor Howard Wilson, Democracy Watch called for an investigation of
the Ministers and other public office holders involved in designing and
approving the cash-for-access scheme at the upcoming Summit of the Americas
in Quebec City. In return for paying amounts ranging from $75,000
to $1.5 million, Canadian corporations will receive, among other things,
the right to attend "networking events" at the Summit and, in some cases,
to choose "priority seating" at Summit events.
Democracy
Watch believes that this scheme violates the Conflict of Interest and Post-employment
Code for Public Office Holders, which requires public office holders (including
ministers, secretaries of state, deputy ministers and some ministerial
staff) to "uphold the highest ethical standards so that public confidence
and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of government
are conserved and enhanced" and prohibits public office holders from, among
other things: assisting private entities, and having even "the appearance
of being placed under an obligation to any person or organization, or the
representative of a person or organization, that might profit from special
consideration on the part of the office holder."
"Giving
corporations access to policy-makers in return for money is not only undemocratic,
it's unethical," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. "Such
cash-for-access schemes reveal that rather than being objective and impartial,
Canada's public officials are open to being
bought by corporate interests."
In
its letter to the Ethics Counsellor, Democracy Watch calls for an investigation
of the scheme and a ruling about Code violations before the opening of
the Summit of the Americas. Democracy Watch does not believe that
Prime Minister Chretien's rationale that such schemes are good
because they save taxpayers from having to pay
the full cost of such events in any way aligns with the democratic principles
set out in the Code.
"Saving
taxpayers money is not a valid reason for abandoning the important principle
of governing with integrity," said Conacher, "The ethics rules exist to
prevent such undemocratic behaviour, and we call on the Ethics Counsellor
to act with integrity and stop this unethical cash-for-access scheme."
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Coordinator
Tel: (613) 241-5179
----------------
FTAA - Opposing it Every Day -
Sat.Feb.17.2001
(Brief notes on Free Trade Across the Americas
- Responding to the Human, Environmental & Spiritual Threat)
- Read
the full report by Gary Morton
--------
Health Canada scientists gagged
- Feb.2001
* Editor's Note - Scientists and other
officials should probably not be advising people to eat beef at all. Nowadays
beef cows are grain-fed and so diseased they have to be pumped full of
antibiotics to survive. Unless it is beef from cows raised in a freer manner,
eating beef is supporting animal cruelty and risky.
Health Canada reimposed a gag order
Monday on its scientists after two of them questioned a decision to ban
Brazilian beef.
Dr. Margaret Haydon, a scientist who questioned
the ban last week was told that the department's public relations officers
were the only ones authorized to speak to the media about Health Canada
policies.
The gag order was reimposed less than five months after
Madam Justice Danièle Tremblay-Lamer ruled it was "unreasonable"
for Health Canada to ask its scientists not to speak out on public health
matters.
The reaction was swift from groups who fought to have the previous
gag order lifted.
"In a democracy, people who speak out in the public interest
should be allowed to speak out in the public interest — no matter who they
work for," Angela Rickman, deputy director of the Sierra Club of Canada,
said.
Maude Barlow, national chairwoman of the Council of Canadians,
said the government is censoring the wrong people. "These are highly trained
scientists who are the only ones who should be advising the public on health
matters, rather than the politicians and the bureaucrats," she said. "The
government is clearly backpedalling like crazy because of a silly and short-sighted
ban on Brazilian beef."
---------
Canadian Human Rights protesters clash with
Chinese police - Feb.2001
Beijing — Shortly after Prime Minister Jean Chrétien delivered
a major speech on human and legal rights Tuesday, Chinese security officers
grabbed two Canadian students for protesting at a gathering of Team Canada
business leaders.
Kate Woznow, 20, and Sam Price, 25, of the group Students
for a Free Tibet unfurled a banner and chanted "Free Tibet before free
trade" in the midst of a swarm of Chinese and Canadian business people.
Security guards grabbed them.
The student protesters said that Canada should be demanding
China first clean up its human rights record if it wants to do business.
"We are opposed to Team Canada's developing closer trade
ties with China without ensuring that human rights are improved," said
Freya Putt, 22, another member of the protest group. "We believe that China
will listen to economic pressure."
--------
3.7 Million Canadians below Poverty Line
- Dec.2000
Welfare rates in all the provinces are
well below the poverty line. 3.7 million Canadians live below the poverty
line in Canada. Low-income cutoffs depend on family size and take into
account the varying costs of living associated with different communities
-- rural, remote or urban. In 1998, a family of four living in a
city of 500,000 or more would be counted as low income if its after-tax
income fell below $27,890. For the same family living in a rural area,
the cutoff was $18,285.
The National Anti-Poverty Organization's
updated poverty figures conclude that 16.4% of Canadians -- about 4.9 million
-- are poor.
--------
Canada fails on child poverty -
Dec.2000
The National Council of Welfare's
poverty profile reveals that in the past nine years child poverty has skyrocketed.
"In spite of talk by governments
about putting children first, approximately one in five children in Canada,
or 1.3 million, were poor in 1998," said the report, entitled Poverty Profile
1998.
"This is an increase of roughly
400,000 or 42% since 1989, the year of the House of Commons (all-party)
resolution to end child poverty by 2000.
"Ontario had, by far, the largest
increase in poor children over this time period ... (it) almost doubled
from 254,000 in 1989 to 463,000 in 1998."
- The poverty rates of single-parent mothers
and their children are shockingly high -- 54.2%. For single-parent mothers
under 25 it was 85.4%.
- Poverty among young people in general
has grown to 43.3% from 28% for families with heads under 25 years and
to 61% in 1998 from 48% in 1989 among singles under 25.
The situation for seniors improved:
17.5% lived in poverty in 1998, down from 34% in 1980, which is when several
levels of governments stepped in to address the problem.
---------
Legal Marijuana -- but how do you label Marijuana?
Dec.24.2000
Alberta judge Darlene Acton has suspended the Canadian law against cultivating marijuana as unconstitutional because it doesn't allow for medical use of the drug. The charge of cultivating marijuana had been brought against Grant Krieger. He grows and ingests pot to alleviate the symptoms of his multiple sclerosis. Defence lawyers called it a great victory and you can be sure that statement will be echoed in the alternative press and much of the mainstream press.
Though I'm not on the extreme right of the political spectrum, I still have to wonder if it is any victory at all. It is true that I have no illnesses of my own, and if I did I wouldn't smoke grass. I don't take drugs or smoke things to maintain health, not even aspirins.
Marijuana is carcinogenic, yet that would make little difference to someone already suffering a deadly or soon to be fatal disease. Yes, it will be harder for the government to bust harmless people for growing pot. The problem is that it will be at least a year and probably a lot longer before anything is settled on a supply of legal marijuana. Which means that anything goes as to what people will label as marijuana - most of it being smoked by recreational users.
Here's an example of what you may be smoking. One guy stated that he grew his grass in pots filled with the scrapings off the sides of ships. This would be barnacles and polluted fish oil crap. During the growth period he added chemicals to boost growth and sprayed the plants with more chemicals. His plants grew much larger and were mutated with silver spots covering the leaves. During the curing process he sprayed them with a product from the hardware store that is generally used for restoring paper. This was to make the leaves cure in a smoother fashion. And there were other things he used as sprays on the finished product.
Perhaps his recipe is one of many. Maybe some people will grow genetically modified pot - which means that in the end many users will be smoking some pretty weird stuff.
I wouldn't smoke it, and if I don’t see marijuana as cool, perhaps it is because I equate it with Beatle cuts and the emergence of the sixties generation. Something that people smoked once - when it was naturally grown - and don't bother with now that it is sold by bikers and criminals carrying submachine guns.
Some of the stuff on the market must be harmful and deadly, and if the government had any sense at all they would provide legal grass that is grown organically.
The current legal victory is really mostly a victory for criminals who want to grow and sell genetically modified, chemically altered mutant sewer weed.
Gary Morton
---------
Thousands march in Montreal against forced
megacity - Dec.2000
Blowing whistles and carrying placards,
tens of thousands of angry Quebecers marched through downtown Montreal
Sunday to protest against the province's undemocratic plan to force the
creation of a megacity.
"The government cannot ignore what
has happened here today," Verdun Mayor Georges Bosse said yesterday afternoon,
shortly after tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest
against Quebec's municipal-merger plans. "I think when 75,000 people show
up on a winter's day they deserve to be listened to."
The people are against Bill 170.
The legislation Quebec wants to adopt byChristmas that would merge Montreal
Island's 28 municipalities into a megacity with 26 boroughs.
The crowd roared as speakers demanded
that the provincial government consult residents instead of pushing ahead
with the merger. And residents quietly argued that their sense of community
will disappear in a megacity.
Critics have challenged Premier
Lucien Bouchard to hold a referendum on the question of amalgamation.
"'We're asking for only one referendum
and we promise that we will respect the results,'' said Montreal North
Mayor Yves Ryan.
The Parti Quebecois government also
hopes to force amalgamations in the Hull and Quebec City regions.
--------
New Site for Online Discussion of Government
Bills. UVOTEOnline is currently discussing
Bill 147 and will be discussing federal bills in the New Year.
http://uvoteonline.net
---------
Stepping off the Toxic Treadmill -
Dec 2000
From: dbell@worldwatch.org
Synthetic chemical pollutants that are
poisoning both people and wildlife could be largely eliminated without
disrupting the economy, reports a new study by the Worldwatch Institute,
a Washington DC-based environmental research organization.
- Read the full
report.
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Nuclear Subsidies to AECL Total $16.6 Billion
- Dec.2000
A report released by the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout,
says that Canadian government subsidies to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
(AECL) now total $16.6 billion. The government has backtracked on its 1996
promise to dramatically reduce AECL's subsidies. AECL was supposed to receive
$100 million in the fiscal year 1999-2000, but in fact received $156.5
million.
David Martin, author of the report called "Financial Meltdown",
stated, "Tax dollars are too valuable to waste on the failing nuclear industry.
AECL's $156 million subsidy last year could have purchased 50 MRI machines
and operated them for a year; or it could have paid for about 2,200 nurses
for one years, or for 12,500 heart operations."
"AECL is in a state of financial meltdown. The Chretien
government is committed to ongoing nuclear subsidies, but after 50 years
of subsidies, it's high time to call a halt." Stated Elizabeth May of the
Sierra Club of Canada.
Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout coordinator Kristen Ostling
said, "Last year, the government spent 13 times more on subsidies to AECL
($156 million) than it spent on its total funding for renewable energy
($12 million). For economic and environmental reasons, nuclear power should
be phased out."
--------
Pledging Allegiance
by Tooker Gomberg and Kelly Reinhardt - Nov.
27, 2000 - The Hague, Netherlands
On Friday we burned our Canadian passports. We did it in outrage
at our country's deplorable performance at addressing the climate catastrophe,
a.k.a. climate change. The Canadian government has been woefully lacklustre
on the home front, but what set us off was Canada's negotiating position
at the World Conference on Climate Change in The Hague, Netherlands.
- read the full
article
---------
Colombia's "Never Again Project" (November
28, 2000)
* Rights Action sends this post concerning the
important "Nunca Mas" project in Colombia.
Canadian churches and human rights activists were present in Bogota
today, November 28, to lend both physical and moral support when 'at risk'
human rights groups made public the explosive report of Colombia's "Never
Again" Project."
It is a very timely project, as the US
government has agreed to a $1.3 billion military package [weapons, military
equipment, training, intelligence, and direct US military involvement],
that will worsen the already extremely bad human rights situation, as set
out in the Nunca Mas Project.
- read
the entire post and info on how to take action
---------
Police Attack Peaceful March Against Third
World Debt
MADRID - SUNDAY 26TH NOVEMBER 2000
- read
the entire detailed post.
--------
Environmental Warfare
-The
Americans and the Russians have developed capabilities to manipulate the
World's climate - Nov.2000
- Read
Environmental Warfare by Michel Chossudovsky.
--------
Pierre Trudeau Dies -
Sept.28.200
Former prime minister Pierre Elliott
Trudeau, who touched the lives of a generation of Canadians in countless
ways, died Thursday afternoon at the age of 80. A state funeral is being
planned.
- Story
at the CBC
Quotations from Pierre Elliott Trudeau:
"The state has no place in the nation's bedrooms." -- Dec. 22, 1967.
"I will use all my strength to bring about a just society to a nation living in a tough world." -- April 7, 1968, Ottawa news conference the day after winning the Liberal leadership.
"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant: No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." -- March 25, 1969, speaking to the Press Club in Washington, D.C.
"When they get home, when they get out of Parliament, when they are 50 yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members, they are just nobodies." -- July 25, 1969, House of Commons.
"Fuddle duddle." -- Feb. 16, 1971, Trudeau's account of what he said to an Opposition MP in the Commons.
"I believe that Canada cannot, indeed that Canada must not survive by force. The country will only remain united --it should only remain united -- if its citizens want to live together in one civil society." -- Nov. 15, 1976, national TV and radio address regarding Parti Quebecois election in Quebec.
"The French won't take us over and neither will the Pope, although he's not the menace he used to be." -- Nov. 25, 1976, news conference.
"So long, trained seals!" --Oct. 21, 1977, concluding a news conference in Ottawa.
"We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on a mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege." -- Dec. 31, 1980, New Year's message.
"I walked until midnight in the storm, then I went home and took a sauna for an hour and a half. It was all clear. I listened to my heart and saw if there were any signs of my destiny in the sky, and there were none -- there were just snowflakes." -- Feb. 29, 1984, announcing at a news conference he was resigning as Prime Minister.
"I think we have to realize that Canada is not
immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than
a whimper." -- March 30, 1988, denouncing the Meech Lake Constitutional
Accord before a Senate Committee.
--------
NOT CALM at Burnt Church - Wed,
27 Sep 2000
Info from Ann Pohl <annpohl@interlog.com>
The situation remains critically tense at Burnt Church.
Many traps HAVE been removed. However, there is still
considerable resistance within the community to allowing the DFO to remove
any more.
A recent press release from non-Native observers states
that they have seen no guns in evidence since the beginning of their support
effort there a year ago. The conclusion derived from this news is chilling:
the considerable media about weaponry and the possibility of an armed confrontation
may be yet another SET-UP to project the image of Aboriginal Rights activists
as violent, militant and unreasoning. As we know all too well from Oka,
Gustafsen Lake and Ipperwash, this media spin is created in order to justify
terrible levels of repression that Canadians would never countenance on
any other group of people within (or. for that matter, outside) their national
borders. It also leads to criminalization of the people who are the victims
of the states' human rights abuses - and to death.
If you have not yet written to the government of Canada to express
your concern, panic or disgust at what is happening, NOW IS THE TIME TO
DO SO: Prime Minister Chretien <pm@pm.gc.ca> Tel: (613)
992-4211; Fax: (613) 941-6900
News sites on the Issue
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