'Our country sinks beneath the yoke; it weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds.'
- Shakespeare's "Macbeth"
Friday was Canada Day, July 1st, when we celebrate the 144th anniversary of the British North America Act, and this is my first post since the election. In the meantime I've really needed rest as our country goes down the tubes. Most recently, the government made a controversial move to cutoff Summerworks Theatre and Music Festival from federal funding. The Tories have often expressed their contempt for the arts in Canada, somehow believing that the majority of Canadians are unintelligent and unemotional and share their contempt for culture. They repeatedly refer to artists and art patrons and enthusiasts as "elitists", and believe that the arts should not receive federal funding (even though the amount that the government spends on the arts is pitiful, whereas polluting multinational corporations receive massive subsidies and tax breaks).
The axing of the Summerworks Festival's funding however was due to a play entitled "Homegrown," which was written by a lawyer and playwright named Catherine Frid. The play was about her meeting and subsequent friendship with a man in prison, one of the convicted members of the Toronto 18 terrorist plot.
The Tories reacted to what they called a play that "glorifies terrorism." An analysis in The Globe and Mail of the play itself says otherwise: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/theatre/no-terror-glorification-here-just-an-unfortunate-pollyannaism/article1663835/
While in the play the woman may be gullible and willing to believe that the terrorist, Shareef Abdelhaleem, is innocent, the play in no way professes his innocence or glorifies any terrorism. It does, however,
"...raise many worthwhile questions about the fairness of Mr. Abdelhaleem's arrest and trial: his long period spent in solitary confinement; the glacial speed of the wheels of justice; over-the-top secrecy that led to publication bans about publication bans; and, most troublingly, the prosecution’s reliance on the testimony of a $4-million informant who admitted he bore a pre-existing grudge against Mr. Abdelhaleem.
While Ms. Frid’s play left me concerned about the sweeping powers of the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act, it didn’t persuade me that Mr. Abdelhaleem is wrongly imprisoned."
Shortly thereafter, there was an interview on Sun News TV of dance legend Margie Gillis. Back in February, I posted petitions to try and fight a measure being passed by the CRTC that would ease broadcast standards, thereby unleashing the fucking Sun News TV right wing propaganda onto the airwaves. The muzzling of a theatre festival for putting on a play about a man in prison that questions the Canadian system over things such as Terrorist profiling, publication bans, lack of transparency or due process, and miscarriages of justice allowed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, (and remember the Harper government is involved in extraditing its own citizens to torture centers in Syria and Guantanamo Bay under "suspicion of being terrorists" without a shred of evidence) is in the same vein of media control and propaganda as the Sun News TV channel, which is government subsidized and mandatorily included in people's tv packages.
The Tories have attempted to silence the voice of dissent before (remember during the election when some first-time voters were ejected from Tory rallies for being suspected "opposition sympathizers"?)
On this very blog I had a little logo on the side that read "On the Environment: Canadians Care, Harper Doesn't." Then, during the election, it suddenly disappeared, as if the Government had shut down the site where I got it from. These tactics are infringements of our fundamental rights and of the legitimacy of our former democracy; tantamount to an autocratic totalitarian state.
Also (though not until after the election), the government was exposed by Postmedia News for deliberately excluding data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations. The details on the rise in emissions for the sector were left out of the inventory report on greenhouse gas emissions, but were then slowly revealed after the election through a series of emails in response to questions from Postmedia News.
"…The department (Environment Canada) declined all interview requests, except for one with a department official that was cancelled at the last minute without explanation.
Throughout this period, the department was communicating also with industry officials and environmental groups about its calculations.
….The absolute annual emissions have almost tripled since 1990, according to the numbers released by Environment Canada.
….The data about the oilsands industry has garnered international media coverage at a time when Canada is trying to promote the sector in jurisdictions such as the United States and Europe.
It has also prompted frustration among both industry representatives and environmental groups who were struggling to find out why the government decided to exclude separate breakdowns for oilsands emissions after including them in the inventory report submitted last year."
This is certainly not the first time the Harper government has tried to greenwash the tar sands, nor manipulated Environment Canada into hiding information. In fact, Canada is one of the worst for hiding information from the public, as well as destroying the environment and impeding international progress; Canada was named by the Climate Action Network International (CAN-I) as the single worst country in the industrialized world for blocking climate negotiations.
(http://www.researchforum.ca/research-topics/environment/19-canada-and-environment/13-canada-human-development-index-is-great-but-on-environment-it-is-international-laggard > also contains data on who's on target with the Kyoto Protocol, and who's failing - Canada is dead last.)
Recently, the government rejected Health Canada's own data and recommendations with regards to asbestos, and now, Canada alone prevented the United Nations from adding chrysotile asbestos to the global list of hazardous substances.
Oh, Canada, how I weep for thee.
Around election time, it was refreshing to see all the national ferment from the 60% of Canadians who are pissed off at Harper's government. Now, with the muzzling of a theater festival that is allegedly "glorifying terrorism" (I'm sure none of the officials saying that have even seen the play), a debate about government funding to cultural events and initiatives has sparked.
Then, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has apparently received twice as many complaints over one interview than it usually receives per annum. The interview was that of Margie Gillis on Sun News TV, the FOX NEWS of the North. (You can watch the whole interview here.) This is the drama of propaganda and information control in Canada.
I am personally glad to see that people are taking offense and speaking up about it. Yet, meanwhile, attention is being diverted from other big issues.
A couple of months ago, the Obama administration began to question and think critically about whether or not to proceed with the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would run from the Alberta Tar Sands, through Canada, then down the East Coast of the U.S. to Texas (and construction has already begun.) Then, last week, a U.S. Congressional panel passed legislation requiring a decision by Nov. 1.
Meanwhile, another pipeline is "Slipping in the back door", according to the Vancouver Sun. The story however is about a pipeline that already exists, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline. The pipeline transports 300,000 barrels of oil per day to the coast of BC and Washington. According to the article,
"The Trans Mountain pipeline is currently the subject of a National Energy Board application to secure "firm service," which seems innocuous enough - authorize long-term contracts for shippers so that the company has more certainty and can plan for the future.
But what is the future? Well, if Kinder Morgan has its way, the future is four times as many tankers in Burrard Inlet, Georgia Strait and beyond than we saw last year. Kinder Morgan estimates that in 2010, 71 tankers came and went from its Westridge Terminal in Burnaby. By 2016, the company hopes to have 288 tankers travelling to and from the terminal, which would mean 576 tanker trips through Burrard Inlet each year.
By the end of a 2016, the company hopes to ship 700,000 barrels per day, two-thirds of which would go to tankers waiting in Burrard Inlet."
This increased tanker traffic poses an insane risk to the fragile coastal ecosystems of British Columbia, home to diverse and already declining endemic species, as well as the coastal communities of British Columbia. Yet the federal government doesn't have a clear response system to handle a potential spill. In a report released late last year, the auditor-general's office identified gaps and inadequacies in Canada's system of responding to oil spills from ships.
You may or may not remember the Terra Nova Oil Spill, in November of 2004. This was an accidental spill from an extraction platform owned by Petro-Canada, caused by "mechanical failure." 170 000 liters of oil spilled off Nova Scotia, covering 60 km². It was the largest spill ever on the east coast of Canada.
The response was absurd: nothing was done. Biologists didn't arrive on site until 6 days later!
According to Ian. L. Jones, (Memorial University of Newfoundland) the conclusions that can be drawn from the Terra Nova spill:
Canadian government's short term response : inadequate
Release of information: inadequate
Monitoring of chronic oil pollution from offshore oil and gas activity in general: inadequate.
Seabirds and other migratory birds: dying, and have no clearly defined legal protection.
What were the consequences for Petro-Canada?
$120,000 to federally administered Environmental Damages Fund.
$100,000 for environmental science merit scholarships at Memorial University and its Sir Wilfred Grenfell College campus.
$70,000 fine
Petro Canada's third quarter 2005 profits: $614 million
According to Ian. L. Jones:
Fine for the Terra Nova spill: ridiculously low.
Offshore oil and gas developers: unaccountable for damage they cause.
Canada's environmental policies related to preventing damage from offshore oil and gas extraction: product of negligence and incompetence.
However, this shouldn't be news to anyone. Stephen Harper and his cronies are well known for intolerance of dissent or disagreement, trying to manipulate or silence any science that is not in line with what they want to hear, and advance corporate agendas (especially environmentally destructive resource extraction, especially mining). As far as Sun TV is concerned, if you believe in freedom of speech, then you can't really call for censorship of it. However, Fox News is now the main source of "news" for most Americans; this makes them some of the most misinformed people on the planet. Sun TV is the creation of Stephen Harper himself, and was put on a fast track towards becoming a basic inclusion as a TV channel along with other news networks; it is federally funded, while the rude, loud "interviewer" is asking why should arts and culture get any funding as opposed to pure unmitigated neoconservative propoganda; and the government had to have the CRTC pass legislation making it easier to just straight up lie on the airwaves before they could introduce the Sun News TV channel.
Harper himself said before that he doesn't like the CBC, and would rather do away with it. This was before he seriously cut their funding.
News media in Canada in general is in a bad way, and the result is that the people are not informed on issues and decisions that affect them, their neighbours, their communities, and their countries, and therefor cannot exert meaningful control over the political process as citizens in a (formerly) democratic society.
Yet we the people know full well that Harper has no trouble lying to the public (just Google search "harper lies"). And now that the election has come and gone (and there's evidence that he won because we are in drastic need of electoral reform), the people have returned to complacency, instead of taking the power back.
Happy Canada Day, a fun time was had by all.
Though it's still a fucking shame.
You may or may not remember the Terra Nova Oil Spill, in November of 2004. This was an accidental spill from an extraction platform owned by Petro-Canada, caused by "mechanical failure." 170 000 liters of oil spilled off Nova Scotia, covering 60 km². It was the largest spill ever on the east coast of Canada.
The response was absurd: nothing was done. Biologists didn't arrive on site until 6 days later!
According to Ian. L. Jones, (Memorial University of Newfoundland) the conclusions that can be drawn from the Terra Nova spill:
Canadian government's short term response : inadequate
Release of information: inadequate
Monitoring of chronic oil pollution from offshore oil and gas activity in general: inadequate.
Seabirds and other migratory birds: dying, and have no clearly defined legal protection.
What were the consequences for Petro-Canada?
$120,000 to federally administered Environmental Damages Fund.
$100,000 for environmental science merit scholarships at Memorial University and its Sir Wilfred Grenfell College campus.
$70,000 fine
Petro Canada's third quarter 2005 profits: $614 million
According to Ian. L. Jones:
Fine for the Terra Nova spill: ridiculously low.
Offshore oil and gas developers: unaccountable for damage they cause.
Canada's environmental policies related to preventing damage from offshore oil and gas extraction: product of negligence and incompetence.
However, this shouldn't be news to anyone. Stephen Harper and his cronies are well known for intolerance of dissent or disagreement, trying to manipulate or silence any science that is not in line with what they want to hear, and advance corporate agendas (especially environmentally destructive resource extraction, especially mining). As far as Sun TV is concerned, if you believe in freedom of speech, then you can't really call for censorship of it. However, Fox News is now the main source of "news" for most Americans; this makes them some of the most misinformed people on the planet. Sun TV is the creation of Stephen Harper himself, and was put on a fast track towards becoming a basic inclusion as a TV channel along with other news networks; it is federally funded, while the rude, loud "interviewer" is asking why should arts and culture get any funding as opposed to pure unmitigated neoconservative propoganda; and the government had to have the CRTC pass legislation making it easier to just straight up lie on the airwaves before they could introduce the Sun News TV channel.
Harper himself said before that he doesn't like the CBC, and would rather do away with it. This was before he seriously cut their funding.
News media in Canada in general is in a bad way, and the result is that the people are not informed on issues and decisions that affect them, their neighbours, their communities, and their countries, and therefor cannot exert meaningful control over the political process as citizens in a (formerly) democratic society.
Yet we the people know full well that Harper has no trouble lying to the public (just Google search "harper lies"). And now that the election has come and gone (and there's evidence that he won because we are in drastic need of electoral reform), the people have returned to complacency, instead of taking the power back.
Happy Canada Day, a fun time was had by all.
Though it's still a fucking shame.
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