Sandra Finley

2008-05-30 (3) Police tactics in Montebello video-tape, input and response. When corporations make their wants known it is called “lobbying”. When citizens make their wants known it is called “protest”.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
May 302008
 

Continuation …

POLICE TACTICS IN MONTEBELLO VIDEO-TAPE, INPUT AND RESPONSE 

Dialogue in response to  2007-08  WATCH: Montebello, Police provoke Violence at SPP protest

Through Gloria’s questions about the need to support the RCMP I am able to further develop my thoughts.  Thank-you Gloria.

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

I (Sandra) have been following the SPP developments for a couple of years.

There has been other footage of the policemen who posed as protestors.

Their purpose is to turn the protest into a violent event to give the media footage to discredit the protestors.  Write them off as a bunch of violent and unreasonable people.

Industry has paid, full-time, professional lobbyists who have direct access to the people who make the decisions in Government.   All that citizens have is a right to speak up.

When corporations make their wants known it is called “lobbying”.   When citizens make their wants known it is called “protest”.

I do not support the SPP.  It is a corporate-driven agenda that is about Canadian water and energy.  The people making the decisions are corporation executives, Bush, Harper and the Mexican Prime Minister.  That is not right.

If we are going to sell water and energy to the USA, that decision needs to be fully debated in the House of Commons.

At one point I was going to be in Ottawa at the time of the protests.  Had that worked out I fully intended to protest in whatever way I could.  In addition to the street protestors there were “educational” meetings in Ottawa.  “Educational” meetings tend to not get covered by the mainstream media.  People are not even aware of the SPP.  They are becoming more so.

But only because of the activists.  Were it not for them, we would all be in the dark.

These are very serious issues.  I will fight every alignment of Canada with the American administration that I can.  I believe that George Bush will eventually be taken to the international courts for War Crimes – crimes against humanity.  The damage that administration has done globally is an atrocity.  The lies, corruption and debt creation of that administration already has serious repercussions around the world. Large numbers of people, Americans included, are in for an increasingly tough ride.  With wise leadership, we might have been able to work our way peacefully through the challenges that face us.

I meet and talk with the Peace activists.  Every one of them that I have met is an informed person who is dedicated to community service.  They work tirelessly; a small number of them have positions that pay them a salary.

That salary is ploughed back into the organizations, the after-hours meetings, and the weekend work.

The Montebello video of the police disguised as protestors trying to create mayhem, is real.  As I say, I have respect for the protestors and would have joined them.  I know some of them personally.  Maude Barlow was there.  I have heard her speak – she is amazing. I have worked in small conference with her – she is as humble, kind and respectful as you could ever want a person to be.  Her dedication and persistence and accomplishment over the years is without rival.

Protestors are given short shrift by the media.  I think of the three scientists who blew the whistle on Monsanto’s attempted million-dollar bribery of Health Canada officials.  One of them, Michelle Brill-Edwards attended the Prevent Cancer Now Conference in Ottawa.  The Conference was relatively small.  The attendees were together at presentations and in workshops.  Many stayed in the same dormitory.  People ate together. … You will not meet a more genuine, kinder, thoughtful person than Michelle Brill-Edwards.  She spoke up and stayed the line.  As a consequence, she lost her job.  She should be a hero.  She’s not.  Her name is treated with suspicion because she refused to go along, because she helped to expose the million-dollar attempted bribery.

When Chad Kister from the USA was here, I heard his story about the peaceful protests in Washington that coincided with the Seattle protests at the World Trade meetings.  He is a peaceful person.  He joined the protests in a peaceful way.  The same tactics were used by the police as at Montebello.  He was rounded up and put in jail.  He had broken ribs as a consequence.  There was tear gas, etc.  Fortunately, someone video-taped Chad.  The video-tape was presented at his Court hearing.  He was acquitted and the Government was ordered to pay him $66,000 in compensation. (at that time and in US dollars it was a larger amount of money than it is today)

It is public protest that will stop the abuse.  If not challenged, the abuse will only escalate.

Whitewash of the police role is not helpful.  Just as it is not helpful to hide addiction or child abuse in a family.  When it is “outed” it can be dealt with.  Escalating spirals can be arrested.

It is a painful process, but the alternative is far more painful and destructive.

I know there are excellent people in the police forces.  They become demoralized if they don’t have support for the needed changes.  The support has to come from us, as I see it.

I am very concerned about the under-mining of the rule of law.  Tactics such as those used at Montebello only serve to make the population ungovernable.

Respect for the police declines.  Not a good state to be in.  The police forces have to recover ground they have lost.

As with addiction and abuse within a family, the only way it will be dealt with is if it’s exposed.  The ball is in their court.  It’s up to them whether they respond appropriately which is to clean up their act.  The good people inside the forces need to be part of the clean-up.  Their good name is being sullied by bad apples.  The same as the name of good priests being sullied by bad priests.

The turning of the blind eye for year after year eventually led to the downfall of some of the established churches.  We don’t have that luxery – we can afford to lose established churches.  We cannot afford to lose a just and responsible police force.

====

Response to above, from Gloria:

My point in all of this … and yes, I concede that what you have written has some VERY valid points……

MY point is that yes the RCMP needs to be held accountable, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!  They have good and bad people within the force just like every other work force.

They do not deserve to have a target painted on their backs (so to speak) because of careless comments such as those Mike Webster made… My word, he didnt’ need to know more of the story that the 25 second video was enough???? As if he knew they were all criminals with tasers, as if he knew this beforehand! Unless, of course, he’s been misrepresented by the media, which is entirely possible.

Who do people making comments like this about the RCMP, who do they think is gonna protect them if they discredit the RCMP to the point of meaninglessness, tying their hands and then expecting them to still be a force to be reckoned with?? There are already not enough people to do the jobs that are available, it simply doesn’t make sense to make the police force as one of the ‘undesirable’ places to work!!! So, to my way of thinking, seek to FIX the d*mn problem within the RCMP, don’t just condemn it!

I am with you on a lot of the battles you are taking on, but I simply had to speak out against aligning myself (by association with you) with this Mike Webster. Or anything else that seeks to destroy some of Canada’s institutions, warts and all. I would feel the same way about Canada’s Hockey League going to the states, if that had not already happened while I was snoozing at my post.

2008-05-30 Bill C-51: Genetically engineered plants, not labeled, become “Natural Health” Products. To the extent that we become “ungovernable” we create the conditions for calling in the police and the troops.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Genetically Modified, Health, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
May 302008
 

Forget about making this part of the “Connection between state of police and America wants our water”. 

It’s a report back on an earlier email about Bill C-51. 

To the extent that we become “ungovernable” we create the conditions for calling in the police and the troops.  We protest when we see that the public interest is not being served. 

The more that the Government promotes the corporate interest, the more we protest. 

If through the media we are portrayed as violent, as radicals, as weird, as “ungovernable”, the population is conditioned for the calling in of the troops.  They will accept that it was absolutely necessary to bring in military forces. 

Following my attendance at the Government-initiated meeting on Bill C-51 on Monday this week, using Bill C-51 as example of more protest:

SUBJECT:  Our healthcare system is not “free”.  We pay for it through taxation.  It is dominated by the drug/pharmaceutical companies.  

THE PUBLIC INTERST, IF DEFINED: 

–   access to affordable, even free healthcare (free as in the model of Native healers). 

–   the ability of the individual to learn ways to self-heal.  

Those are two fundamental elements of the public interest that need to be protected, which is the job of Government. 

My experience with an active case of tuberculosis (identified before it became contagious) offers some lessons. 

I know we must find alternatives to the drug-company approach to disease: 

1.  The development of resistant organisms will eventually wipe out large swaths of people, simultaneously creating a break-down in civil society.  In South Africa people with resistant tuberculosis are being quarantined in prisons with armed guards to keep them there.  It’s necessary to stop the spread of the resistant TB.  I have the news report but have not circulated it to you. 

2.  Meanwhile the pharmaceutical companies are in a frenzied fight to put the first “cure” on the market that can kill the resistant strains of TB.  The Government of Nigeria has launched a law suit against pharmaceutical companies who have used African people as human guinea pigs to test the new TB drugs.  The experimental drugs have killed the human guinea pigs as well as the TB.  

3.  Corporate-driven development of remedies (which aren’t really remedies at all) guarantees that the drugs will be expensive.  People in developing countries simply will not be able to afford the drugs.

We in Canada and other countries MIGHT be able to afford them.  But escalating costs of the medi-care system mean that education, infrastructure, government debt, and social services are financially starved.  In the end … ?  What we are doing doesn’t make sense. 

My case was unique.  It cannot be applied holus-bolus to everyone.  But there is an important lesson in it. It’s a lesson that, like other alternatives and innovations, threatens the drug industry profits.  

I overcame a case of active TB (identified before it became contagious) through alternatives to drugs.  I didn’t take the 9-month drug protocol, because:

–  it would not address the underlying question:  30% of the population is walking around with the TB organism.  It never becomes active in their body.  Why didn’t my immune system contain the organism?

–  if given a chance and the right support my body has the ability to heal itself.  The drugs are highly toxic and compromise my immune system.

–  I wish to be part of the solution.  I know about the development of resistant organisms.  It is a suicidal path for the human species.  A no-brainer.  In my position I had the responsibility to try the alternative.

Nobody with a vested interest in the status quo will conduct research to see if alternatives work.  IN GENERAL the medical profession either doesn’t want to hear my story, or they are defensive or somewhat antagonistic.  Their status of “authority” is challenged.  EXCEPTION: Dr. Hoeppner who was head of TB control was different.  He was supportive and worked with me as I worked with the alternatives.  He is a rare breed and unfortunately, now retired.

–  The overload of drugs use collectively by our society are getting into our water supplies through urine.  We flush down the toilet and then take drinking water from the same source.  We do not have protocols and technology to identify and remove the soup-mix of drugs and chemicals we pee or empty down the drain.  It is grossly stupid.  But there it is.  We know about the research that shows the feminization of aquatic life downstream from sewage treatment plants.  Again, we MUST find alternatives to the drugs and chemicals.  Reduce the load of them in our water supplies. Poison in means poison out.  Disease and developmental trends aren’t accidental.   

But you can see the tremendous threat to the Drug Companies.  

In the area of “Natural Health Products”, I attended the meeting on Bill C-51 with Government Officials. 

And asked the question: 

Is there a separate section in the draft legislation for genetically engineered plants used for health purposes? 

Answer:  No 

Which makes them “Natural Health Products”.  Period.  The genetic derivation of Natural Health Products will not be labeled or known, same as is the case with wheat (bread) in Canada, following the earlier registration of BASF’s herbicide-tolerant mutagenesis wheat. You cannot buy canola oil in Canada that does not have genetically modified canola in it – there is no requirement to label.  

In the corporate interest I may not know what I eat.  And now, through definitions (or lack of) in Bill C-51, genetically engineered plants become “Natural Health Products”.  

The genetic engineering of animals, trees, etc. proceeds outside the realm of public scrutiny.  In spite of the fact that we are the ones who bear the brunt of the problems created.  The drug and chemical companies (who are the biotech agriculture which includes plants for “natural” remedy) aren’t the ones who will pay to get the poisons out of the water. 

—– 

The consultations on Bill C-51 are with people whose interests are alternative approaches to health.  The question of how to  handle genetically engineered plants from bio-pharma hasn’t come up.  

People see “products”.  I don’t think they make the connection that with “Natural Health Products” the “pills” are often herbs and plants.  Which is why the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (Agriculture Canada) had a representative at the meeting. 

The line between food and plants grown for health purposes is blurred.  We begin to overlap into agriculture.  Agriculture is Monsanto and the other chemical companies.  The lesson from biotech food crops is that the huge corporate interest trumps the protection of the public interest.  They have made “ownership” of plants an issue.  The Government of Canada, in spite of admonitions in two different Supreme Court cases has not altered the Patent Act which doesn’t distinguish mechanical inventions from life forms.  (Duh?) 

It is ironic that the Government officials repeatedly say, in relation to Bill C-51 that the existing legislation is terribly out-dated.  It’s old, not designed for today’s world and has to be changed.  Simultaneously the Supreme Court has told them to change the Patent Act which was designed for mechanical inventions.  It was written in an age when the thought of engineering and patent of life-forms could not be imagined.  That basic question has not been addressed.  It is very convenient for the industrythat it goes unaddressed. 

The Government officials said that they had encountered anger at and a lack-of-trust in Health Canada.  My response is that until Legislation does actually serve to protect the public interest the anger, frustration and lack-of-trust will persist.   

We can probably anticipate a multi-million dollar advertising campaign now, to convince us that Health Canada serves the public interest.  

I am beginning to think that the policy of “public-private-partnerships”, P3’s, is making this country ungovernable.  Except by some other form of governance.  It will be government by the military (fascist) unless we drive the corporations out of government, where they should not be in the first place. 

So what is the story with plants that are genetically engineered by the pharmaceutical/chemical/biotech complex of corporations?   

Just as Monsanto responded some time ago to the burgeoning interest in organic foods by buying organic companies, the Pharmaceutical companies have responded to the move away from drugs to “alternatives”: they are developing “biotech” plants for health purposes.  

A point I wanted to make and did at the meeting, but not fully:

What is the context of this legislation, Bill C-51?  

Billions of dollars in profits are at stake.  The biotech corporations have made “Ownership” of plants an issue.   What are the implications, if for example, I want to eat a root that the Native people use for healing purposes?  Or take St John’s Wort?  Or use a Chinese herb?  …  draw the parallel. We know from experience.  We fought hard and successfully to stop the introduction of Monsanto’s herbicide-tolerant wheat. (It is not smart to develop our food supply by the criterion that it can be sprayed by chemicals and survive.  Nor is it smart to hasten the development of resistant organisms.)  We stopped Monsanto’s wheat.  MEANWHILE the Government registered BASF’s muta-genesis herbicide-tolerant wheat.   

The Government officials told the audience, (and these particular people are genuine in their intent), that under the Natural Health Products Act (C-51) they want full disclosure of all the ingredients in the products so that the public knows what they are getting.  Which is laudable.   

But there is no labeling requirement when it comes to the interests of the biotechnology corporations.  Through the failure to make bioteched plants a separate category of “Natural Health Product”, these plants become “natural”.  You lose your choice if you don’t have information.  “Full disclosure of the ingredients” means that genetically engineered plants would be identifiable. The same lack of disclosure exists and is defended by the Government for the chemical corporations:  they are required to label only the “active” ingredients in chemicals.  Even though the surfactants, etc. might be more toxic than the active ingredient.  

Some “Natural Health Products” are a plant version of a pharmaceutical drug.

I think we need to at least debate the desirability of separate legislation and regulations for Natural Health Products and for pharmaceutical drugs.

On the surface at least, the same regulations and enforcement (seizure, etc.) are desirable for both.  

There should be full disclosure of the ingredients in Natural Health Products. There should be full disclosure of the ingredients in pharmaceutical drugs.  There should be full disclosure of genetically engineered ingredients. There should be full disclosure in chemical products.  

The labeling requirements for Natural Health Products should be the same as for pharmaceutical drugs. 

They apply a different policy in other parts of its operations:

–  Health Canada regulates the chemical companies through the PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Agency).  Only the “active” ingredients have to be listed on the labels.  

Health Canada has resisted all attempts to get full disclosure on the labels.  Doctors with patients who have been poisoned by a chemical need to know all the ingredients.  They most often cannot obtain that information in a timely fashion, if at all.

2008-05-30 Protest at Dalhousie University, Lockheed Martin’s “donation” (2)

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Resource depletion (water in USA), Take back the University  No Responses »
May 302008
 

Continuation …

From  CONTENTS:

6.  PROTEST.  LOCKHEED MARTIN CONTRIBUTION TO DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY.

THROUGH THE TERMS OF a CONTRACT WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, LOCKHEED MARTIN IS REQUIRED TO INVEST IN CANADA.  The American military-industrial complex seeps across Canada.  We soon have an economy that is dependent upon going to war, as is the American economy.  (A few years ago the figure was that 45% of the American economy is rooted in the American war machine.  Of course they have to wage war.)

A contract signed by the Govt of Canada with Lockheed Martin in January of this year requires Lockheed to put money into businesses in western Canada. So, not only is our economy headed toward the same dependency upon war, but our educational institutions are further along in dependency upon scurrilous and corrupt corporations who have loads of money, much of it public money.

They invest in the community, wonderful souls that they are.

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

Received:  Fri May 16, 2008 8:54 AM

SUBJECT:  Protest against Lockheed Martin funding at Dalhousie today 

 

A brief report on the Lockheed Martin demonstration this morning outside the Rowe Management building at Dalhousie at 8:15 am:

Sarah and Angela stood outside with their banner “Voice of Women for Peace”

Kyle handed out leaflets explaining our action

Chris stood in solidarity

I stood outside with a sign hanging from around my neck “Dalhousie say NO to Lockheed Martin’s money. Lockheed = EVIL, DEATH” and holding a  sign “Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest WEAPONS manufacturer.  Dalhousie don’t take their money. Say no to Lockheed.  Lockheed’s $ Immoral.”

The management building’s lobby is all glass so I faced them with my signs as they had a reception and shouted a bit and they couldn’t miss me. Then, they all went into classroom 1009 for the announcement.

Once they were all there and there was no security, I went into the  classroom and stood just behind the podium with my signs as they all spoke:

President of Dal , Jim Prentice the Minister of Industry, the VP of Lockheed Martin, and the two physics profs.

The Minister’s assistant whispered to me to step aside while the Minister spoke and whispered back “no, I’m not moving”.   The Dean of the Faculty of Management David Wheeler came up and whispered in my ear that I made my point and I whispered again “I’m not leaving”

My almost 4-year old son Sam came with me and held my hand and walked about as the announcements were made.

I planted myself firmly behind the podium silently holding my signs until it ended.

Alexis asked a pointed question that the Minister and President never directly answered. Then they wouldn’t accept anymore questions.

Unfortunately Isaac didn’t get to ask his question in the classroom – thanks to Isaac for letting us know about the announcement and preparing the information below.

All the media were there and they took a ton of pictures etc…

Then, as the Lockheed Martin VP left the building to his chauffered car I told him what I thought of his company!

Watch the news and check out the papers tomorrow.

***********

The Announcement>

Dalhousie University is announcing a multi-million dollar research contract with Lockheed-Martin. This contract is the result of  government policy, which requires a foreign company to invest in Canada before it can enter into a government contract. (How does the  Industrial and Regional Benefits  (IRB) policy work? – (Link no longer valid:  http://www.strategis.gc.ca/epic/site/ad-ad.nsf/en/ad03661e.html)

Location: Room 1009, Ken Rowe Management Building, Dalhousie University

Time: 8:30 am – 9:05 am Announcement

9:05 am – 9:20 am Media Session

Who is Lockheed-Martin?

Lockheed-Martin is the world’s largest defense contractor. They are the single largest supplier of military hardware to the United States Department of Defense. Military hardware produced by Lockheed-Martin includes:>

  • the Hellfire, an anti-tank missile that has recently been mounted to unmanned drones (ex. predator UAV) and used to kill “persons of interest.”
  • the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a long range fighter specifically designed for ground attack
  • the F-22 Raptor, the most advanced fighter aircraft, guaranteeing US air supremacy
  • the F-117 Nighthawk, the Stealth Bomber.
  • the Polaris, Poseidon and Trident series of submarine launched, nuclear tipped ballistic missiles
  •  the Titan II silo launched, nuclear tipped, intercontinental ballistic missile
  • the F-16 Falcon strike fighter
  • they also provide US ground forces with a variety of rocket and missile artillery

In addition to providing military hardware Lockheed-Martin acts as a contractor for the US government doing classified work for a number of  government agencies including the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. Lockheed-Martin products have been used in virtually every major conflict of the past 30 years, including the invasion of Panama, the bombing of the former Yugoslavia, the war in Afghanistan and both Gulf Wars.

Lockheed-Martin supplied military hardware to both sides of the Falklands War.

Why are we here?

By accepting money from Lockheed-Martin, Dalhousie University is associated with this company. This association enables Lockheed-Martin to use their work at Dalhousie to distract from their military activities. Although the company frequently cites their work with civilian organizations such as NASA, these activities  encompass only 8% of their revenue – the other 91% is in military contracts.

Furthermore, while the federal government considers today’s announcement to be a success, the process that lead to this announcement should worry everyone, even if they have no problem with  defense contractors. The requirement that a foreign company “invest in Canada” before the federal government will enter into a contract with them results in overpayment, companies use taxpayer dollars from this overpayment with no public oversight to further their own agenda. In the case of Lockheed-Martin, this agenda is public relations. The improvement in Lockheed-Martin’s public image comes at the cost of Dalhousie’s credibility.

********

2008-05-30 Connection between state of police and America wants our water

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Genetically Modified, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Resource depletion (water in USA), Water  No Responses »
May 302008
 

These are threads that need to be drawn together:

1.    2008-05-23   Water:  Canadians should be SERIOUSLY CONCERNED  about Americans who want Water,  Robert F Kennedy Jr,   Canadian Press.     A short, concise article.

2.    2005-11-11   Americans will be AGGRESSIVELY after our Water, Peter Lougheed, Former Premier of Alberta.  The Globe & Mail

The reality is that fresh water is more valuable than crude oil.

3.     2008-02-14   Canada-U.S. Troop Exchange Agreement,,   “Civil Assistance Plan”.  

 In event of “civil emergency”, the Govt of Canada calls in the American troops.

4.     2008-11-28   Follow-up on Montebello, Police provoke Violence at SPP protest (2007)

It is VERY important that Canadians know about this.   At one time it was common for protests to turn violent.

The media would cover the violence;  citizens were then fearful of protesting.  There was a real stigma against protest.  The MESSAGE  of the protesters would be lost completely in the media coverage which centred on the violence.   “Montebello” was a significant turning point in Canada.

The Montebello video shows without doubt that police were trained, disguised and deployed for the purpose of turning legitimate peaceful protest violent.   The POLICE (Quebec) were the PROVOCATEURS.  THEY would have been the ones responsible for inciting violence, had savvy protestors not pulled down their masks and caught their faces on video.

4.    UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS DO WE BECOME UNGOVERNABLE?

What are the consequences of becoming ungovernable?

It happens over time.  A natural evolution when the Governments put Corporate Interest ahead of the Public Interest.

“PUBLIC-PRIVATE-PARTNERSHIPS” (P3’S).

Of course, we will become ungovernable;  we see the growing “Wrong”.   It takes us a while to see what’s going on.  The light is dawning fast now.  Which means an acceleration in civil unrest and disobedience.  It’s not what I or you want.

But we will be identified as the reason for the “civil unrest”.   It will not be said that the P3’s are the reason for the unrest.   Those are Corporate Interests that will be protected.   By our own police forces.

The more powerful we become in our efforts to protect that upon which we are dependent for survival, the more assured we are that schemes will be hatched, propaganda will be rife,  there will be an “event”  – – and!  Bless me!   The American troops will be called upon.  Canadians are not different from Iraqis.   Indeed, many of us are “terrorists”, just like some Iraquis.  Or so we have been characterized, for example, by members of the Harper Government – environmental terrorists.

We need a terrorist badge!   Might as well self-identify, save them the trouble.

 

5.    PROTEST.  LOCKHEED MARTIN CONTRIBUTION TO DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY.

THROUGH THE TERMS OF a CONTRACT WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, LOCKHEED MARTIN IS REQUIRED TO INVEST IN CANADA.

The American military-industrial complex seeps across Canada.  We soon have an economy that is dependent upon going to war, as is the American economy.  (A few years ago the figure was that 45% of the American economy is rooted in the American war machine.  Of course they have to wage war.)

A contract signed by the Govt with Lockheed Martin in January of this year requires Lockheed to put money into businesses in western Canada.

Not only is our economy headed toward the same dependency upon war, but our educational institutions (e.g. Dalhousie University) are further along in dependency upon scurrilous and corrupt corporations who have loads of money, much of it public money (the public pays for the contracts between the corporation and the Governmentln it’s nthe only reason the corporation has excessive “profits” to “gift” to the University).

(UPDATE:  Following Dalhousie, the University of Saskatchewan and First Nations educational institutions have been added to Lockheed Martin’s list.)

 

6.    BILL MAKES CANADIANS MORE UNGOVERNABLE  

Genetically-engineered plants are now “Natural” for regulatory purposes.  The legislation serves corporate interests, once again.  There are big protests over the bill.  Just one more piece of legislation.   The Government moves the country step-by-step toward a tipping point.

 

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

COMMENTARY

We are naïve, lazy and foolish if we think that the tactics used by the American Administration to get what they want in third world countries will not, and are not, being applied in Canada.  To get water to make money from.

To get oil to make money from.

The number of countries in which they have had their way is long, listed in other postings.  Iraq, the Congo, Central and South American countries . . .  Buy the political leaders.  Murder the natural leaders.  Use the military.  Use nuclear weapons.  Contravene international law.  No means of deception and treachery are too low.  There are no moral standards.

The warnings about the American interest in Canadian water that come to us from Robert F Kennedy Jr and from Peter Lougheed are only two of many.  Maude Barlow has written and been mobilizing people on this issue for more than a decade.

Andrew Nikiforuk has done a documentation of other analyses that lead to the same conclusion.

We have circulated the news that the two largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S., Lake Mead and Lake Powell behind the Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams on the Colorado River have a 50/50 chance of being bone dry in 13 years and a 50/50 chance that the hydro-electric power generation capability will have evaporated in under 10 years.  Millions of people and industry in Utah, Arizona and California, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas are dependent upon these disappearing water supplies.

Yes, there’s gold to be made in water scarcity.  And the corporate interest in that gold is not the public interest.

NAFTA, the SPP – – trade in water.  Access to water to make money.

(SPP = Security and Prosperity Partnership between the USA, Canada and Mexico corporate elites in collaboration with Bush, Harper and the President of Mexico.  It’s about water, energy, “harmonization” and “integration” with the USA.)

It’s not just water and energy.  It’s also the military.  Through the Troop Exchange Agreement signed on February 14, 2008 the Government of Canada will call in the American Troops in the event of “civil emergency” in Canada.

If we do not willingly give up our water to corporate and Big Government interests to sell like oil and gas, to make huge profits from, then how might they gain access?

Protests at the Montebello SPP meeting last August.  The Montebello video is of DELIBERATE attempts by police officers DISGUISED AS PROTESTORS to turn peaceful demonstrations against the SPP,  into violence.

The Montebello video circulated earlier this week is unbelievable.  Other people video-taped and circulated their own footage of the same protest.  Those videos show the same thing.

There is growing civil unrest in Canada, e.g. Montebello. Then one thousand people out to a public meeting in B.C. over the selling off of river rights to corporations.

You can see from the Montebello video that police have been trained on how to turn peaceful protest into violent protest.  LIKE IT OR NOT, they have also been ASSIGNED to the job.   It is deliberate;  they would have received their pay cheque for their on-the-job hours.   (I wonder what propaganda a police officer has to be fed, in order to be a party to clearly illegal police activity?   I wonder if they have any idea of what the Nuremberg Trials were about?)

It’s not a far step from “civil unrest” to “civil emergency”.  The latter can be CREATED through manipulation of a crowd of people.  It’s not hard to do.  The tactic has been used successfully for a long time, but NOT IN CANADA or so we think.  Fortunately there were astute people at Montebello who cabbaged on to the policemen who were disguised as protestors.  The police, the  “provocateurs“.

Fortunately there were video cameras.  Fortunately we can demand an enquiry.  (UPDATE:  a public enquiry was never held.)

Lockheed Martin IS the American military.  The Government of Canada out-sourced parts of the 2006 Canadian Census to Lockheed Martin.  The Canadian Military gave a $56 million contract to Lockheed Martin to look after the health records of the Canadian Military personnel.

Lockheed Martin manufactures weapons.  We have circulated the YouTube video of the consequences of the dust from the Depleted Uranium bullets that penetrate armoured tanks turning them into incendiaries.  The fall-out and consequences are not only for the Iraqi people, but also for the returning soldiers.  The American Military Hospitals – – surprise, surprise – – don’t have the capability to test for radiation poisoning.  They deny the effects, just as they denied the effects of Agent Orange on Viet Nam veterans.  And WE give the contract for the health records of the Canadian military to Lockheed Martin???

…  what I think is this:  Peter Lockheed (former Premier of Alberta) said (in 2005) that the Americans would be AGGRESSIVELY after our water within 3 to 5 years.  I think they are already well on their way.  The American Military and its tactics are already well infiltrated into Canada through Lockheed Martin (health records of Canadian military, the Census, contracts for fighters, Lockheed contracts to Canadian companies, Lockheed donations to Dalhousie University (update:  also to the University of Saskatchewan)  to buy off its detractors) and in other ways.

The police tactics used at Montebello are nothing more than part of the groundwork.  Think of the consequences, HAD THE POLICE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN TURNING PEACEFUL PROTEST INTO VIOLENCE:

  • the Canadian public would be upset that there are violent protesters in Canada.  (There aren’t, unless police plants are successful in riling up the crowd, deliberately, tactically, strategically turning peaceful protest into violence.)
  • the media coverage would have focused solely on the violent protestors.
  • the people who will benefit from the transfer of water to the U.S. NEED Canadians to get comfortable with increased “policing” because, after all, we have these violent protestors.

The people behind the SPP (access to and saleability of Canadian water) need to have the ability to “call in the troops” because it is unlikely that we will peacefully sit by while the water becomes a commodity like oil and gas, one that we are forced to “trade” with the U.S. for money.  Maude Barlow and the Council of Canadians has spent years relentlessly educating and preparing us for this day, thank Goodness.

–  The people who want access to the water NEED us to become fearful, if they are to accomplish their agenda.  The agenda is being accomplished under the SPP, this wonderful “Partnership” for “Security and Prosperity”.

Peter Lougheed said we should be prepared.  His advice is sound, the evidence is there if we want to see it.

As I see it, at every opportunity we must challenge Government actions that transfer money and power to corporations. Those actions DIS-empower and weaken us.  The money is diverted away from strengthening our communities through education and health.  The business of Government is no longer the business of the people.  We are duped into financing corporate interests.

We have to connect with more people, to build a larger mass.  We have to get Lockheed Martin (the American Military) out of Canada.  And we can do it.

 

NOTE TO MYSELF:

2021-02-14  The New Canada Water Agency.    Includes whether through water issues it’s possible to get a handle on the distinctions between revolution, insurgency, counter-insurgency, etc.  – –  check:  the “includes” in the 2021 posting should probably be in this posting “Connection between state of police and America wants our water” or some other posting.

 

2008-05-27 The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, by Vincent Bugliosi. Excerpt published by Huffington Post

 George Bush war criminal  1 Response »
May 272008
 

(Related:   The scroll-through chronology of the international efforts to bring Bush and his cohorts to trial:     Arrest George Bush. Rule of Law essential to democracy.)

From the Huffington Post

Vincent Bugliosi received his law degree in 1964.  In his career at the L.A. County District Attorney’s office, he successfully prosecuted 105 out of 106 felony jury trials, including 21 murder convictions without a single loss.  His most famous trial, the Charles Manson case, became the basis of his classic, Helter Skelter, the biggest selling true-crime book in publishing history.

His forthcoming book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder . . .

EXCERPT:

The Legal Framework for the Prosecution

That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765

No living Homo sapiens is above the law.

(Notwithstanding our good friends and legal ancestors across the water, this is a fact that requires no citation.)

 

With respect to the position I take about the crimes of George Bush, I want to state at the outset that my motivation is not political. Although I’ve been a longtime Democrat (primarily because, unless there is some very compelling reason to be otherwise, I am always for “the little guy”), my political orientation is not rigid. For instance, I supported John McCain’s run for the presidency in 2000. More to the point, whether I’m giving a final summation to the jury or writing one of my true crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me. Therefore, my only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I have no others. This is why I can give you, the reader, a 100 percent guarantee that if a Democratic president had done what Bush did, I would be writing the same, identical piece you are about to read.

Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns.

Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That’s almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment. I mean, in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That’s just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he’d still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.

Let’s look at the way some of the leading liberal lights (and, of course, the rest of the entire nation with the exception of those few recommending impeachment) have treated the issue of punishment for Bush’s cardinal sins. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote about “the false selling of the Iraq War. We were railroaded into an unnecessary war.” Fine, I agree. Now what? Krugman just goes on to the next paragraph. But if Bush falsely railroaded the nation into a war where over 100,000 people died, including 4,000 American soldiers, how can you go on to the next paragraph as if you had been writing that Bush spent the weekend at Camp David with his wife? For doing what Krugman believes Bush did, doesn’t Bush have to be punished commensurately in some way? Are there no consequences for committing a crime of colossal proportions?

Al Franken on the David Letterman show said, “Bush lied to us to take us to war” and quickly went on to another subject, as if he was saying “Bush lied to us in his budget.”

Senator Edward Kennedy, condemning Bush, said that “Bush’s distortions misled Congress in its war vote” and “No President of the United States should employ distortion of truth to take the nation to war.” But, Senator Kennedy, if a president does this, as you believe Bush did, then what? Remember, Clinton was impeached for allegedly trying to cover up a consensual sexual affair. What do you recommend for Bush for being responsible for more than 100,000 deaths? Nothing? He shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions? If one were to listen to you talk, that is the only conclusion one could come to. But why, Senator Kennedy, do you, like everyone else, want to give Bush this complete free ride?

The New York Times, in a June 17, 2004, editorial, said that in selling this nation on the war in Iraq, “the Bush administration convinced a substantial majority of Americans before the war that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to 9/ 11, . . . inexcusably selling the false Iraq-Al Qaeda claim to Americans.” But gentlemen, if this is so, then what? The New York Times didn’t say, just going on, like everyone else, to the next paragraph, talking about something else.

In a November 15, 2005, editorial, the New York Times said that “the president and his top advisers . . . did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It’s obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein’s weapons and his terrorist connections.” But if it’s “obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans” in taking them to a war that tens of thousands of people have paid for with their lives, now what? No punishment? If not, under what theory? Again, you’re just going to go on to the next paragraph?

I’m not going to go on to the next unrelated paragraph.

In early December of 2005, a New York Times-CBS nationwide poll showed that the majority of Americans believed Bush “intentionally misled” the nation to promote a war in Iraq. A December 11, 2005, article in the Los Angeles Times, after citing this national poll, went on to say that because so many Americans believed this, it might be difficult for Bush to get the continuing support of Americans for the war. In other words, the fact that most Americans believed Bush had deliberately misled them into war was of no consequence in and of itself. Its only consequence was that it might hurt his efforts to get support for the war thereafter. So the article was reporting on the effect of the poll findings as if it was reporting on the popularity, or lack thereof, of Bush’s position on global warming or immigration. Didn’t the author of the article know that Bush taking the nation to war on a lie (if such be the case) is the equivalent of saying he is responsible for well over 100,000 deaths? One would never know this by reading the article.

If Bush, in fact, intentionally misled this nation into war, what is the proper punishment for him? Since many Americans routinely want criminal defendants to be executed for murdering only one person, if we weren’t speaking of the president of the United States as the defendant here, to discuss anything less than the death penalty for someone responsible for over 100,000 deaths would on its face seem ludicrous.** But we are dealing with the president of the United States here.

On the other hand, the intensity of rage against Bush in America has been such (it never came remotely this close with Clinton because, at bottom, there was nothing of any real substance to have any serious rage against him for) that if I heard it once I heard it ten times that “someone should put a bullet in his head.” That, fortunately, is just loose talk, and even more fortunately not the way we do things in America. In any event, if an American jury were to find Bush guilty of first degree murder, it would be up to them to decide what the appropriate punishment should be, one of their options being the imposition of the death penalty.

Although I have never heard before what I am suggesting — that Bush be prosecuted for murder in an American courtroom — many have argued that “Bush should be prosecuted for war crimes” (mostly for the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. But for all intents and purposes this cannot be done.

Even assuming, at this point, that Bush is criminally responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 people in the Iraq war, under federal law he could only be prosecuted for the deaths of the 4,000 American soldiers killed in the war. No American court would have jurisdiction to prosecute him for the one hundred and some thousand Iraqi deaths since these victims not only were not Americans, but they were killed in a foreign nation, Iraq. Despite their nationality, if they had been killed here in the States, there would of course be jurisdiction.

**Indeed, Bush himself, ironically, would be the last person who would quarrel with the proposition that being guilty of mass murder (even one murder, by his lights) calls for the death penalty as opposed to life imprisonment. As governor of Texas, Bush had the highest execution rate of any governor in American history: He was a very strong proponent of the death penalty who even laughingly mocked a condemned young woman who begged him to spare her life (“Please don’t kill me,” Bush mimicked her in a magazine interview with journalist Tucker Carlson), and even refused to commute the sentence of death down to life imprisonment for a young man who was mentally retarded (although as president he set aside the entire prison sentence of his friend Lewis “Scooter” Libby), and had a broad smile on his face when he announced in his second presidential debate with Al Gore that his state, Texas, was about to execute three convicted murderers.

In Bush’s two terms as Texas governor, he signed death warrants for an incredible 152 out of 153 executions against convicted murderers, the majority of whom only killed one single person. The only death sentence Bush commuted was for one of the many murders that mass murderer Henry Lucas had been convicted of. Bush was informed that Lucas had falsely confessed to this particular murder and was innocent, his conviction being improper. So in 152 out of 152 cases, Bush refused to show mercy even once, finding that not one of the 152 convicted killers should receive life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Bush’s perfect 100 percent execution rate is highly uncommon even for the most conservative law-and-order governors.

 

2008-05-26 Lockheed Martin Census: Are Canadians Contravening the Global Ban on Anti-Personnel Landmines? CPPIB

 Culture and Ethics, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
May 262008
 

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=41743.0

« on: May 26, 2008, 09:06:36 PM »
  

Are Canadians Contravening the Global Ban on Anti-Personnel Landmines?

By Richard Sanders, Editor, Press for Conversion!; Coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade

Because of its investments in corporations linked to the manufacture of anti-personnel landmines, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) may be contravening the global treaty to ban these weapons. Despite this, Liberal MP and chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Defence and Veterans Affairs, David Pratt, defended CPP investments in war industries saying that critics are opening themselves to ridicule.

The community paper Nepean This Week (circulation 43,000) ran a front-page article on November 21, 2003, about CPP investments in military contractors. The article was based on research recently published by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT). COAT’s report, “Operation Embedded Complicity: Canada, Playing its Part in the Business of War” reveals that Canadians are unwittingly being forced to invest their retirement savings in many of the world’s leading producers of major weapons systems.

Included among CPP investments are corporations making a variety of anti-personnel cluster munitions, incendiary bombs, field artillery weapons and cruise missiles, as well the prime contractors that build dozens of U.S. fighter, attack and bomber aircraft, warships, armoured vehicles, missile launchers and battle tanks. All of these weapons and “delivery systems,” were used in the latest U.S.-led war against Iraq, a war that Canadians generally opposed and the Canadian government is supposed to have boycotted.

CPP investments even include the world’s highest-ranking weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, which still produces components for CBU-89 “Gator” anti-personnel landmines. This weapon, and other anti-personnel landmines, has been banned by 100 countries, thanks in part to well-publicised, highly-praised efforts by Mr. Pratt’s Liberal Party.

In the Nepean This Week article, Nepean-Carleton’s Liberal MP, David Pratt, defended CPP investments in the world’s biggest war-related industries. Mr. Pratt, chair of the Parliamentary standing committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs was reported to have “said these defence firms are legitimate corporations as worthy of investment as any other.  ‘Is anybody suggesting that we not have an army?’ he said. ‘If so then fine, but they’re leaving themselves open to ridicule.’ Recent events have proven that North America needs a military, and ‘people who think otherwise are completely irresponsible.’”

Pratt’s comments are a facile attempt to create a “red herring” to deflect attention away from the embarrassing fact that millions of Canadians are being coerced by their government to invest in the world’s top weapons industries, and profit from a war that they did not support. Contrary to Mr. Pratt’s comments this, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not Canada should have an army. Investing the retirement savings of Canadians in U.S. corporations that build dozens of the world’s deadliest war machines for exclusive use by the U.S. military has rather more to do with providing the Pentagon with the high-tech tools it needs to wage U.S. wars abroad.

There Oughta be a Law! Investing in Anti-Personnel Landmines, and worse.

Current CPP investments in Lockheed Martin — the world’s biggest weapons manufacturer — have a market value of about $5.5 million. Lockheed Martin sold almost US$100 billion worth of military equipment to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) between 1996 and 2002. It has been the number one contractor to the U.S. DoD every year since 1996.

Lockheed Martin currently has contracts with the U.S. Air Force to produce Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD) for CBU-89 “Gator” anti-personnel landmines. These WCMDs are specifically designed to enhance the accurate emplacement of anti-personnel minefields by “free-fall” cluster bombs dropped from U.S. fighter/attack and bomber aircraft.

Each of these 1000-pound “Gator” Cluster Bomb Units (CBUs) contains 72 anti-tank and 22 anti-personnel landmines. According to a military think tank website (www.globalsecurity.org) this weapon uses a “fragmenting case warhead triggered by trip wires.” Each CBU-89 quickly scatters its 94 landmines over a 200 by 650 metre area.

These bombs are dropped from at least six different kinds of U.S. warplanes: A-10 “Warthog,” B-52 “Stratofortress,” B-1B “Lancer,” B-2 “Spirit,” F-15 “Eagle” and the F-16 “Fighting Falcon.” These are among the deadliest weapons delivery systems ever produced. They “deliver” a bewildering variety of weapons with far greater destructive capabilities than this one landmine.

We should not be surprised to learn that the Canada Pension Plan has invested in the U.S. prime contractors that are responsible for producing five of the six warplanes that “deliver” CBU-89 anti-personnel landmines: Rockwell (B-1B), Northrop Grumman (B-2), Boeing (B-52 and F-15) and Lockheed Martin (F-16). (The sixth warplane, the A-10 “Warthog,” was built by Fairchild Republic, a company that cannot receive CPP investments because it no longer exists.)

Lockheed Martin is also known to have helped produce three other types of anti-personnel landmines, including the:
(1) Area Denial Anti-personnel Mine (ADAM) (“delivered” by 155mm howitzers),
(2) M74 (delivered by a Ground Emplaced Mine Scattering System, which is simply a trailer pulled by a truck or Armoured Personnel Carrier) and
(3) CBU-78 (like the CBU-89, this “dumb bomb” is airdropped from U.S. warplanes).
For more data on landmine producers see Human Rights Watch website.
For more on weapons delivery systems and their prime contractors see the Federation of American Scientists’ website.

The fact that Canadians are being induced to invest in Lockheed Martin may mean that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and even Canada’s Liberal government, are contravening the Global Landmines Treaty. By forcing Canadians to invest in and profit from Lockheed Martin, the Liberal government is breaking the spirit, if not the letter, of this highly-acclaimed international treaty which is now part of Canadian law.

The general obligation of the landmine treaty states:
“(1) Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances
a) To use anti-personnel mines;
b) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, anti-personnel mines;
c) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.”

The Liberal Party gained tremendous public admiration and respect for its promotion of this treaty. It is therefore extremely hypocritical that the Liberal government is forcibly collecting money from Canadians to invest in a company that is still involved in the production of technology designed specifically for these abhorrent weapons.

A search of the daily listing of U.S. government contracts shows that about $340 has been awarded to Lockheed Martin, since mid-2000, for production of the WCMD system. The most recent contract, for $40,952,447, announced June 7, 2003, can be viewed here.

“Solicitation notices” for these contracts are also listed in the FedBizOpps (FBO) archives. A solicitation notice to produce $63 million worth of “Extended Range-WCMDs” was posted on October 4, 2002. In April 2003, this contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin. It was estimated that this particular contract would last 36 months, i.e., until October 2005.

CPP investments also included other companies linked to the production of anti-personnel landmines. In fact, in 2003 the CPPIB held shares — with a combined market value of $160 million — in four other top U.S. weapons manufacturers that are known to have produced anti-personnel (AP) landmines. These corporations are General Electric, Raytheon, Texas Instruments and Rockwell.

Here are some details about these companies, the types of AP landmines they have produced and the market value of CPP investments in these companies this year:

General Electric Company (Fairfield, CT)
AP landmine types: TS-50 and VAR-40
CPP public equity investments listed by CPPIB (as of Sept. 30, 2003):
General Electric Company $137,326,000

Raytheon (Lexington, MA)
AP landmine types: Gator BLU-92/B
CPP public equity investments listed by CPPIB (as of Sept. 30, 2003):
Raytheon $2,940,000

Texas Instruments, through its subsidiary Unitrode (Merrimack, NH)
AP landmine types: Volcano M87, BLU-92/B Gator
CPP public equity investments listed by CPPIB (as of Sept. 30, 2003):
Texas Instruments $17,059,000

Rockwell, through its subsidiary Allen-Bradley (El Paso, TX)
AP landmine types: Volcano M87, Gator BLU-92/B
CPP public equity investments listed by CPPIB (as of June 30, 2003):
Rockwell Automation $1,154,000
Rockwell Collins $1,176,000
(A listing of the market values of CPP investments in foreign corporations, as of Sept. 30, 2003, can be seen the CPPIB website.

Isn’t this a Conflict of Interest?

Mr. Pratt, as the Liberal MP responsible for chairing the Parliamentary standing committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs is required to perform his duties without even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Mr. Pratt’s riding of Nepean-Carleton — now part of the amalgamated City of Ottawa — is home to dozens of high-tech military exporters. It appears that Mr. Pratt, and his political party, may be beholden to a special interest group known as military manufacturers.

Perhaps the largest of the military industries in Mr. Pratt’s riding is located in Bells Corners, namely General Dynamics Canada, formerly known as Computing Devices Canada.

In 2002, General Dynamics Canada is documented by Elections Canada as having donated at least $1,000 to the Liberal Party. Between 1993 and 2001, the Liberal Party received at least $66,991 from General Dynamics Canada’s precursor, Computing Devices Canada (CDC). To be fair it should be noted that CDC is also known to have donated at least $30,000 to the Progressive Conservatives, Reform and Alliance Parties combined. It is not known whether the actual total of these corporate donations was higher than these amounts that are publicly disclosed by Elections Canada. Unfortunately, we may never know the real value of these donations because there are several significant loopholes that allow legally permit secret donations to political parties.
(Source: http://www.elections.ca)

General Dynamics Canada produces hardware that is largely destined for export to U.S. military markets. For instance, it has made various high-tech, electronic components for U.S. battle tanks (M1, M2/M3), armoured vehicles (LAV III), field artillery weapons (M109), warplanes (MRA4) and other major weapons delivery systems. Computing Devices Canada had similar weapons contracts and is known to have also manufactured components for U.S. cruise missiles.

General Dynamics Canada is a subsidiary of U.S. weapons giant General Dynamics, which sold about US$30 billion dollars worth of hardware to the U.S. Department of Defense between 1996 and 2002. (See U.S. Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, (Link no longer valid:  http://www.dior.whs.mil)

Thanks to the Canada Pension Plan, Canadians are compelled to invest more than $4 million of their retirement savings in this top U.S. military corporation, which is the world’s sixth largest military contractor.

Not surprisingly, the flow of money between this Nepean-based military company and the Liberal government goes both ways. Industry Canada gave about $29.5 million in corporate handouts to Computing Devices Canada between 1982 and 1997, before it was acquired by General Dynamics Canada.

On the surface at least, this all constitutes the appearance of a conflict of interest. Canadian politicians are receiving vast amounts of money for their election campaign war chests from military corporations that later receive even greater amounts of money through government grants. Military industries in Mr. Pratt’s riding have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the governing party and receive not only large government grants but also investments from millions of Canadians through compulsory government-linked pension funds. When questioned about these funds, Mr. Pratt sidestepped the issue and belittled those who have the temerity to raise such unsettling questions about why his government allows the CPPIB to invest their money in war-related industries, like anti-personnel landmine manufacturers, that are widely perceived as immoral and perhaps even illegal.

see also here  http://www.albionmonitor.com/9802a/landmineusa.html

2008-05-25 Bill C-51 is not about Natural Health Products

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Health  No Responses »
May 252008
 

“When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we, in essence, accept that the state owns our bodies.”  U.S. Representative Ron Paul, MD

Health Canada is billing a meeting in Saskatoon tomorrow as “Natural Health Products Consultations”.   There is no mention that it is Bill C-51.

The legislation gives police-state powers to the Government.  There have been rallies against the bill in Richmond B.C., Calgary, Lethbridge, Edmonton, Saskatoon (this afternoon).

People’s response is often one of incredulity that this legislation can be happening.

The legislation is justified in the name of “harmonization” with American regulations.  It has little to do with Health Care Products.

As I understand the situation, Americans too, are fighting the same legislation in the States.

Please write your MP and Stephen Harper.   You can sign an on-line petition (see below).

Many people are calling for the resignation of Tony Clement, Minister of  Health.

I will be at the meeting tomorrow am.   Important meeting with Fed Govt Officials, Monday May 26, 8:30 am, Saskatoon Inn

Need everyone we can get.

====

CONTACT MORRIS ROSENBERG    His Email:  dm_sm@hc-sc.gc.ca

Morris Rosenberg, Deputy Minister of Health.

The agenda is driven and carried by bureaucrats that were there under the Mulroney Conservatives, continued under the Liberals and still carry the ball under the Conservatives.

Meet Morris:  http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/minist/deputy-sous/index_e.html

(Sorry – I usually confine myself to logical argument.  Not this, which I sent from the web-page.)

Dear Morris,

You know the reasons why Bill C-51 is an infringement upon my rights and freedoms.

You are a senior official in the Govt of Canada.  Your responsibility is to serve the interests of the people that live in this country.  We pay your salary.

You are not there to serve the interests of the pharmaceutical and chemical corporations.

I will be asking the Prime Minister to remove you.  For just cause, with notice and no compensation.

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

Al writes:

This is outrageous. Whether you use natural health products is not the issue. The issue is the right to choose and the freedom to choose without undue interference and oversight by government. I have no problem with regulations that put health and safety first. But Bill C-51 is about neither. It’s about letting big government pass laws that benefit the economic health and safety of big corporations.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we’ve already lost too much.

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

Laverne:

Hi    most of you have more than enough to read.  However, this Bill C-51 does seem to be one of the more ominous issues affecting us and I believe we should give this our attention.

________________________________________

Clint:

We have to defend our rights or lose them.  One of the best things we can do is try to educate our friends and relatives about the erosion of our freedom concerning our choices when it comes to health issues.

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

Maureen to her MP:

Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick,

I am very concerned that Bill C- 51 will have very wide ranging & negative implications for Canadians. I have been personally researching & utilizing  Natural Health Products & practitioners for years (20 plus) & as a result I feel that I have saved the health system thousands of dollars, because, except for two broken bones, I have not needed the services of Doctors , hospitals or prescription drugs.

Please review this issue at www.healthcanadaexposed.com  & help protect our right to freely use time tested, natural health products.

Thank you.

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

Michael wrote:

I find this very distressing given all the research I’ve done on the attacks (and subsequent loss) of rights and freedoms of our American neighbours.

This is more of the same, except it’s directed at us.  We can’t sleep through this one!! Please get involved and help in any way you can.  The implications are enormous and are much more than just the right to alternative health therapies.  We have all heard in recent years, much about the impending threat of a major global biological epidemic; in fact our health care agencies have begun planning and preparing for it (that alone should tell us something).  We don’t need big drug companies controlling this aspect of health care; they already have too much control and already bleed us to death (no pun intended).  Thanks for your help.

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

STOP BILL-C51  ON-LINE PETITION

Our Government of Canada is going to “CRIMINALIZE” Natural Health Products so that they can put a mother in Jail that chooses to feed her children natural herbs and supplements…this is very important to understand…we only have 500 votes…we need over 100,000 votes to have an effect…BY MAY 9TH.PASS THIS ON TO EVERYBODY PLEASE..

Sign Petition: Stop Bill C-51    (link no longer valid)

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

FROM BRENT PATTERSON, COUNCIL OF CANADIANS   bpatterson  AT  canadians.org     www.canadians.org

Go to www.stopc51.com   and www.healthcoalition.ca  and read their beautifully organized information, especially the “Draft Discussion Paper on Bill C-51” by lawyer Shawn Buckley.

1. Schedule a visit to your local MPs as soon as possible. Do not go alone, always have a witness or two or three. Hand them Buckley’s analysis and demand that C-51 be killed.

2. Hear Shawn Buckley, Dr. Shiv Chopra, and Mike McBane of the Canadian Health Coalition at OISE on June 26. I am the moderator.  Health Canada spies are welcome!

3. Write to Prime Minister Harper and tell him what you think.  Be polite.

Resources & Sources:

–  S. Chopra, Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Scientists, Kos, 2008, in press, orders 519-927-1049

–  M.McBane, Ill-Health Canada: Putting food and drug company profits ahead of safety, CCPA, 2005

Regarding Bill C-51 – sample of provisions, not complete:

Sections 13 & 18.7      restricted availability of natural health products

Section 15.1 (4)        arbitrary powers to grant prescription status

Sections 31 & 3 (3)     historically unprecedentedly high fines and jail terms associated with new definition of “sell” and “person”

Sections 3 (6) & 18     academic freedom stopped and research dependent on Health Canada’s permission

Sections 3(6) & 30 (7)  importation of international regulations without Canadian input or parliamentary debate (e.g. Codex)

Section 23  unprecedented powers of search and seizure (including bank accounts); powers exceed those of police

The debate in Parliament on Bill C-51 following First Reading can be accessed from the parliamentary website by putting “Bill C-51 + Canada” into google.

Groups opposing C-51 (only those I knew about at time of going to press)

  •  International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine (founded by Dr. Abram Hoffer)  centre  AT  orthomed.org phone 416-733-2117
  • National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE); President James Clancy
  • Ontario Medical Association’s Section on Complimentary Medicine, Chair Dr. Linda Rapson  drrapson  AT  sympatico.ca
  • Canadian Health Coalition, Director Michael McBane, www.healthcoalition.ca
  • Canadian Coalition for Health Freedom trueman  AT  tucksprofessionalservices.com
  • Natural Health Product Protection Association (their lawyer is Shawn Buckley)
  • Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd (they won their case in court against Health Canada when the latter shut down a clinical trial using natural substances to treat bi-polar disorder at the University of Calgary

To access the above as well as new organizations go to (Link no longer valid: www.stopc51.com)   and www.healthcoalition.ca

Important documentary material analyzing the issues:

  • Discussion Paper on Bill C-51 by lawyer Shawn Buckley, President of the Natural Health Product Protection Agency (NHPPA) – may be accessed on the two websites above. It contains all the legal details, section by section, analyzed in ordinary language.
  • Dr. James Lunney, PC Member of Parliament  for Nanaimo-Albertini, BC. He wrote an Excellent article for Vitality Magazine’s September 2003 issue available on their website. It presents the reasons why he introduced Bill C-420 then with the support of then PC Leader, Stephen Harper. To understand how outrageous the current Bill C-51 is, it is imperative to read Dr. Luney’s  article. He is now on record as being opposed to C-51. He called me after First Reading of C-51 and said : “You have to start a prairie fire to stop this bill!”
  • Garry Anderson wrote an excellent in-depth analysis of the principles violated by Bill C-51.  The important point he makes involve the secrecy of the Governor-in-Council method to by-pass parliamentary and public debate, the abuse of science and the abuse of the international Precautionary Principle evident in the wording of C-51. Must read! Available from him at garryanderson  AT  shaw.ca
  • For the background information on Direct-to-Consumer-Advertising (DTCA) go to Canadian Medical Association Journal January 2, 2007, p.19, which explains the current legal action by CanWest against health Canada to remove prohibitions against DTCA on the grounds of Being a violation of the Charter rights of free speech (Big Tobacco was defeated on that argument by the Supreme Court years ago).  Bill C-51 proposes dropping Section 3 of the current Food and Drugs Act which would be dropping that prohibition.  The experts on DTCA, its effects on public policy, health and Medicare are Professor Joel Lexchin of York University, Professor Barbara Mintzes of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and Professor Alan Cassels of the same university and co-author (with Patrick Moynihan) of Selling Sickness: How The World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients, Nation Books 2004.
  • The research and published letters to the media are available on the website of the Canadian Health Coalition www.healthcoalition.ca
  • What happened in Australia when a similar bill was introduced and how it effectively killed all choice in natural health products came to me via on May 9, 2008, from Croft Woodruff at croft.woodruff AT  gmail.com
  • For details on how Canadians feel about the issues involved in Bill C-51 as well as the recently killed Bill C-517 (which would have made labeling of GMO products mandatory) go to Council of Canadians www.Canadians.org  and read the latest document published by them entitled “Not Counting Canadians: The Security and Prosperity Partnership and public opinion”.   C-51 harmonizes Health Care with this newly proposed treaty which would eliminate public debate, as the treaty over-rides national rights and citizen involvement in policy.
  • According to independently conducted polls, 87% of Canadians want to retain our ability to set our own standards with regard to environment, health and safety issues – which this treaty would stop.
  • “The Harper government has introduced Bill C-51, an Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, which dramatically reduces safety requirements for drug approval. The current system of drug approval requires prior evidence of a minimum of safety and efficacy. However, C-51 reverses existing process by bringing ‘promising’ new drugs onto the market and then monitoring their effectiveness. This practice will expose Canadians to new drugs before their potential dangers are known. C-51 would permit the speedy marketing of expensive new drugs – many of which have no therapeutic advantage over safer, cheaper drugs – before research on effectiveness and safety is completed.”

They add, “Even post-marketing ‘surveillance’ to be done after new drugs are marketed will be carried out by the drug manufacturer involved, and thus will be biased in favour of the product being reviewed. For patients with rare diseases, who require access to groundbreaking new medications and can’t wait for a long approval process, a special access program already exists, one that does not include a general lowering of standards.”

We argue that a key initiative within the Security and Prosperity Partnership calls for the, “Identification and appropriate adoption of best practices in maintaining the safety, efficacy and quality of pharmaceutical products.” Two milestones within this initiative are to, “Evaluate best practices related to pharmaceutical review processes,” and “Examine the use of International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) guidelines and adopt best practices in maintaining the safety, efficacy and quality of medicines within the next 36 months (June 2008).”

The Harper government’s Bill C-51 would introduce the ‘progressive licensing’ of new pharmaceutical products in Canada. Progressive licensing means an increased reliance on research conducted by the drug manufacturers themselves, fast-tracking the drug approval process, and the appraisal of the safety of drugs once they are on the market, again primarily by the drug companies themselves.

The Globe and Mail reported on April 9 that, “A study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found that drugs approved quickly in the United States to meet government-imposed deadlines were significantly more likely to be subject to recalls and safety problems.” That same article quotes Joel Lexchin, a health policy professor at York University and drug safety expert: “I think that’s a pretty dangerous thing to be doing. This is part of a general trend in a lot of countries, at least with respect to the drug-approval system, [which] is deregulation, turning over more responsibility to the drug companies.”

The Edmonton Journal reported on April 9 that Canada will also be matching the U.S. penalty ceiling of $5 million for companies caught selling unsafe drugs. With profits last year of $8.144 billion, a company like Pfizer would have little difficulty shrugging that off.

Additionally, the CBC recently reported that, “Critics feel the bill will outlaw up to 60 per cent of natural health products currently sold in Canada, making many natural health products that have been sold in Canada for decades unavailable for purchase and penalizing parents who give herbs or supplements to their children. They also argue that the government could designate any natural health product a prescription drug, making it available by prescription only. They say these types of provisions will force small companies out of the market.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION

  • To read the Council of Canadians fact sheet on C-51, please go to (Link no longer valid)
  • To read our Integrate This! posting, go to (Link no longer valid)
  • For additional background please read pages 164 to 168 of Maude Barlow’s book ‘Too Close for Comfort: Canada’s Future within Fortress North America’.

To read NUPGE’s letter to Health Minister Clement, go to  (Link no longer valid:  http://www.nupge.ca/publications/MiscPDFs/letter_clement_apr08.pdf. )

To read the CBC report ‘Criticism of natural health products Bill C-51 mounts’, go to  (Link no longer valid)http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/05/09/bill-c51.html?ref=rss.

TAKE ACTION

Write federal Health Minister Tony Clement at Clement.T  AT parl.gc.ca to express your opposition to C-51.

The Canadian Health Coalition is also asking Canadians to contact their MPs to voice their objections about C-51. You can access the action request by going to (link no longer valid).

SAMPLE LETTER

Minister Clement,

As a supporter of the Council of Canadians, I ask that you withdraw C-51 and take measures to ensure that Canada’s drug approval process is improved and strengthened, rather than deregulated with a greater dependence on research conducted  by drug manufacturers.

According to an Environics poll conducted in April, 87% of Canadians agree that Canada should maintain the ability to set its own independent environmental, health and safety standards, even if this might reduce cross-border trade opportunities with the United States. With Bill C-51, Prime Minister Harper appears to be more concerned with corporate and U.S. priorities than the health and safety of Canadians.

Bill C-51 would introduce U.S.-style ‘progressive licensing’ for new pharmaceutical products in Canada. This means relying on corporate information to fast-track the drug approval process, and then letting drug companies keep track of the impact on our health. Yet, a recent study from The New England Journal of Medicine found that fast-tracking drugs to market in the United States has led to significantly more call-backs for safety reasons.

I look forward to your response.

<your name>

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

Canada’s C-51: Trojan Horse Legislation Sponsored by Big Pharma

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/canadianC-51bill27apr08.shtml

Bill C-51 Unlawfully Suppresses Canadian Citizens’ Rights and Freedoms

[Editor’s Note: Bills such as C-51 are but thinly disguised  variations on Nazi Germany’s 1933 Enabling Act which removed Parliamentary decision making and oversight from national legislation. Stated in its simplest terms, these bills are intended to replace democratic representative government with un-elected, closed-door decision making which will bind all citizens. We are witnessing the transformation of North American democratic government into oligarchic tyranny. Will Canadian citizens wake up in time?.. ..Ken Adachi]

________________________________________

Canadian Rights and Freedoms are at Risk, An Important Notice Regarding Bill C-51

On April 8th, 2008, the Canadian Minister of Health introduced Bill C-51 into the House of Commons. This Bill proposes significant changes to the current Food and Drugs Act that will have wide-ranging negative implications for Canadians.   Bill C-51 will:

  • Remove democratic oversight, bypassing elected officials to vote in laws and allow bureaucrats to adopt laws from other countries without our consent.
  • Remove 70% of Natural Health Products from Canadians and many others will be available by prescription only.
  • Restrict research and development of safe natural alternatives in favor of  high risk drugs.
  • Punish Canadians with little or no opportunity for protection or recourse for simply speaking about or giving a natural product without the approval of government. More than 70% of people in Canada use a Natural Health Product. The new law goes so far as to warrant action against a person who would give another person an unapproved amount of garlic on the recommendation that it would improve that persons health.

Proposed New Enforcement Powers:

  • Inspectors will enter private property without a warrant
  • Inspectors will take your property at their discretion
  • Inspectors will dispose of your property at will
  • Inspectors will not reimburse you for your losses
  • Inspectors will seize your bank accounts
  • Inspectors will charge owners shipping and storage charges for seized property
  • Inspectors will be empowered to store your property indefinitely
  • Inspectors will levy fines of up to $5,000,000.00 and/or seek 2 years in jail per incident

With your assets and money under their control will you be able to defend yourself in Court?

Can you trust government with this new law and enforcement power?

Would our government really ever turn this law against us?  Read the following account.

In 2003 Health Canada launched an attack on a group of mentally ill patients and the company who supported them naturally. They seized shipments of a safe natural therapy required by the patients and stormed the support center with 17 armed officers and agents. The company (Truehope) reported that they lost contact with more than 300 of their Canadian participants. The Canadian Mental Health Association told of suicides as a result of government action.

Health Canada then charged the not for profit company, burdening them with heavy legal costs. Truehope was found innocent by necessity and instructed by the judge to continue under legal and moral responsibility. Although the agents admitted knowing they were injuring people through their actions, they stated under oath they care only about policy and directive. And what happened to the more than 300 mentally ill Canadians that became unreachable? In the months and years following, reports of hospitalizations and suicides during the seizures have surfaced. No Health Canada agent has ever been charged.

Will this new law be used to abuse and punish special interest groups, minorities, religious groups or others?

Why do bureaucrats want to bypass the Parliament and approval to create new laws?

Why do bureaucrats want seizure warrants without judge approval ?

With fines being increased a 1000 times, and seizing authority without a warrant, is Bill C-51 meant to bankrupt and silence its target audience?

Here’s what you can do to protect your rights:

Educate Yourself

Get involved

  • Attend our rally at the Calgary Federal Court on May 9th 2008. Call 1-888-878-3467 for Details
  • Print off this fact sheet and hand it out in your neighborhood.
  • Forward this email to all of your concerned friends, family and community leaders

===

Thu May 15, 2008 7:49 am (PDT)

Did you know that there is MUCH more to Bill C51?    Do you think it’s JUST natural health products??

Check out what else this Bill is going to allow the government to do:

  • Enter private property_ *without a warrant* Section 23.4
  • Confiscate your property_ *at their discretion* Section 23.2 a
  • Dispose of your property_ *at their discretion* Section 23.3 c
  • Seize your bank accounts_ *without a warrant*
  • *Charge you* for shipping and storage of your property Section 23.3a-b
  • *Store your property Indefinitely* without paying you for damages Section23.2 d
  • *Levy fines* of up to $5,000,000.00 / 2 years in jail per offence.

Check out this website. It’s very informative.  www.stopc51.com

Updates…..this is getting more SERIOUS.. it has passed 2nd Reading in the House by Common Consent ( this is a laugh ! what happened is:

secretly on the weekend, they got signatures of all 3 party leaders WITHOUT debate..)   We have very little Time here…

The NHPPA has been formed in Kamloops, BC.. with Shawn Buckley,LLB (Kamloops lawyer) with Peter Helgason ( Strauss Heart drops) see also www.truehope.com

N-Natural

H-Health

P-Products

P-Protection

A-Association

Please see www.nhppa.org   ……… We are a local Saskatoon site organized to help with awareness. I am requiring ALL the help we can pool together. ANY time/gifts/cash donations.. Pledges forms and petitions are available here to sign and to get into your local areas, schools, malls, churches, neighbours etc. These guys have been working all over the Country and require all the help we can muster.

Seeing the big difference people can make in Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton .. and now Saskatoon to get their rallies together asap.

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

What does Bill C 51 do?  It makes it a crime for you to take care of your health in any  manner  – unless granted specific government permission.  At the present time, 60 -70 % of Natural Health Product applications have been rejected and have failed to receive that permission.  The punishments for non-compliance are those found in total dictatorships – they are draconian and onerous beyond description.   Bill C 51 sells your health decisions to government bagmen, who are in bed with Big Pharma .  It destroys your right to make your own health choices, your right to practice self-sufficiency and independence – and it removes your access to Natural Health Products that have been shown to be safe for centuries.

Take back jurisdiction over your own body – It is your God-given birthright – protect it!.  It does not belong to the government,  and certainly not to industry. (Big Pharma).

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

IAHF List: URGENT!! ACT IMMEDIATELY!! See below. This alert just in from Tony Stephan of Truehope Inc. in Alberta Canada. Tony has 8 employees hard at work in an emergency call center from which they’re contacting every health food store in Canada urging emergency assistance to kill the bill from hell: C-51.

No one in Canada or the USA can afford not to help kill this bill. If you are American, please forward this to anyone in Canada who you know, and if you are Canadian, please take action yourself, then download this info and bring it to every health food store within a 25 k radius of your house and urge them to bagstuff the alert and to urge customers to call their MPs to strenuously oppose this. If you don’t you will lose your access to dietary supplements. Keep in mind that the Canadian Health Food Assn isn’t helping to kill this bill.

IAHF warns vitamin consumers globally that the European Food Safety Authority combined with the European Commission will be unleashing the regs from hell in January 2009, and that they’ll make their way into Codex because the EU politically dominates Codex. These will be ‘Maximum Safe Upper Levels’ that will be only slight multiples above RDA. IAHF warns you that if we fail to get congressional oversight in the USA on the FDA’s Trilateral Cooperation Charter with Canada/ Mexico, we will not be able to stop this from coming to America, we will not be able to defend DSHEA. IAHF has just issued an urgent warning to the Life Extension Foundation, National Health Federation, American Association for Health Freedom, National Council for Health Freedom and allied groups world wide to the urgent need to assist film maker Kevin Miller so he can produce an updated version of ‘We Become Silent’ which will focus on these issues.

Remember Americans , if we don’t slay this dragon in Canada, its coming there next .

Americans – Take action via (Link no longer valid)   http://www.nocodexgenocide.com/page/page/3113337.htm

Canadians:   Protect Your Constitutional Rights

An Important Notice Regarding Bill C-51

On April 8, 2008, the Minister of Health in Canada introduced Bill C-51 into the House of Commons. This Bill proposes significant changes to the current Food and Drugs Act that would remove critical checks and balances from Health Canada and endanger your Constitutional rights to “life, liberty, and security of person” (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 7).

Without immediate action from concerned citizens like you, this Bill will soon be law in Canada. Consider How Bill C-51 Would Affect You.

  • Many natural health products that have been sold in Canada for decades would become unavailable, and remaining products would cost much more (Sections 13 & 18.7);
  • The government could designate any natural health product a prescription drug, making it available by prescription only (Section 15.1(4));
  • You could be fined thousands of dollars or go to jail for giving your child or friend a natural health product (Sections 31 & 3(3) – expanded definition of “sell”);
  • Researchers would lose academic freedom: they could not study the beneficial effects of natural health products without first getting the government’s permission (Sections 3(6) & 18.2);
  • International laws that restrict access to natural health products could be made law in Canada without the approval of elected officials or any debate in the House of Commons (Sections 3(6) & 30(7));
  • To enforce this new law, inspectors could enter private property and
  • (Section 23):  take anything at their discretion;
  • never pay the owner for it;
  • charge the owner of the property a fee for shipping it to a secure storage unit;
  • charge the owner of the property fees for keeping it in storage;
  • keep it in storage as long as they want; and/or dispose of it at will.

Health Canada Needs Checks and Balances.

Acting under current laws, Health Canada has already endangered Canadians’ lives by seizing their natural health products. In 2003, Health Canada seized personal shipments of EMPowerplus, a vitamin-mineral supplement that hundreds of Canadians with bipolar disorder and other serious mood disorders depended on for mental wellness, and ordered Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd. to stop selling the supplement in Canada. Fearing for the safety of Canadians who were using EMPowerplus, Truehope disobeyed Health Canada’s orders and was charged with selling an illegal drug.

Fortunately, in this case, Health Canada was unsuccessful in removing EMPowerplus from the market. In 2006, Truehope was found not guilty. The court ruled that Truehope was “overwhelmingly compelled to disobey.in order to protect the health, safety and well-being of the users of the supplement”, and Health Canada dropped its appeal of this case in October 2006.

(Learn more:  (Link no longer valid) http://truehope.com/newsletter/editions/online038-October-22-2007.html )

However, Bill C-51 would make it easier for Health Canada to seize natural health products like EMPowerplus in the future and remove them from the market, violating your Constitutional rights to “life, liberty, and security of person.”

What You Can Do To Protect Your Rights

+ Read Bill C-51.

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3398126 &  Read a Discussion Paper on Bill C-51 by the President of the Natural Health Product Protection Agency (NHPPA).   http://www.healthcanadaexposed.com/discussion.htm    etc.

2008-05-23 Water: “CANADIANS SHOULD BE SERIOUSLY CONCERNED ABOUT AMERICANS WHO WANT WATER”, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Canadian Press

 Peace or Violence, Resource depletion (water in USA), Robert F Kennedy Jr, Sustainability  No Responses »
May 232008
 

By THE CANADIAN PRESS, Calgary Sun, May 23, 2008 (Link no longer valid: http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2008/05/23/5647041-sun.html)

 

America wants our water: Kennedy

PETERBOROUGH, Ont. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Canadians should be seriously concerned about Americans who want to steal Canada’s water.

Kennedy is in Peterborough, Ont., today to deliver a speech at a Great Lakes conference, and in an interview with The Canadian Press, he warned Canadians that their water is at risk.

He says the United States is just beginning to experience a severe water crisis, and a common solution being cited is to gain access to Canadian water.

Kennedy says every Canadian should be petitioning their government representatives to toughen the rules on water protection.

He also says Canada and the U.S. both have good environmental laws, but the major problem is they are not being properly enforced.

Kennedy says Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not a friend of the environment, and criticized him for opting out of the Kyoto Protocol and slamming the idea of a carbon tax.

2008-05-14 G&M “Top police psychologist likens RCMP to Putin’s Russia” and then watch the Montebello YouTube video

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Culture and Ethics, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
May 142008
 

Allow me to comment, first: 

Infrequently I have been accused of undermining a “good” Canada by being critical.  And of undermining our “good” neighbours, the Americans.   

My response:  if wrong is not challenged aggressively, the Americans (and we) live a myth of democracy, not reality.  Failure to identify and address the wrong is the surest way for a good system to fail.   By tabling the problems I am fulfilling my responsibility as a member of the human species. 

As a consequence of the G&M article below, I tried unsuccessfully to locate police psychologist Mike Webster.   It’s important to express our thanks to him for speaking up, for saying what others are afraid to say.  He is a role model.  Bless him.  

I will try to get the YouTube video (next email) to Chief Supt. Bent and to Gary Bass of the RCMP named in the article below. 

These 3 emails in combination are examples of a police state in the making.  They are but 3 of many incidents.  

The third email, “Canadian Military Keeping Tabs on Peace Activists” arises out of an address given by Steven Staples “The Americanisation of the Canadian Military”.  It brings us full circle back to Lockheed Martin, the contracting out (“out-sourcing”) of Census work to the American Military-Industrial complex.  

Sandra 

==================== 

(Original G&M web address no longer valid.  The article is available at http://www.rcmpwatch.com/police-psychologist-likens-rcmp-to-putins-russia/ )

By GARY MASON    

VANCOUVER – Someone else might have resisted the temptation, especially knowing he might be blackballed as a result. But Mike Webster has never operated that way.

And so, when the respected police psychologist testified this week at the B.C. public inquiry into the use of tasers, he didn’t mince words when asked about the Mounties’ decision to zap an unarmed Robert Dziekanski last October, and more recently, a penknife-wielding 82-year-old man lying in a hospital bed in Kamloops.

“I’m embarrassed to be associated with organizations that taser sick old men in hospital beds and confused immigrants who are arriving in the country,”said Mr. Webster, considered one of the top police psychologists in the world.

Even as the words spilled from his mouth, Mr. Webster knew they had the potential to cause him more trouble with the RCMP. He knew because of a chilling incident late last year that still hangs over his association with Canada’s national police force. 

Mr. Webster is a registered psychologist who deals exclusively with law enforcement agencies. His expertise in conflict resolution has been sought to help resolve some of the most volatile situations in recent years, including the showdown with Branch Davidian followers in Waco, Tex., in 1993. He was widely credited with helping avert a bloodbath during the RCMP standoff with native protesters at Gustafson Lake, B.C., in 1995. 

He has worked on a contract and fee-for-service basis with the RCMP for more than 30 years. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, much of his work with the Mounties has been in the area of intelligence gathering. After Mr. Dziekanski died at the Vancouver International Airport last October, media outlets in B.C. sought Mr. Webster’s opinion on the incident. He was honest:  he thought it was a disgraceful display of policing. The officers had blasted the troubled Polish immigrant without making any attempt to resolve the matter peacefully. 

In early December, Mr. Webster says he received a call from Richard Bent, chief superintendent of the RCMP E Division in Vancouver. The senior Mountie asked Mr. Webster, who lives on Denman Island, B.C., if the two could have a meeting. Mr. Webster knew something was amiss.  

He wanted to know immediately what it was about.  “That’s when he said it was about the nature of my comments to the media about the Dziekanski incident,” Mr. Webster revealed in an interview Wednesday. “He said: ‘You’ve upset some of the members here and they’re saying things.’ I said, ‘Like what?’ And he said: ‘Well, they’re saying that maybe you shouldn’t be getting any more work with the RCMP.'”

Mike Webster nearly dropped the phone. 

“There was only one way to interpret that comment,” Mr. Webster said. “It was a clear threat.”

Mr. Webster said he told Chief Supt. Bent that he didn’t respond well to threats. And that they wouldn’t change his mind in any event. After stewing about the incident over Christmas, Mr. Webster articulated his anger in a letter to Chief Supt. Bent, which he copied to Gary Bass, the RCMP’s top man in B.C. In it, he reiterated how offended he was by Chief Supt. Bent’s comments, which he considered a blatant form of intimidation. 

He said he heard nothing back. But he did begin hearing from his friends inside the force. He said one relayed to him that Mr. Webster’s outspokenness cost the psychologist a small fee-for-service job. One of Mr. Webster’s friends was told: “Don’t be hiring Mike Webster. He’s in shit with us for being disloyal.” Another told him to expect a call from a top RCMP official in Ottawa who was going to fly out to talk to him. 

Sure enough, the call came. Two weeks later, Mr. Webster said he was having lunch with an RCMP inspector from headquarters who scolded him for his Dziekanski comments. He suggested the psychologist was being disloyal to an organization that had been good to him over the years. He said Mr. Webster should have waited until the RCMP had concluded its investigation into the incident before giving any kind of opinion on it. 

“I told him I didn’t need anything more than the 25 seconds of video that we’ve all seen over and over again to offer my analysis,” Mr. Webster said.  “I really gave him a blast. It was just more of the same. The expectation is that if you work for the Mounties you align your values with the corporate culture and if you don’t that’s being disloyal and is unhealthy.”

Chief Supt. Bent said in an e-mail Wednesday that he did phone Mr. Webster because of concerns that Mr. Webster was making statements to the media about the RCMP’s guidelines for handling potentially violent situations that he felt weren’t accurate.

He confirmed that he told Mr. Webster that other RCMP members were upset and didn’t want the Mounties to give the renowned intervention specialist any more work. He said it wasn’t intended to be a threat. 

To Mr. Webster, his run-in with the Mounties reflects a more serious and systemic problem inside the organization, one recognized in the report into the RCMP pension-fund scandal. That report suggested the force was a troubled organization that did not abide dissent of any kind. And those who did offer opposing views were often shunted off to dead-end jobs and forced to wave promotions goodbye. 

“As a psychologist, I know it’s not healthy for people to live in such an oppressive climate,” Mr. Webster said. “Being a member of the RCMP today is like being part of Putin’s Russia; they don’t tolerate any opinion that doesn’t reflect the party line.”

A devastating charge. Mr. Webster currently has a one-year contract with the Mounties. After it expires next April, he has no idea if more work will be offered to him. 

“I find it offensive that I’m expected to park my morals at the door if I’m going to be part of the organization,” Mr. Webster said. “If that’s what it means, I won’t do it. I just won’t.”

Mike Webster has never operated that way.

2008-04-16 Census boycott – Lockheed Martin: on German Public Television. Wow!

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Apr 162008
 

Great news comes from Manfred: 

Hi Sandra, you can tell them (INSERT: The Court and/or media), that german tv follows up that case as well, if usefull for you.

greetings

Manfred Ladwig 

SWR-German Broadcast�
Redaktion Umwelt/ Dpt. Environment
Am Fort Gonsenheim 139
55122 Mainz
Germany

phone: (0049)- (0)6131-929-4271
fax.: (0049)-(0)6131-929-4027
mobile: (0049)-(0)172-7387547 o.(0)172-7387522
manfred.ladwig@swr.de

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