Sandra Finley

2006-12-24 The party’s over. Richard Heinberg

 Change, Climate  No Responses »
Dec 242006
 

I hate to send this out on Christmas Eve! But it’s very important and I get too far behind if I don’t.

There is another aspect: The Christmas solstice marks the end of the long nights. Each day now, there is more light. The birth of a child marks the beginning of the incredible new potential that is the grace of our human existence, whether our “birth” or coming into consciousness happens on day 1 or at age 03, 13, 23, 33, 43, 53, 63, 73, 83, 93 or 103.

 

The original title of this was The party’s over, Saskatchewan. Yes, in Saskatchewan it would be VERY advantageous if we came to see the light,

RIGHT NOW!   But the world is impacted, wherever you may live.

 

Biographical notes on Richard Heinberg are at http://www.richardheinberg.com/bio.

Richard is from California. I heard him speak at the NFU (National Farmers Union) Convention, end of November in Saskatoon. I will be reading one of his books during the holidays.

John/Jack Warnock attended Richard’s presentation in Regina. Many thanks to Jack for the following clear (as always) elaboration. (Jack Warnock has been in our network for a number of years, an accomplished, thoughtful and under–stated teacher, author, and community activist.  http://www.johnwarnock.ca/)

 

May you, each and every one be blest in this season and onward.

I was thinking the other day how blest I am. … what causes the thought?

… it comes after I think about a connection with people like yourself.  I am enriched by you, and that gives me the sense of being blessed. Which I truly am.

Sandra

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

http://www.actupinsask.org/content/view/213/1/

 

Richard Heinberg: “How Will You Heat Your Homes in Saskatchewan?”

by John W. Warnock

 

Thursday, 30 November 2006

Heinberg: The party’s over, Saskatchewan.

Last night 350 people braved the cold in Regina and went to hear Richard Heinberg, one of North America’s top experts on the oil and gas industry. He presented data showing the disappearance of oil and natural gas on a world wide basis and in particular in North America. He pointed out that the best geological research in Canada predicts a fairly rapid decline in natural gas production in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. He asked: “What are people in Saskatchewan going to do as the supply of natural gas declines and prices start to dramatically increase?” Click on ‘read more’ below for a full report on his talk.

He is dead right on this. In October Natural Resources Canada released its new study: Canada’s Energy Outlook: The Reference Case 2006. While predicting the demand for natural gas to steadily increase by around 1.2% per year, they expect that conventional natural gas production will peak in

2006 and then start to decline. The extraction of coal bed methane gas will increase, but it cannot begin to replace the loss of conventional natural gas.

Shipments of natural gas to Eastern Canada will have to decline, hopefully replaced by imports of liquified natural gas (LNG). The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline will be built and this gas will be available for customers on the prairies. But Natural Resources Canada ignores the fact that all of this gas is expected to be used to expand the extraction of tar sands oil, to be exported to the United States.

So what are Canadians going to do? Natural Resources Canada projects that net exports of natural gas to the United States will decline from 3,700 billion cubic feet in 2005 to 1,300 billion cubic feet by 2020. As Heinberg reminded us last night, there is the unpleasant fact of the proportionality sharing clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This states that Canada cannot reduce its exports to the United States below the average of the most recent three years. We are dreamers, he suggested, if we believe that the U.S. government will be willing give this up.

 

The production treadmill

If you ask anyone in the NDP government, or the opposition parties, they will say that the oil and gas industries are booming in Saskatchewan. We have never had it better. We have good reserves of heavy oil. Bids for exploration and development are rising. Many more natural gas wells are being drilled. But what does this really mean?

Between 1995 and 2003 natural gas production in Saskatchewan reached a production plateau, averaging about 285 billion cubic feet per year. But over that period the number of new gas wells drilled rose from 268 in 1995 to 2314 in 2003.

This follows the pattern of peak oil and gas seen in the United States and elsewhere. As we run out of natural gas, many more wells have to be drilled just to maintain existing production. New wells produce for a much shorter period, now with 50% of total production occurring in the first year. In Saskatchewan regulations used to specify that only one well could be drilled on every section of land. Now in the Hatton district in the Southwest corner of the province, the norm is between four and eight wells per section, and in special cases permission is given to drill twelve.

This is not an oil and gas boom, it is a sign of a collapsing industry.

The rapid increase in the drilling of such marginal wells is only made possible by the existence of monopoly or excess profits, which have occurred over the past three years. Oil and gas corporations are awash in retained earnings and have relatively few places to invest to rebuild their reserves.

Of course we are all paying for this through the tripling of oil and gas prices over the past three years.

Heinberg stressed that we need to press hard on this issue. Around 80% of us have natural gas heating. Natural Resources Canada projects that between 2005 and 2020 the production of natural gas in Saskatchewan will decline by 75%. This fact seems to have escaped all of our local politicians as well as those people in charge of Sask Energy and Sask Power.

 

What are the alternatives?

There are good alternatives, which Heinberg outlined. We know them from the studies done by the Saskatchewan Energy Development and Conservation Authority, before it was abolished by the NDP government in 1995. It starts with serious conservation programs, the promotion of energy efficiency, and the introduction of demand management programs. We have excellent wind and solar potential. Biomass in the North can provide heat and electricity.

Burning coal for electricity can be reduced through the progressive introduction of switchgrass and fast growing trees, which are planted on marginal land and do not take away from the production of food. Geothermal heating can be greatly expanded. Electricity can be used to support transportation by public transit and trains. Automobiles can be built that are much more efficient. But all of these options take time to develop. When the crunch comes, as it certainly will, we can have rationing, as we had in World War II. But given the current political climate, most likely we will get rationing according to ability to pay.

Peak oil and gas is occurring right as we are beginning to experience the cost of fossil fuel development: greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Heinberg stressed that we will have to reduce our general consumption levels and start to produce food for local consumption. The looming crisis requires a decentralization of energy production to local communities, not new centralized “clean coal” megaprojects. North American integration, pushed hard by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, is the wrong approach in a period of uncertain climate. What would happen in Saskatchewan if we had an ice storm in the winter and much of the province had no electricity for days?

As we found out in the last municipal election, there is little concern over these very important developing issues. Business as usual prevails in all the corridors of power. We continue to build larger houses for smaller families. Urban sprawl, dependent on automobiles, marches on. The giant box stores and chains, so admired by our local politicians, promise us that everything we need can be supplied from China or Vietnam. As Heinberg argued, it is time to start thinking about the future we are giving our children and grandchildren.

 

John W. Warnock is the author of Selling the Family Silver: Oil and Gas Royalties, Corporate Profits, and the Disregarded Public, available on line at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

 

“It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for error lies on the surface while truth lies in the depths, where few are willing to search for it.” Goethe

 

2006-12-08 (15) Renowned cancer scientist (Sir Richard Doll ) was paid by chemical firm (Monsanto)

 Corruption, March Against Bayer-Monsanto, Sustainability, Take back the University, Water  No Responses »
Dec 082006
 

—–Original Message—–
From: Sandra Finley

Lobbying to assert the public interest is no more than banging one’s head against the wall,   if we can’t get the corporate influences out of the Government and the universities.

==========

Continuation of:   An integrated approach to solving the problem of chemicals and health.    Began April 03, 2006.

This follows:  EMAIL #14,  How good are fine words when CropLife is on the PMRA Advisory Council?, November 7, 2006.

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

Friday, December 8, 2006

Letter to:

(1)  Federal Ministers

–  Health, Tony Clement

–  Agriculture, Chuck Strahl

–  Fisheries and Oceans, Loyola Hearn

–  Environment, Rona Ambrose

(2)  University of Saskatchewan, Office of Vice President Research, c/o Laura Zink; Deans Ernie Barber (Agriculture) and Grant Isaac (Commerce).

(3)  Many Others

————

Dear Tony Clement,

I am requesting that you remove CropLife Canada (and its most recent iteration, the CropLife Food Safety Council) from contact and work with all Government and publicly-funded bodies.

I am newly requesting that you remove the top management in the PMRA.

The failure to obtain effective responses to problems at the PMRA, and today’s disclosures on Sir Richard Doll (appended) lead me to refer the PMRA to the RCMP.

CropLife Canada is the lobby machine for Monsanto and other of the chemical-biotech companies.  You have received my protest that CropLife Canada is on the Advisory Committee for the PMRA.  I have sent information regarding Keith Solomon who the PMRA puts on its evaluation panels.  I’ve told you about long, on-going, lucrative conflicts-of-interest between an employee (Tom Wolfe) of the PMRA and CropLife Canada.  You have received EMAIL #9 May 02, “Context:  Corruption of the companies, public record.”.  This information was sent again on Nov 7 as an appendage to “How good are fine words when CropLife is on the PMRA Advisory Council?”.    Nothing happens.

Now this in today’s news:  “$1500 a day, in the mid-eighties.” … “for 20 years”  … Renowned cancer scientist (Sir Richard Doll ) was paid by chemical firm (Monsanto).  The public record shows Monsanto fined 770 million dollars by an Alabama Court, its attempted bribery of officials in Health Canada over bovine growth hormone, its attempted bribery of officials in Indonesia, and so on and on.

Your vaunted upcoming Cancer Strategy will be nothing more than a continuation of rhetoric if CropLife and other industry organizations remain “partnered” with the Government.  How can it be otherwise?

Prior to the placement of Peter MacLeod from CropLife Canada on the PM Advisory Council (Health Canada), I came to Ottawa and met with Karen Dodds, head of the PMRA.  To tell her and Connie Moase, another of the head haunchos, about the problems.  Many people from across Canada are familiar with the problems at the PMRA and have voiced them.  IN SPITE OF THAT and with no explanation, Peter MacLeod from CropLife was appointed to the Advisory Council.

When I call your office to lodge complaints about the PMRA, I am referred to Janet Saloum at 1-800-267-6315.  She is INSIDE the PMRA.  As told to you, the PMRA is so in bed with the industry it is supposed to regulate, well-documented and well-known to Canadians, that a referral to anyone inside the PMRA is pointless.  Janet will be well-intentioned.  Good intentions within the structure are powerless in the face of the corporate influence at the top.

I am completely exasperated.  I will send this matter to the RCMP.  I don’t know what else to do.

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

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

Friday December 8, 2006

The Guardian

Renowned cancer scientist (Sir Richard Doll ) was paid by chemical firm (Monsanto) for 20 years  http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1967385,00.html

Sarah Boseley, health editor

A world-famous British scientist failed to disclose that he held a paid consultancy with a chemical company for more than 20 years while investigating cancer risks in the industry, the Guardian can reveal.

Sir Richard Doll, the celebrated epidemiologist who established that smoking causes lung cancer, was receiving a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day in the mid-1980s from Monsanto, then a major chemical company and now better known for its GM crops business.

While he was being paid by Monsanto, Sir Richard wrote to a royal Australian commission investigating the potential cancer-causing properties of Agent Orange, made by Monsanto and used by the US in the Vietnam war. Sir Richard said there was no evidence that the chemical caused cancer.

Documents seen by the Guardian reveal that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and two other major companies, Dow Chemicals and ICI, for a review that largely cleared vinyl chloride, used in plastics, of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer – a conclusion with which the World Health Organisation disagrees.

Sir Richard’s review was used by the manufacturers’ trade association to defend the chemical for more than a decade.

The revelations will dismay scientists and other admirers of Sir Richard’s pioneering work and fuel a rift between the majority who support his view that the evidence shows cancer is a product of modern lifestyles and those environmentalists who argue that chemicals and pollution must be to blame for soaring cancer rates.

Yesterday Sir Richard Peto, the Oxford-based epidemiologist who worked closely with him, said the allegations came from those who wanted to damage Sir Richard’s reputation for their own reasons. Sir Richard had always been open about his links with industry and gave all his fees to Green College, Oxford, the postgraduate institution he founded, he said.

Professor John Toy, medical director of Cancer Research UK, which funded much of Sir Richard’s work, said times had changed and the accusations must be put into context. “Richard Doll’s lifelong service to public health has saved millions of lives. His pioneering work demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer and paved the way towards current efforts to reduce tobacco’s death toll,” he said. “In the days he was publishing it was not automatic for potential conflicts of interest to be declared in scientific papers.”

But a Swedish professor who believes that some of Sir Richard’s work has led to the underestimation of the role of chemicals in causing cancers said that transparency was all-important. “It’s OK for any scientist to be a consultant to anybody, but then this should be reported in the papers that you publish,” said Lennart Hardell of University Hospital, Orebro.

Sir Richard died last year. Among his papers in the Wellcome Foundation library archive is a contract he signed with Monsanto. Dated April 29 1986, it extends for a year the consulting agreement that began on May 10 1979 and offers improved terms. “During the one-year period of this extension your consulting fee shall be $1,500 per day,” it says.

Monsanto said yesterday it did not know how much work Sir Richard did for the company, but said he was an expert witness for Solutia, a chemical business spun off from Monsanto, as recently as 2000.

STOP READING, HERE!

THIS IS A PASTE-TOGETHER THAT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO SORTING OUT.    INDUSTRY PROPAGANDA + NEWS REPORTS ABOUT THE SAME STUFF

May 5, 2004

National Post

Only bad science links 2,4-D to cancer

by Donald L. Page

 

Remarkably, the OCFP review failed to include the comprehensive literature reviews by researchers attempting to quantify the contribution of pesticides to the overall incidence of cancer. Such reviews include Sir Richard Doll (1981), Doll (1998), Ritter (1997) and Gold (2002). Every one of them concludes that the major causes of preventable cancer are smoking, alcohol consumption and lifestyle (mainly diet), and that the contribution from pesticides is negligible.

Based on these expert reviews, the health of Canadians would be better served to have all the resources currently dedicated to banning lawn care pesticides redirected to improving the diet and exercise of the population.

Last year at this time, Sir Richard Doll, professor emeritus of cancer research epidemiology at Oxford University, spoke at a meeting in Guelph, Ont. As reported by the news media, when a local municipal politician asked Sir Richard if there was a connection between the use of pesticides and cancer, and if a ban was warranted on the use of lawn and garden pesticides, he responded, “No. There’s no scientific basis for it.”

It is not in the public interest to misrepresent the science when science is the fundamental basis for our decision-making. Doctors and scientists charged with protecting our health should make decisions on the basis of the weight of evidence. The OCFP report fails that critical test.

(CropLife)   http://www.croplife.ca/english/resourcecentre/pest-newsmay2004.html

(Industry)   http://www.24d.org/newsarticles/Page-only-bad-science.pdf

—————-

May 9, 2004

iCanGarden.com

OCFP and Pesticides

All members of the Ontario College of Family Physicians should be ashamed of their organization’s so-called review of literature on pesticides!

by Art Drysdale

After talking at length with Dr. Keith Solomon at the University of Guelph (he is chair of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Network of Toxicology Centres) about this, I looked up a little more information about Dr. (Sir) Richard Doll, professor emeritus of cancer research epidemiology at Oxford University. Both Don Page and Keith Solomon mentioned him. It is only about a year ago that the elderly good Doctor was at a meeting at the University of Guelph. The local news media reported: “when a local municipal politician asked Sir Richard if there was a connection between the use of pesticides and cancer, and if a ban was warranted on the use of lawn and garden pesticides, he responded, ‘No. There’s no scientific basis for it.'”

When are the doctors in the OCFP going to be honest with the public?

http://www.icangarden.com/document.cfm?task=viewdetail&itemid=5029

—————-

Journal of the American College of Toxicology See page 37 Reviewers such as Sir Richard Doll have commented that Hardell’s work … 2,4-D-containing herbicides to their lawn and/or employed commercial lawn care .

http://www.24d.org/abstracts/amcoltox.pdf

—————-

March 1999 BOOK REVIEW OF THE DAY: “Environmental …

Sir Richard Doll calls Devra Lee Davis’ work “uninteresting,” … a history of exposure to certain herbicides and fungicides had higher-than-expected rates …

http://www.junkscience.com/mar99.htm

—————-

Mon 17 May 2004

Canada News-Wire

Safe on Your Food … Safe on Your Lawn: What the Experts Say

Asked if there was a connection between the use of pesticides and cancer, and if a ban was warranted on the use of lawn and garden pesticides: “No. There’s no scientific basis for it.”

Sir Richard Doll, Professor Emeritus, Cancer Research Epidemiology Oxford University (doctor who discovered the link between smoking and cancer)

+44 1 865 9 404825

Company: Scotts Canada Ltd.

Contact: /For further information: Jill Fairbrother, Scotts Canada,  (416) 255-2883, (416) 788-0539/

—————-

April 13, 2005

Herbicides, Pesticides and Intellectual Honesty An illuminating exchange on the frontiers of environmental purity

The Frontier Centre’s Agricultural Policy

by Rolf Penner

All this raises serious questions about Dr. Paton’s credibility on the subject at hand, and his overall general lack of commitment to the scientific method. If you think that neither Paton nor myself are qualified enough to comment on the issue, how about Sir Richard Doll, professor emeritus of cancer research epidemiology at Oxford University? At a meeting in Guelph, Ontario, when a local municipal politician asked Sir Richard if there were a connection between the use of pesticides and cancer, and if a ban was warranted on the use of lawn and garden pesticides, he responded, “No. There’s no scientific basis for it.” The argument from authority cuts both ways.

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY – Suite 25 Lombard Concourse, One Lombard Place, Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3B 0X3, Tel: (204) 957-1567

Fax: (204) 957-1570, E-mail: newideas@fcpp.org

http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=1008

Professor Bill Paton,

Botany, Brandon University,

Manitoba, MB  R7A 6A9

(204) 727-9783

PATONW@brandonu.ca

—————-

Thursday March 30, 2006

The Guardian

Response

Parents, don’t fall for this pesticide/cancer scare story

The latest claims, based on archaic theories, ignore the scientific evidence, says Adam Wishart

The myth that pesticide residues are causing a rise in cancers has once again surfaced (Scientists warn parents on pesticides and plastics, March 21). Professor Vyvyan Howard and John Newby of Liverpool University argue that “low levels of chemicals from pesticides and plastics could affect the development of babies before they are born and increase their likelihood of developing cancer later in life”.

Howard’s paper itself included no original research but was a review of 316 other papers, some more than 50 years old. And despite running to 59 pages, it contained no mention of Causes of Cancer, a monograph written in 1981 by Richard Peto and Sir Richard Doll which many scientists regard as the key work on the subject and which pointedly rejected the link between low levels of pesticides and rising incidence of cancer among the general population.

  • Adam Wishart’s book, One in Three: A son’s journey into the history and science of cancer, will be published by Profile in June

adam@adamwishart.info

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

13 November 2006

Hardell, L, MJ Walker, B Walhjalt, LS Friedman and ED Richter. 2006.

Secret ties to industry and conflicting interests in cancer research.

American Journal of Industrial Medicine, in press.

7 December Exxon spends millions to cast doubt on warming. The oil giant is still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund European organisations that seek to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on global warming. London Independent, England.

7 December Promoting ethics in science. Increasingly, journals are appearing in front page scandals that expose undisclosed industry support of research and scientists who have faked results. Inside Higher Ed.

4 December Group claims ‘tobacco’-style lobby shields toxic interests. An environmental organization claims that a group funded by manufacturing and aerospace companies used misleading research and tobacco industry-style lobbying to influence the debate on the effects of perchlorate. Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, California.

3 December The N.J. lab that gave a global warning. The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Plainsboro was long a place of blessed obscurity for its scientists. That was, until two scientists said the Bush administration was suppressing publication of their findings on global warming. Newark Star-Ledger, New Jersey.

3 December Group hits perchlorate study tactics. In California, an environmental organization claims that a group funded by manufacturing and aerospace companies used misleading research and tobacco industry-style lobbying to influence the debate on the effects of perchlorate. Whittier Daily News, California.

An analysis of peer-reviewed documents and other sources reveals that scientists paid by the tobacco industry are not the only scientists who regularly fail to to reveal their funding links to industry when they publish studies. The most striking case is that of Sir Richard Doll, co-author (with Richard Peto) of one of the most influential papers in cancer epidemiology, one that concluded that only a small percentage of cancer was caused by environmental exposures.

According to the findings of Hardell et al.’s research, Doll had a long term financial relationship with Monsanto between 1970 and 1990.

Hardell et al. describe a letter from a Monsanto epidemiologist renewing Doll’s contract for £1000 per day from Monsanto, which Doll had deposited in 2002 in a library at the Wellcome Institute. The Doll and Peto paper was published in 1981. Additional documents, according to Hardell et al., reveal that Doll and an industry medical advisor agreed to have any articles written by Doll reviewed by Peto and the medical advisors of two chemical companies.

Doll’s work for Monsanto included reviews of the cancer risks of vinyl chloride, dioxin and phenoxy herbicides (2,4-D and 2,4,5-T).

The vinyl chloride work led to a peer-reviewed paper published in 1988 in a Scandinavian journal reporting that vinyl chloride was not a significant carcinogen other than in the liver.

According to Hardell et al., Doll’s analysis became the gold standard on vinyl chloride toxicity, including being cited by the American Chemical Council (2001) as showing no link between vinyl chloride and brain cancer.

Hardell et al. report finding additional documentation of Doll’s relationships with companies and trade associations in the Welcomme Trust library. For example, in the 1988 paper, Doll did not disclose receiving £15,000 plus expenses from the Chemical Manufacturer’s Association and the chemical companies ICI and Dow (two large producers of vinyl chloride), a payment documented by papers reviewed by Hardell et al. They also report that Doll was receiving additional payment at the same time from Monsanto, another large producer of vinyl chloride.

Hardell et al. also note that Doll, in a private unsolicited letter to the chair of an Australian Royal Commission reviewing the safety of dioxin and phenoxy herbicides wrote that “there is no reason to suppose they are carcinogenic in laboratory animals.” His letter went further to challenge the veracity of peer-reviewed published research by Hardell and colleagues on the carcinogenicity of phenoxy herbicides: “In my opinion, his [Hardell’s] work should no longer be cited as scientific evidence.” The Commission’s final report included, according to Hardell et al., “an almost verbatim account of a Monsanto submission on this issue.”

Hardell et al. describe other additional examples of researchers failing to disclose financial ties to industries with vested interests in the outcome of their peer-reviewed studies. For example:

*             Swedish professor Ragnar Rylander worked for decades as a consultant to Philip Morris, failing to disclose this tie to his employer while, at the same time, discussing “all his tobacco related research at the universities with Philip Morris and their lawyers.”

While he initially denied the consultancies when it was first revealed in 2002, Rylander’s contract has been made public in the Philip Morris Archives.

 

*             Scientists were hired by the product-defense firm Exponent to argue that dioxins are not associated with cancer in people. They made presentations at public meetings casting doubt on the chemical’s impact, and wrote peer reviewed articles with the same conclusion, without revealing their industry ties. According to Hardell et al., the vice president of Exponent, Dennis Paustenbach, was on the EPA’s science advisory board at the time, but was also conducting research for Dow Chemical on dioxin in soils around its chemical facility in Midland, Michigan. Paustenbach has since been associated with other efforts to distort science, particularly hexavalent chromium, including in articles in the Wall Street Journal.

Hardell et al. conclude their review by calling for strict development and application of policies on disclosing conflicts of interest. As they observe, “financial relationships between industry, researchers and academic institutions are becoming increasingly common.” While funding from industry “should be a good thing,”

according to Hardell et al., “the few examples we give show that it invites abuse when it is secret, concealed, disguised or non-disclosed, and as other research suggests, these examples are not isolated.” They are especially troubling because “they involved some of the world’s leading epidemiologists.”

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/Industry/2006/2006-1103hardelletal.html

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

Case study 2: Agent Orange

————————————————————————

Intervention in Vietnam inquiry

Sarah Boseley

Friday December 8, 2006

The Guardian

In 1985, while Sir Richard was a paid consultant for Monsanto, he stepped into the debate over the herbicides Agent Orange and dioxin, which had been sprayed from the air in the Vietnam war. An Australian royal commission was investigating whether the herbicides, made by Monsanto, had caused cancers in Australian personnel involved in the war. Sir Richard offered his unsolicited views in a letter to Justice Phillip Evatt, who headed the inquiry, and gave Agent Orange a clean bill of health.

“There is no reason to suppose that they [the herbicides] are carcinogenic in laboratory animals and that even TCDD [dioxin], which has been postulated to be a dangerous contaminant of the herbicides, is at the most, only weakly and inconsistently carcinogenic in animal experiments,” he wrote.

Lennart Hardell, the professor in the department of oncology at University Hospital who has now become the leading critic of Sir Richard’s industry funding, had also offered evidence to the inquiry.

Professor Hardell considered Agent Orange a cancer hazard, but Sir Richard warned the commission not to place much value on his work.

Many of his published statements, wrote Sir Richard, “were exaggerated or not supportable and … there were many opportunities for bias to have been introduced in the collection of his data. His conclusions cannot be sustained and in my opinion, his work should no longer be cited as scientific evidence.”

Prof Hardell says of Sir Richard: “My colleagues and I could never understand his standpoint. He was at the same time negotiating a new contract with Monsanto.” The commission concluded that Agent Orange was not a health hazard.

Prof Hardell says that the passage reviewing the scientific evidence in its report was taken word for word from Monsanto’s evidence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1967381,00.html

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

8 December 2006

BBC NEWS

Industry ‘paid top cancer expert’

The scientist who first linked smoking to lung cancer was paid by a biotech firm while investigating cancer risks in the industry, it has emerged.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Professor Sir Richard Doll held a consultancy post with US firm Monsanto for more than 20 years.

During that time he investigated the potential cancer causing properties of Agent Orange, made by the company.

But a former colleague said he gave the money he was paid to charity.

Professor Sir Richard Peto, a fellow expert in cancer, said:

“Everybody working in this area knew that Richard worked for industry and consulted for industry, and would do court cases.

“It does not in any sense suggest that his work was biased. He was incredibly careful to avoid bias.”

 

The Guardian reported that Sir Richard, who died in 2005 aged 92, received a US$1,500-a-day consultancy fee from Monsanto, then a chemicals company, in the mid-1980s.

During that period, Sir Richard wrote to an Australian commission on the results of his investigation into whether the chemical Agent Orange, famous for its use by the US during the Vietnam War, caused cancer.

He argued in his letter that there was no evidence that Agent Orange caused cancer.

Should come clean

Professor Lennart Hardell, of the Oncology Department at University Hospital Orebro, Sweden, has also studied the potential hazards posed by Agent Orange.

He was one of the scientists whose work was dismissed by Sir Richard.

He told the BBC Sir Richard’s work was tainted.

He said: “It’s quite OK to have contacts with industry, but you should be fair and say ‘well, I’m writing this letter as a consultant for Monsanto.”

“But he does it as president, Green College, UK – a prestige position; also the Imperial Research Cancer Organisation in the UK.

“And that makes a different position of the paper because you are an official university-employed person giving this position.”

Further documents obtained by The Guardian allegedly show that Sir Richard was also paid a £15,000 fee by the Chemical Manufacturers Association, and chemicals companies Dow Chemicals and ICI for a review of vinyl chloride, used in plastics, which largely cleared the chemical of any link with cancers apart from liver cancer.

According to the newspaper, this is a view with which the World Health Organisation disagrees.

Doll’s views on the chemical were used by the manufacturers’ trade association to defend it for more than a decade, The Guardian said.

Sir Richard was the first to publish a peer-reviewed study, in 1951, to demonstrate smoking was a major cause of lung cancer.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/6220440.stm

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

8 December 2006    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2055641.ece

Lung cancer pioneer ‘was on chemical firms’ payroll’

By Helen McCormack

A renowned British scientist who established that smoking causes lung cancer was on the payroll of a chemical company while investigating cancer risks, it was reported last night.

Sir Richard Doll, who died last year aged 92, was said to have received a consultancy fee of $1,500 a day during the mid 1980s from the chemicals firm Monsanto, which is now associated with GM crops.

Doll, an epidemiologist, also received payments from the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the companies Dow Chemicals and ICI, The Guardian reported. It said the three organisations paid him £15,000 to assess the potential dangers of vinyl chloride, used in plastics.

Doll largely cleared the chemical industry of having links with cancer, a conclusion which goes against the World Health Organisation’s assessment. The association is said to have used the review to defend its members’ use of vinyl chloride.

While on Monsanto’s payroll, it is claimed Doll wrote to a government-appointed commission in Australia investigating the potential for Agent Orange to cause cancer. He said there was no evidence the agent, manufactured by Monsanto and used during the Vietnam war, caused cancer.

Doll pioneered the argument that cancer is caused by smoking, a view contested by environmentalists who point to the dangers of pollution.

His work was funded by Cancer Research UK. Its medical director, Professor John Toy, said that Doll had been working in a different era when it was “not automatic for potential conflicts of interest to be declared in scientific papers.”

 

2006-11-28 Water is the new oil, says CIBC. I called CEO Brain Shaw. You, too? CPPIB launched bid for British water utility. P3’s.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Culture and Ethics  1 Response »
Nov 282006
 

Welcome to newcomers!

CONTENTS

(1)  BACKGROUND FOR NEWCOMERS

(2)  WATER IS THE NEW OIL, SAYS CIBC

(3)  CANADA PENSION PLAN (CPP) LAUNCHED BID FOR BRITISH WATER UTILITY

——————-

(1)  BACKGROUND FOR NEWCOMERS

The origin of our network is in water, 6 or 7 years ago.  We continue to fight to keep water in the public domain, free of corporate interests.  We battle to force the Governments to perform their role which is to protect the water supply.  The water supply is part of “the commons” – that upon which we are all dependent for our health and survival.  Individuals and corporations do not have “stakeholder rights” to water.  Every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that local water supplies are ensured for future use.  I believe we each need to understand the sacred nature of water, to be in reverence because of our vulnerability and complete dependence on water.

Our children need to know.

The wisdom of democratic functioning, passed down to us through centuries, is the need to separate functions in the society so they are independent of each other.  The “separation of powers” in a democracy – essential to prevent a concentration of power in the hands of a few, which opens the wealth (human and natural resources) of the democracy up to unfettered manipulation and exploitation by the few.  At which point you no longer have a democracy.

Through a series of “failures” we are conditioned to sever the link between wisdom and behaviour.

–  It is the role of the educational system to equip Canadians with a basic understanding of “civics”, with the ability to think critically, and the ability to engage in public debate.

Public-private-partnerships (P3’s) are the complete opposite of the necessary separation of powers in a society.  Since 1982 when Federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson (Mulroney administration) first promoted P3’s, the Governments have gone unchallenged in their implementation of them.  The existence of P3’s, an anathema to democratic functioning is an indictment of the educational system.  Only an ignorant and disempowered citizenry would put up with corporate interests in bed with Government.

Public-Private-Partnerships are contrary to the political science of democratic governance.  Where is our outrage?

The fastest and easiest way to move water out of the protected “commons”, beyond democratic control, is through deals between “Big Government” and “Big Business” – public-private-partnerships.

–  The failure after education and our individual responsibility to the Canadian democracy is the media.  Read the article below about the CIBC World Markets Inc.’s response to water.  It is a repeat of the way in which Federal, Provincial and Univeristy Departments of Agriculture were handed over to Monsanto, along with public funds to further their agenda (GMO’s, ownership of seeds).  The pattern is this:

  • cry “poor boy”.  The Government can’t afford whatever it is.
  • create fear. Dead people (Walkerton).  B.C.’s water advisories.
  • offer up the “inevitable” solution:  bring in the large corporations.

WHEN will we stand up?

I am grateful to Susan Howatt from the Council of Canadians for keeping us informed, and for organizing protest.  If we all pitch in, both by sending our own letters and by passing the word along, we can bring an end to the skulduggery.  Letters to the Editor are important, along with communications to Government personnel.  Including Canada Pension Plan.  CIBC World Markets Inc. is a player.  Check your pension plans and investments:  put an end to relationships with the CIBC and let them know why.

The Executive of CIBC World Markets is listed at:  http://www.cibcwm.com/wm/company-information/executive-bios.html

Brian Shaw is the CEO.  I telephoned the Toronto switchboard 416-594-7000 and asked to be put through to Brian’s receptionist.  His Exec Asst answered;  I asked if Brian was in.  Yes, but he was on a conference call.  I left a message and my phone number.  I told his Exec Asst that the water networks in Canada are very large.  And that we pay attention to what is happening in relation to water.  Corporate belief that water is a resource to be exploited is repugnant.  The use of fear-mongering in the manipulation of public debate is also repugnant.  I will be checking out mutual funds, etc. in which family money is invested.  And withdrawing from any investments and banking associated with the CIBC.

I’ll let you know if I receive the call-back promised by Brian’s Exec-Asst!

I am hoping that more people will make similar phone calls.  Also, you can send emails to CIBC World Markets from the “Contact Us” part of their web-site:   http://www.cibcwm.com/wm/company-information/contact-us.html

See below for more efforts.  All the angles should be covered.

Have fun, and Cheers!

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

(2)  WATER IS THE NEW OIL, SAYS CIBC

Hello all, (Susan Howatt, Council of Canadians writing)

CIBC has weighed in on the privatization of water and the role private sector should play in infrastructure.  It is a chilling read and underscores the need for the federal government to endorse the right to water, provide a sustainable investment package for municipalities and close the door forever to the notion that water belongs to those that can pay for it.

The article from today’s Globe and Mail is pasted below, but I also recommend having your voices heard by writing a letter to the editor Letters to The Editor(Letters  AT  globeandmail.com) or in the on-line forum here:

(web address no longer valid)

This is especially chilling given the recently announced “Advantage Canada” plan by federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty that, among other things, strongly encourages pension funds to support P3 infrastructure projects in Canada.  As reported by the Canadian Press, “The Advantage Canada plan…included a pledge to give maximum impact to government spending through public-private partnerships. These so-called P3s “will also provide opportunities for Canadian pension funds and other investors to participate in infrastructure projects here in Canada rather than being forced to look abroad, as is often the case now,” according to the finance ministry.”

Best,

Susan

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Water is the new oil, says CIBC

ROMA LUCIW

Globe and Mail Update

The colossal cost of fixing crumbling water infrastructure in the developed world has opened the door to government privatization.

Water delivery systems in the industrial world are in “dire need” of repair, says a report released Monday by CIBC World Markets Inc. At least one-fifth of America’s municipal wastewater treatment facilities do not comply with federal regulations and in some U.S. cities, more than half of the water headed to consumers is lost along the way.

CIBC economist Benjamin Tal, author of the “Tapping into Water” report, estimates it will take “hundreds of billions of dollars” to fix dated water infrastructure in North America and Europe.

Federal governments are not rushing to fix the infrastructure and municipalities lack the means to do so. “As a result, governments are now much more open to the notion of privatizing their water infrastructure which, in turn, is providing a substantial boost to the private water industry,” Mr. Tal said.

“What we are witnessing here is a trend that is profoundly modifying water as an investment theme throughout the world.”

Canada has one of the world’s largest supplies of fresh water, but has its own water woes. Some British Columbia residents remain under a boil-water advisory that first came into effect Nov. 16 when heavy rainfall triggered mudslides and caused runoff into the Vancouver region’s reservoirs. There are fears that the water is contaminated with E. coli, the bacteria that killed seven people in Walkerton, Ont., six years ago. The bacteria entered the town’s water supply from farm runoff, and residents had to boil or buy their water for seven months after that supply was tainted.

Meanwhile, the business of water is booming.

Mr. Tal sees parallels between today’s water industry and the oil industry in its golden era, before and after the Second World War. “The market is paying attention,” he said. “Capital investment, deregulation, consolidation, and privatization of global water assets and services are advancing at a pace not seen before.”

In the last three years, U.S.-based water companies — as measured by the Bloomberg U.S. water index — have surged 150 per cent, three times the rise seen by companies on the S&P 500, while paying twice as much in dividends.

International water players are doing even better, Mr. Tal said, with their stock values rising twice as fast as their American counterparts in the past year alone.

Water is an attractive investment because it is much less volatile than industries driven by economic cycles, Mr. Tal said. Companies that specialize in “water solutions” can range from pumps, pipes and valves, wastewater treatment, to quality testing. European companies account for half of the global water players, while American companies make up 36 per cent.

In Canada, there are few ways for investors to directly invest in H2O.

However, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board recently launched a bid for a British water utility.

In order to attract private sector investment in water, municipalities are allowing the price of water to rise to levels that resemble full recovery costs. “Water prices in many industrialized countries are now rising much faster than inflation, and this trend will only accelerate in the coming years,” Mr. Tal said.

World Bank estimates suggest that outsourcing and privatization in the water sector are set to double in the coming five years to reach a near 40 per cent share of the market.

“If crumbling water infrastructures in North America and Europe provide the private water industry with great opportunities, the potential in the developing world is even greater,” Mr. Tal said.

The water investment theme is being supported by rising demand for clean drinking water. Global water demand is doubling every twenty years and water utilization rates have doubled in the past 45 years. The populations and economies of Asian powerhouses China and India are expanding and the countries are not only consuming more water, they are highly inefficient in their use.

Still, the CIBC report stressed that the world is not running out of water.

The problem is that the global water supply is unevenly distributed with nine countries possessing 60 per cent of the world’s available freshwater supply.

“As is the case with any other resources on earth, the main story lies in the developing economies, where water shortage will only worsen in the coming years due to rapid population growth, urbanization, climate change, and the fact that globalization is highly water intensive,” Mr. Tal said.

Susan Howatt,  National Water Campaigner, Council of Canadians

www.canadians.org

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

(3)  CANADA PENSION PLAN (CPP) LAUNCHED BID FOR BRITISH WATER UTILITY

Dear water activists,

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) will be holding its first set of public hearings this year since it announced its intention in October 2006 to purchase the British for-profit water company AWG Plc, also known as Anglian Water.

These public meetings will be held:

  • WINNIPEG, MANITOBA: Wednesday November 22, Fort Gary Hotel, Gateway Room, 222 Broadway 5:00 – 6:30 p.m.
  • LONDON, ONTARIO: Monday December 18, Four Points Hotel, Room London B,  150 Wellington Road South, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.If you live in the vicinity of London or Winnipeg, this is a terrific opportunity to voice your opposition to the CPPIB’s $1.05 billion bid for Anglian Water. If you do not live near these cities, but would like to voice your concern, please do send a message to the CPPIB’s manager of communications John Cappelletti at jcappelletti  AT  cppib.ca:

Below are some talking points that you are welcome to use to prepare for the public hearings, a letter to the editor or in a letter to John Cappelletti at the Canada Pension Plan.

Best,

Susan

Susan Howatt

National Water Campaigner, Council of Canadians

1-800-387-7177 or 613-233-4487 ext. 239;  613-761-2482 (mobile)

www.canadians.org

1.  The Canada Pension Plan is investing in for-profit water. The CPP Investment Board teamed up with a consortium in a $4.1-billion (U.S.) offer to buy AWG PLC (Anglian Water), one of Britain’s largest private water companies. The fund’s $1.05-billion (Canadian) share of the bid would mark its first water investment.

2. 16 million Canadians contribute to or benefit from the PP. All Canadian workers residing outside of Quebec contribute 4.95 per cent f their earnings to the Canada Pension Plan.

3. Canadians are opposed to for-profit water. A 2005 poll ommissioned in British Columbia by the Canadian Union of Public Employees ound 75 per cent of respondents were opposed to privatization of water ervices.

4. Anglian Water is a product of Margaret Thatcher’s rivatization agenda. Anglian Water was one of the British for-profit water ompanies that emerged in 1988 when the Thatcher government transformed its 10 egional water authorities into private profit-making ventures, in what was one f the most massive privatization initiatives in history.

5. Privatization means high prices and corruption. After ritain’s water system was privatized, prices rose by over 50 per cent in the irst four years, with directors’ fees, salaries and bonuses increasing between 0 per cent and 200 per cent in most water companies. he Daily Mail wrote that, “the water industry has become the biggest rip-off in Britain,” and that it is “the greatest act of licensed robbery in our history.”

6. Anglian Water has a bad pollution record. Anglian Water is the only company in the industry to see an increase in major pollution incidents. Since 2004, Anglian Water recorded the second highest number of cases of water pollution in the country. In 2001, Anglian Water was fined for an incident in which 200 tons of sewage spilled into a river in Essex. In 2005, water companies were ranked as the worst polluters in the United Kingdom.

7. Anglian Water cuts off water to families. The water disconnection rate in Britain tripled in the first five years after water services were privatized, with 18,636 households disconnected in 1994.

8. Now even Britain recognizes that for-profit water has failed the poor. On November 9, 2006, the United Kingdom officially recognized the human right to water. International Development Secretary Hilary Benn stated, “In many developing countries, water companies supply the rich with subsidized water but often don’t reach poor people at all.

Recognizing the right to water will help change this and allow all citizens to demand more of their governments.”

2006-11-02 Tana Dineen reply to my request re action, Donna Malcolm’s forced injection and confinement in psych ward

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Health  No Responses »
Nov 022006
 

Dear Ms. Finley:

Thank you for your interest in my book.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of a group to suggest that has the resources to fight such a case nor can I think of further action to be taken.
You have already gone to the College and consulted lawyers and I can think of nothing more you can do.

Regards,

Tana Dineen

At 12:41 PM 02/11/2006, you wrote:

Dear Dr. Dineen,

A few years ago I read and have referred people to your book, “Manufacturing Victims”.  Thank-you for it!

I am wondering:  do you know of a citizen group that fights abuses arising from the use of psychology/psychiatry?

In February last year I went to University Hospital here in Saskatoon  (you know it) with a large amount of fluid on one lung.  I went to emergency with the x-ray in hand, as directed by a doctor from a walk-in clinic.

The short story is that I was denied access to a lawyer, given an injection of haloperidol and lorazepam, and confined to the Psych Ward in the Hantelman Building for 7 days.

I was de-certified just prior to my appeal hearing.  A retired radiologist was going to appear on my behalf at the hearing.  The psychiatrist (DonnaMalcolm) cancelled the hearing;  it was unnecessary because I was no longer certified.

I filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons.  They have found that Donna Malcolm’s actions were appropriate.

I believe it is a serious matter when people in positions of power can deny access to a lawyer, order injections that cause permanent amnesia for a period of time, and lock the person up.  I went to the Human Rights Commission, also the appeal process there.  They declared that they don’t have jurisdiction to hear my complaint.

I talked with a couple of lawyers in Saskatoon.  They don’t want to touch the case – it would take years, lots of money, and you won’t win because the doctors will close ranks.

It seems to me that I should at least exhaust all the avenues through which remedy might be achieved.  To leave the situation unchallenged means that other people will experience the same infringement on human rights.

I thought you might know if there are citizen groups that are active in this arena?

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

2006-10-13 in a bit of a pickle. Registered letter threatens prosecution. And my reply.

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Oct 132006
 

The light dawns slowly sometimes … duh! 

The mailman brought a registered letter two days ago.  It’s from Ivan Felligi, Canada’s Chief Statistician.  Newcomers to our network won’t know what that’s about. 

Old-timers will know:  the letter says that the matter between Ivan and me will be referred to the Judicial system.  Jail time and a fine are possibilities (for me, not him!!) 

There have been a few media reports about the high rate of non-compliance with the 2006 census.  The cause has been attributed, for example, to a transient population (e.g. Alberta). 

If you are in the email networks you know what the media is not telling:

the Government contracted-out part of the 2006 census to Lockheed-Martin Corporation which is part of the American military machine.  People have refused to co-operate with the census as a form of protest or resistance. 

My first communication to the Government about their plans to “out-source” to Lockheed-Martin was in 2003.  The Quaker people in Halifax sent an excellent letter of protest (2004-02) .  Sylvia Mangalam was the secretary of the Quaker meeting that sent this letter to the Government about Lockheed-Martin.  I phoned Sylvia today and have sent a copy of my communication to Ivan Felligi, Chief Statistician, to her and other Quakers. 

There are a number of reasons why the census should not have been out-sourced but the Lockheed-Martin situation is pivotal. 

 We worked with the Government on the GDR (Government Directive on Regulating) which is part of so-called “Smart Regulations”.  I used the GDR to reinforce the point about the census, telling the Government that Canadians are learning non-compliance with regulations.  I told them there will be a high level of non-compliance with the census for very legitimate reasons, if they do not change their direction.  It isn’t hard to figure out, from all the protest. The rule of law in Canada is being undermined which is a very serious situation. 

Corruption, governments in bed with the people they are supposed to regulate, the complete failure to regulate to protect “the commons”, the gun registry, contracting-out to corporations like Lockheed-Martin, etc. etc.  – all PREDICTABLY lead to a loss of confidence and consequent disrespect for the laws of the land.  Definitely not a good place to be.   You can point this out to the Government, but they seem incapable of hearing. 

I have continued to communicate with Ivan Felligi about the census.  A Statistics Canada person (INSERT:  Anil Arora who later became the Crown’s witness in my trial) phoned me and we talked the matter through, or so I thought. 

I have participated in the on-line support network at Vive le Canada.  These are people who have resisted the census in various ways.

Statistics Canada personnel also watch the site.  There is a recent posting from one of them. (UPDATE:  the web-page no longer exists.)

“Count Me Out” is another web-site for the sharing of information. 

There are thousands of people across Canada who have not complied, many of them for the same reason: Lockheed-Martin.  On July 5th we circulated in our network the report that 400,000 adults in British Columbia alone had not sent in their census forms – 10% of the population.  The Government stepped up efforts to gain compliance.  They do not disseminate the information on how many people have sabotaged the census in various ways, from the provision of inaccurate  information up to refusal to submit. 

The letter I received this week from Ivan Felligi tells me,  If your completed questionnaire is not received by Statistics Canada by October 27, 2006, I will turn the matter over to the Department of Justice with a recommendation that appropriate charges be laid….

Further, if I am tried and found guilty of an offence under the Statistics Act,  I may be liable to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or both. 

The reason given by Ivan for why the census form from me is required, is simply not true.  It is contained in my reply to him (copy below). 

Now here’s the pickle and the slow dawning of the light:  I didn’t connect this on-going battle over Government complicity with a company that makes its money through the killing of Iraqi people and their country – to – my running for the leadership of the Green Party of Saskatchewan.  Tomorrow no less! 

I should be happy the light dawned in time!  I have to tell “the Party” that if they elect me to the leadership, there may be an interruption while I am in jail!  They may not want a leader who is “in trouble with the law”. 

Geez!  How does the world come to this absurdity?!  It’s worth a laugh.  But if I laugh about it, I might get the injection and be locked up in the Psychiatric Ward again.  (Another story for newcomers!)  Psychiatric ward, jail – not much difference.  Except that you might be allowed to openly express your humour and laughter in the latter. 

Oh dear. 

The following is my letter to Ivan Felligi, head of Statistics Canada.  I have cc’d it to the President of Lockheed-Martin Canada, Martin Munro.  And to Maxime Bernier, who, as the Minister for Industry Canada is responsible for Statistics Canada. 

======================= 

SUBJECT:  Census Data 

October 13, 2006

TO:

Ivan Felligi

Chief Statistician of Canada

Ivan.P.Fellegi@statcan.ca 

CC:  Industry Canada

Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada Maxime Bernier

minister.industry@ic.gc.ca   613-995-9001 

Cc: Jacques.Morin@a.statcan.ca; Lyne.St.John@a.statcan.ca 

CC:  Lockheed-Martin,   President (Canadian operations)

Martin Munro   

martin.munro@lmco.ca  613-599-3270 ext 3498 (Martin’s exec asst, Diane Grandy)

Dear Ivan, 

I am in receipt of your registered letter dated October 3, 2006. 

It does not address my reason for non-compliance with the census, communicated to you consistently and beginning back in 2003. 

The reason you provide for the necessity of compliance with the census is not truth.  I presume that if your reason is an untruth, it is because you do not have a truthful reason to offer. 

I would be failing my responsibilities as a citizen were I to bow in cowardice to anyone, civil servant or otherwise,  who attempts to intimidate me with the threat of the judicial system –  jail time and fines – when there is no reasonable basis. 

Lockheed-Martin is a large part of the American war machine.  I will not, through complicity, add to their financial profits.  I communicated this to you more than two years before the census, as did many other Canadians. 

If I am to be treated equally before the Law, then you must equally refer the thousands of other Canadians who have not complied with the census to the Judicial system.  I presume you are doing this. 

The reason you have provided for the necessity of my compliance, quoting from your letter of October 3, 2006 is:

      “A compulsory response is required of all respondents because the census is essential for providing the information needed by governments, businesses, researchers and individual Canadians to shed light on issues that are critical to virtually every sector of society.  If respondents were to arbitrarily choose whether or not they would answer the census questions, the result would not accurately reflect the characteristics of the population and would therefore not be considered useful or reliable.” 

I am sorry to say, but that is a load of bull.  Most people off the street know it’s not the way statistics work.  I find it offensive that citizens are treated as though they are ignorant.  In my particular case, I am a graduate of the College of Commerce, University of Saskatchewan.  I majored in Quantitative Analysis (Statistics) and graduated with Honours.  Every day we are provided with reliable statistical information not based on 100% sampling. 

I repeat my point:  if you must resort to blatant untruths I presume it is because you don’t have a valid argument to offer. 

Another point I would like to make:  you chose to define the Canadian census in a way that necessitated the out-sourcing. 

On your website you record that the first census in Canada was conducted in 1666, the first national census in 1871. For centuries and decades the Government has defined the census in a way that civil servants had the capability of doing the work.  To me, quite frankly, it is prudent to keep one’s work within the limits you are capable of managing. 

If the Government is not capable of doing that which has been successfully managed by civil servants for decades and centuries, then the answer is to fire those responsible for the mismanagement.  The answer is not to knowingly create some over-sized census monster which weakens one’s capabilities and then dictates an attitude of “I am so weakened I must rely on Big Daddy LM to help me out.” 

Statistics Canada and its employees are to serve the interests of the citizens of Canada.  Previous administrations have done that very well.  If not, there would have been problems in the past.  I am not aware of any.  So I suggest that you need to re-think what you are doing. 

Third and final point:  in the last paragraph of your letter you say, “I would like to assure you that the information you provide on your census questionnaire will be kept strictly confidential, …”. 

I reassure children so they may feel safe and secure.  I think you mis-read the situation:  I am secure, I am an adult.  I do not need to be reassured by you.  I will arrive at my own conclusions by observing your actions and by reading what you write. 

Furthermore, not once in my communications with the Government have I mentioned concerns about the confidentiality of information.  I have been clear and explicit in the reason for my non-compliance.  You repeat this mantra about confidentiality.  Not once have you addressed or attempted to address my explicitly-stated reason for non-compliance:  the Statistics Canada contract with Lockheed-Martin enriches a corporation that plays a very large role in the American killing machine. 

I am not being snooty.  I am not “radical”.  I come from rural Saskatchewan which is small “c” conservative country.  I am “mature”, a Mother of 2 children.  I do not believe in increasing the hatred in the world through killing other people and their children.  Lockheed-Martin profits from the killing. 

I don’t know into which pigeon hole you have slotted me.  I am able to think.  I can connect the dots between my actions and wider outcomes.  I was a member of and benefited from the Girl Guides of Canada for many years.  I learned service to community.  That community and sisterhood extends to women in all countries of the world.  I had the privilege of attending an international camp.  I slept in the same tent, cooked, laughed and danced with these women when they and I were young.  I really don’t like seeing them killed, as in Iraq.  That’s killed, as in dead. Why would I participate in, or be a collaborator with Lockheed-Martin?  Perhaps you have not read the Washington Post, October 11?  655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred (research overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health).  The killing, once started, does not stop. 

You were told by thousands of Canadians that Lockheed-Martin is a large part of the American war machine.  You made a bad decision to “out-source”. 

Your letter of October 3 is an attempt to coerce me through the threat of jail time and fines.  Were my plate not full at the moment, did I not have more important priorities, I would be researching the avenues through which to lay charges, to “turn the matter over to the Department of Justice”, as you say.  So that you might be tried for your tactics vis-a-vis me. 

Yours truly,

Sandra Finley

Saskatoon, SK   S7N 0L1

306-373-8078

2006-10-11 re Acid rain in Northern Saskatchewan (Alberta tar sands)

 Climate, Water  No Responses »
Oct 112006
 

I sent out:  (2006-10-11)   Where to go? & Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution (Sask lakes dying)

Which prompted:

—–Original Message—–

From: Herman Boerma

Sent: October 11, 2006 10:08 PM

To: Sandra Finley

Subject: acid rain in N sask

 

fyi — this was all predicted by saskatchewan scientists approx 25 years ago

 . . . . .  continued below

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

A short series of emails:

2006-07-10   Wow. Peter Lougheed speaks out, Tar Sands; plus LA Times & Globe & Mail on pipeline

2006-09-12   Response from Govt to Saskatchewan Lakes dying from tarsands emissions?

2006-09-13   continued re Tar Sands and SO2 emissions, Sask lakes dying

2006-10-11   Where to go?  &  Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution (Sask lakes dying)

2006-10-11   re Acid rain in Northern Saskatchewan (Alberta tar sands)

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

continuing ….

Sandra Finley wrote:

 

Thanks, Herman. I didn’t know.

There are other examples, too.

Good scientists and no one pays attention.

Sad.  Worse than sad – tragic, really.

Sandra

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

From: Herman Boerma  Sent: October 12, 2006   To: Sandra Finley Subject: Re: acid rain in N sask

 

Don’t despair.   Things will change.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,1921454,00.html

 

= = = = = = = = = = =

Government plans climate change law  (UK)

· Controls expected to tackle CO2 emissions
· Ministers acknowledge consensus for action

Tania Branigan, political correspondent

The government signalled yesterday that it is planning legislation to tackle climate change, with a bill possibly to appear in next month’s Queen’s Speech, as it acknowledges the formidable political consensus emerging over the need for action.

The new law, likely to introduce controls on carbon dioxide emissions and an independent system to gauge progress in reducing greenhouse gases, was welcomed by opposition parties and environmental groups, though it is not expected to include binding annual targets. The environment secretary, David Miliband, told the Commons yesterday that the issue for the government “is not whether to legislate, but what form legislation should take and how it could be organised”.

He said: “We are looking carefully at the merits of introducing a carbon budget as a means of helping to deliver our goals. The only issue for the government is whether the legislation would help in the battle against climate change, support the efforts to join individual activity with business and government leadership, and link domestic and international action.

“Legislating for targets is not the same as legislating the means to achieve them, and it is the means to achieve them on which we will all be judged.”

Mr Miliband said that the facts on climate change were “more alarming … than previously thought”.

Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, said it was delighted by the news. “Tony Blair must build on the political consensus that now exists for tackling this crisis, and ensure that the UK’s contribution to climate change falls every year.”

According to FoE, 397 MPs have backed their “Big Ask” campaign, which calls for the government to commit itself to cutting the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions by at least 3% year on year.

Nasa scientists said last month that the world was the warmest it had been in the last 12,000 years, due to rapid changes in the past three decades. Their report warned that pollution caused by humans was pushing the world towards dangerous levels of climate change.

Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment secretary, welcomed the news, adding: “We need rolling annual carbon reduction targets … an independent body to assess the science and make recommendations as that science evolves; and an annual report to Parliament to ensure that ministers and civil servants are accountable.”

 

 

 

 

 

2006-10-11 Where to go? & Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution (Sask lakes dying)

 Climate, Green Party, Water  No Responses »
Oct 112006
 

Scroll down to

  • Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution
  • INTO THE HURRICANE,  Attacking a “NEW POLITICAL FORCE”   by John Boyko

 

As far as I can determine, our network started the news about the lakes and land in the north dying from the sulfur and nitrogen coming from tar sands development (June).

 

Others pitched in with public meetings and so on.

 

The Governments had to do something,  below:   News,  October 10, 2006

EDMONTON (CP) – Alberta and Saskatchewan have begun trying to figure out how to deal with increased pollution drifting over the boundary between them from rapidly expanding oilsands projects.

 

It seems to have worked!   The emissions appear to have been brought under control.

UPDATE (Good news)   from

2018-08-06   Comment on “Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidification”

The exceedances are not huge, and perhaps society will smarten up and scrap the oil sands before any significant damage is done.

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

In the second email of this series  (2006-09-12)  crazy serendipity placed information in my hands:  the lakes in northern Saskatchewan are dying from acidification caused by downwind drift of emissions from the Tar sands.  The series is:

2006-07-10   Wow. Peter Lougheed speaks out, Tar Sands; plus LA Times & Globe & Mail on pipeline

2006-09-12   Response from Govt to Saskatchewan Lakes dying from tarsands emissions?

2006-09-13   continued re Tar Sands and SO2 emissions, Sask lakes dying

2006-10-11   Where to go?  &  Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution (Sask lakes dying)

2006-10-11   re Acid rain in Northern Saskatchewan (Alberta tar sands)

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

(continuing)

Wow!  have we ever done a good job of getting the word circulated.  Thanks so much to everyone.  You never know where, how and when word travels after you hit the “send” button. … From the start we move to

 

MIDDLE:

See Bob Weber’s article below.  Nitrogen emissions will have gone from 50 tonnes of nitrogen oxides per day in 1990 to almost 400 tonnes per day by this December. The planned expansion will send the number to 538 tonnes of nitrogen oxides per day.  That’s TONNES, and PER DAY ~~~.

Saskatchewan is recipient of 70%.  Nice, eh?

John Ibbitson writes in the Globe and Mail today about our failure on air pollution.  As you may know, the Globe and Mail invites commentary on some of its articles.  I sent in an abbreviated version of what’s happening, from the Governments’ failures to regulate the developers.

Jeffrey Simpson writes about the air pollution issue, too.  (John and Jeffrey are both regular columnists and authors.) … Now comes the

 

END:

I actually reached “the end” before “the middle”.   The middle (Bob Weber’s article below) reinforces my decision and my resolve. Here it is:

in four days’ time (this Saturday) I will find out whether I become interim leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan.  That is an end, of sorts.  “I have had it with the traditional parties”, as Kristine has put it.   The end is also a beginning.

Here’s how it happened. Following Elizabeth May’s election to the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, I phoned the Green Party of Saskatchewan to volunteer some time to help with organizing in Saskatchewan.

Only to discover that the current leader had to step down for family reasons.  I was asked if I would run to be interim leader.

As many of you know, I attended the Campaign School put on by the Canadian Women Voters Congress a few years ago – to test my belief that I can be more effective outside a political party, rather than inside. The School is excellent, but it reinforced my belief that I personally can do more from outside, IF I network with others who are also worried about where we, as a society are headed.

From getting to know Elizabeth May, observing and working with her some, I believe that she is the one political leader who can steer us onto a better course.  But in order to achieve that potential, she simply has to have committed support.  Even then it is going to be a rough go. Too many entrenched interests are threatened.  (See below, INTO THE HURRICANE.)

And so My Belief (remain outside political parties) is true, only until it is proven to be wrong!  Time to go inside.

 

It’s funny how things work out. You think you are doing one thing. But it leads inevitably to a place where you never dreamed of going.  Yes, the decision is still mine – whether to go.  But on the other hand, how do you NOT go, especially in this case, where I have actively compaigned to get better representation by women, in elected positions?  I sincerely believed that I could do more good helping to organize, and not by being a front-liner.

You need actors for the Play, but if you don’t have behind-the-scenes organizers, the show won’t go on.  Believe me.  A short digression to illustrate.  In the 1980’s, as an at-home Mother, I joined the Dartmouth Players (Nova Scotia).  It was a test to see whether my level of mental functioning would permit me to memorize lines.  I doubted I could.

For our first show we had more people on-stage than in the audience!  After a couple of shows, and going from murderess to seducer, I became the producer in the Dartmouth Players for a few years. That was better than having someone coming to tell you that the lighting person didn’t show up, just as you were about to “enter stage left”.  It made it hard to stay focused on your lines!

I went beind-the-scenes and discovered a rich and rewarding world, working with people.  Still today I am amazed by the talent of so-called “ordinary” people, those who aren’t necessarily “credentialled” or “professional”.  If you just take the time and have the curiosity to get to know the people who cross your path, you are rewarded and delighted.

 

I join the fray in this new capacity (political party), to help organize people.  Collectively we can help to make things right, in the interests of our health and that of our grandchildren.  It doesn’t matter with which party we are affiliated.

There needs to be some of us in all the political parties if we are to achieve the spirit of working together that is required.

 

I would like to continue with “our network”, working as we have on issues of common interest.  Hopefully I can keep it separate from “Green Party” work.

My plan was to take on the leadership to help organize, and get that done before an election, at which time a more suitable candidate could be attracted. I am not good “sound-byte” material for the media!

But right now “The Plan” looks naive. The last Provincial Election was in 2003 and the governing NDP are struggling with a tenuous, maybe-one-seat majority after Kevin Yates stepped out of Cabinet.  Federally, who knows?

And we have a provincial by-election in February (MLA Ben Heppner, Martensville, passed away.)

From my viewpoint, although there are some good people in the provincial NDP and opposition (conservative) SaskParty, I cannot bring myself to vote for either party.  The Parties, their direction and leadership, are indistinguishable one from the other.

Cripes! the words sound so strange – “the Party”.   Hanging a sign around my neck that says “politician”?!  Outrageious.

But yes, I think it will be a party!  Life is certainly one big adventure.

Hold on!

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

BEN WEBER, CANADIAN PRESS WRITES:

 

Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution

Bob Weber

Canadian Press

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

 

EDMONTON (CP) – Alberta and Saskatchewan have begun trying to figure out how to deal with increased pollution drifting over the boundary between them from rapidly expanding oilsands projects.

 

“We already know that the oilsands do have quite a bit of emissions associated with the projects,” said Paul James of Saskatchewan’s environment department.

“We are receiving some acidic deposition.”

Consequently, bureaucrats from both provinces have blown the dust off a 2002 agreement on managing transboundary environmental effects, meeting several times this year after a long period of quiet.

 

“I think Alberta’s announcements with respect to the oilsands kind of re-energized things,” said James. “With the proposed expansions, we agreed it needed a more serious look.”

 

Figures released last month showed that acid rain, once considered a problem only in the eastern provinces, has begun damaging soils and lakes in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

 

Already, two per cent of the land tested in Saskatchewan has absorbed acid precipitation exceeding its critical load, the maximum amount of acid a given area of land can tolerate before plant and animal life begins to suffer. Most of that land was in the northern forested section of the province, directly east and in the path of prevailing winds blowing from the oilsands region.

With $94 billion of oilsands expansion projects on the books, officials in both provinces are concerned about increasing emissions of acid rain-causing chemicals.

 

“The environment doesn’t end at the border,” said Randall Barrett of Alberta Environment.

Acid rain is formed primarily by emissions of suphur dioxide and various nitrogen oxides. Sulphur dioxide is increasingly being controlled through smokestack scrubbers.

 

But nitrogen oxides, which come from many smaller emitters such as trucks, are harder to clean up. They are also expected to increase faster because new projects use giant trucks in their mining process.

 

Oilsands mines emitted 50 tonnes of nitrogen oxides per day in 1990. That level had grown to 150 tonnes per day by 2003 and was expected to reach 398 tonnes per day by the end of this year.

If all planned projects are built, the oilsands could be spewing 538 tonnes of nitrogen oxides per day in the future.

 

About 70 per cent of such emissions eventually blow into Saskatchewan, says James.

“It has the potential to be quite serious in terms of acidifying lakes and ecosystems associated with lakes.”

 

It could also affect the productivity of forests in Saskatchewan’s logging industry, he said.

Companies are now being asked to consider Saskatchewan in their environmental assessments. As well, monitoring of acid deposition is expected to increase in Saskatchewan, with Alberta officials providing expertise.

 

Each province, however, will remain responsible for industrial activities in its own jurisdiction.

 

© The Canadian Press 2006

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

 

The following is with thanks to Peter Garden (Turning the Tide Bookstore).

INTO THE HURRICANE

Attacking a “NEW POLITICAL FORCE”

by John Boyko

 

Into the Hurricane invites Canadians to consider how their political opinions and options are manipulated today by considering how they were manipulated yesterday. As Canadians fight for the future of health care, public education, and social programs that have become woven into the fabric of our political culture, when “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” leader Tommy Douglas is lauded as the Greatest Canadian, Into the Hurricane asks Canadians to consider the hurricane that destroyed the party that was attempting to bring forward the ideas that so many now consider our birthright.

Born in the Prairies, from the ravages of the depression and the horrors of the Second World War, the “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” offered a “NEW” vision and idealistic belief that Canada could rebuild itself to become better and fairer than ever before.

“THE NEW POLITICAL FORCE” grew to the point that by 1943 a national poll found that it was Canada’s most popular party.

The party had its greatest success on the provincial level. In 1943 the Ontario “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” became the official opposition and the Saskatchewan “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” actually formed the first “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” government in North America with Tommy Douglas as premier. Douglas introduced universal healthcare to Saskatchewan, a policy that was adopted by other provinces and implanted nationally by the Liberals under Lester B. Pearson.

But the success of the “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” bred fear among those on the political right including Big Business, the Progressive Conservative Party, and religious leaders who created an anti-“NEW POLITICAL FORCE” campaign that ruthlessly sought to destroy the idea and the party. In fact, at one point the Roman Catholic Church read a letter from every Catholic pulpit in Quebec that basically said that one could not be a good Catholic and a “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” at the same time.

The Communist and Liberal Parties also attacked the “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” from the left. Faced with a left-wing challenge to its power, the Liberals sought to integrate popular “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” proposals into their own political platforms.

This political flexibility allowed the Liberal Party to appear as the “safe” alternative to the perceived radicalism of the “NEW POLITICAL FORCE”, while capitalizing on the popularity of the latter party’s proposed programs by copying them.

The “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” was besieged on all sides. The attacks created a hurricane, which by 1949 had damaged the “NEW POLITICAL FORCE” to the point where prospects for electoral success seemed impossible.

 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Currently, John Boyko is working on a new non-fiction work that will explore Canadian political leadership. John is the History and Social Sciences Curriculum leader at Lakefield College School (best known as the private school attended by Prince Andrew). He has earned a Masters of Arts degree in history, was elected to municipal council, has served on a number of community boards, and lives in the small village of Lakefield, Ontario.

 

Contact: Patti McCabe, Publicist

Phone: 416-763-2133

 

2006-10-11 Iraq’s ‘Excess’ Death Toll Has Reached 655,000, Washington Post

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Oct 112006
 

By David Brown

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 11, 2006; A12 

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq’s government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq’s mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war. 

Of the total 655,000 estimated “excess deaths,” 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study.

This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet.

The same group in 2004 published an estimate of roughly 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months after the invasion. That figure was much higher than expected, and was controversial. The new study estimates that about 500,000 more Iraqis, both civilian and military, have died since then — a finding likely to be equally controversial.

Both this and the earlier study are the only ones to estimate mortality in Iraq using scientific methods. The technique, called “cluster sampling,” is used to estimate mortality in famines and after natural disasters.

While acknowledging that the estimate is large, the researchers believe it is sound for numerous reasons. The recent survey got the same estimate for immediate post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which gives the researchers confidence in the methods. The great majority of deaths were also substantiated by death certificates.

“We’re very confident with the results,” said Gilbert Burnham, a Johns Hopkins physician and epidemiologist.

A Defense Department spokesman did not comment directly on the estimate.

“The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life in Iraq or anywhere else,” said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. “The coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries.”

He added that “it would be difficult for the U.S. to precisely determine the number of civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of insurgent activity. The Iraqi Ministry of Health would be in a better position, with all of its records, to provide more accurate information on deaths in Iraq.”

Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method “tried and true,” and added that “this is the best estimate of mortality we have.”

This viewed was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights Watch in New York, who said, “We have no reason to question the findings or the accuracy” of the survey.

“I expect that people will be surprised by these figures,” she said. “I think it is very important that, rather than questioning them, people realize there is very, very little reliable data coming out of Iraq.”

The survey was conducted between May 20 and July 10 by eight Iraqi physicians organized through Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They visited 1,849 randomly selected households that had an average of seven members each. One person in each household was asked about deaths in the 14 months before the invasion and in the period after.

The interviewers asked for death certificates 87 percent of the time; when they did, more than 90 percent of households produced certificates.

According to the survey results, Iraq’s mortality rate in the year before the invasion was 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people; in the post-invasion period it was 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The difference between these rates was used to calculate “excess deaths.”

Of the 629 deaths reported, 87 percent occurred after the invasion. A little more than 75 percent of the dead were men, with a greater male preponderance after the invasion. For violent post-invasion deaths, the male-to-female ratio was 10-to-1, with most victims between 15 and 44 years old.

Gunshot wounds caused 56 percent of violent deaths, with car bombs and other explosions causing 14 percent, according to the survey results. Of the violent deaths that occurred after the invasion, 31 percent were caused by coalition forces or airstrikes, the respondents said.

Burnham said that the estimate of Iraq’s pre-invasion death rate — 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people — found in both of the Hopkins surveys was roughly the same estimate used by the CIA and the U.S. Census Bureau. He said he believes that attests to the accuracy of his team’s results.

He thinks further evidence of the survey’s robustness is that the steepness of the upward trend it found in excess deaths in the last two years is roughly the same tendency found by other groups — even though the actual numbers differ greatly.

An independent group of researchers and biostatisticians based in England produces the Iraq Body Count. It estimates that there have been 44,000 to 49,000 civilian deaths since the invasion. An Iraqi nongovernmental organization estimated 128,000 deaths between the invasion and July 2005.

The survey cost about $50,000 and was paid for by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

2006-09-13 Maclean’s Magazine interview, President of the Americas for Lockheed Martin Ron Covais, Meet NAFTA 2.0

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Trade Deals, PPPs, Integration Canada-U.S.  No Responses »
Sep 132006
 

The interview with the Lockheed Martin CEO spells out how the corporations will, and do circumvent democracy.  It is important for Canadians to understand, if they are to successfully reclaim their democracy.

We’ve decided not to recommend any things that would require legislative changes because we won’t get anywhere .. The guidance from the ministers was “Tell us what we need to do and we’ll make it happen”, recalls Covais who chairs the U.S. section of the Council.. the future of North America.. not in a sweeping trade agreement on which elections will turn, but by the accretion of hundreds of incremental changes implemented by executive agencies, bureaucrats, and regulators ..

StatsCan is an “agency” of the Government, just like the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) that are under the corporate sway of the chem-biotech corporations.

Maclean’s Magazine
Sep 13, 2006
Meet NAFTA 2.0   

(I am very happy I copied the article (below).  Dec 2014,  link no longer valid:     http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20060911_133202_133202)

Forget sweeping trade deals.
CEOs have a new approach to integration with a long, long list of incremental changes.

LUIZA CH. SAVAGE | Sep 13, 2006

Ron Covais is in a hurry. The president of the Americas for defence giant Lockheed Martin, and a former Pentagon adviser to Dick Cheney, he’s one of a cherry-picked group of executives who were whisked to Cancún in March by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and asked to come up with a plan for taking North American integration beyond NAFTA. Covais figures they’ve got less than two years of political will to make it happen. That’s when the Bush administration exits, and “The clock will stop if the Harper minority government falls or a new government is elected.” In Cancún, the executives gathered behind closed doors in a luxury hotel and vented about slow borders, duplicate regulations and the competitive threat from the European Union and Asia. “It was an intimate discussion. It was a lot of fun, there were no reporters, just a freewheeling discussion on the things that drive you crazy,” recalls Annette Verschuren, the president of Home Depot Canada, who flew in on Harper’s jet and said the PM was “very engaged.

The leaders organized the CEOs into a formal advisory body, the North American Competitiveness Council. In June, they met in Washington, with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia de Alba, and Canada’s Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, who asked for help in solving the “bottlenecks” created by laws and regulations. “The guidance from the ministers was, ‘tell us what we need to do and we’ll make it happen,’ ” recalls Covais, who chairs the U.S. section of the council, which includes 10 CEOs of big companies like Wal-Mart, General Motors and Merck. The Canadian section, chaired by Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Guelph-based autoparts maker Linamar Corp., includes executives from such heavyweights as Bell Canada, Suncor, CN, Power Corp., and Scotiabank.

The executives have boiled their priorities down to three: the Canadian CEOs are focusing on “border crossing facilitation,” the Americans have taken on “regulatory convergence,” and the Mexicans are looking at “energy integration” in everything from electrical grids to the locating of liquid natural gas terminals. They plan to present recommendations to the ministers in October.

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

In his Crystal City, Va., office, Covais keeps a black binder of proposals from American business. Some are specific: the adoption of American container sizes for baby food; a common list of “hazardous substances”; continental standards for food labelling. Others are sweeping: everyone should follow the U.S. lead of requiring federal regulators to base their regulations on the voluntary standards of private industry.

Regulatory harmonization has long been championed by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and was endorsed by a task force co-chaired by former Liberal industry minister John Manley in 2005. But critics fear the current approach will mean lowest-common-denominator regulations, a process dominated by U.S. interests, and an enlargement of NAFTA by stealth. “These are issues that need to be discussed, but not resolved behind closed doors with input only from big business,” says Jean-Yves Lefort, trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians.

Bernier told Maclean’s he’s pleased so far. “We have many of Canada’s key business leaders at the table. They are working hard to represent the interests of Canadian business and all Canadians.” Their recommendations will be considered along with “other advice and input,” he said, as the three governments move forward on the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” launched in 2005.

Still others complain the approach is too timid. Robert Pastor, director of the Center for North American Studies at American University in Washington, said the leaders should launch broad consultations on major moves, like a common external tariff and a continental transportation network. “None of these big issues are being discussed. Instead we have a CEO council that is looking at the issue one regulation at a time,” he said. But the CEOs say they have a strategy. “Let’s get some low-hanging fruit to give the thing some momentum,” says Hasenfratz. “But let’s not lose sight of bigger-ticket items.”

Read Luiza Ch. Savage’s weblog,  (Link no longer valid)    Savage Washington

2006-09-13 Water: continued re Tar Sands and SO2 emissions, Sask lakes dying

 Climate, Water  No Responses »
Sep 132006
 

Yesterday (Sept 12) you received email,   Response from Govt to Saskatchewan Lakes dying from tarsands emissions?  (2006-09-12)

CBC Radio (Saskatchewan) is breaking the story today.   I’ve sent it to other media as well.

The full text of the Acid Rain report is at (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment) http://www.ccme.ca/assets/pdf/critical_loads_mb_sk_1372_web.pdf    

“This year (2006) the Acid Rain Task Group (ARTG), a joint federal multi stakeholder working group received a contracted report “Calculating Critical Loads …” It indicates that certain areas of the province (Saskatchewan) are presently receiving acidifying emissions that exceed the critial loads; …”.

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

This is third in a short series:

2006-07-10   Wow. Peter Lougheed speaks out, Tar Sands; plus LA Times & Globe & Mail on pipeline

2006-09-12   Response from Govt to Saskatchewan Lakes dying from tarsands emissions?

2006-09-13   continued re Tar Sands and SO2 emissions, Sask lakes dying

2006-10-11   Where to go?  &  Alta, Sask officials discuss cross-boundary oilsands pollution (Sask lakes dying)

2006-10-11   re Acid rain in Northern Saskatchewan (Alberta tar sands)

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

MORE, that can easily be done by us:

 

(1) Circulate notice of the Public Meetings in Alberta, on the Tar Sands.

They start today. Written submissions are accepted, too. Detailed information below.

(2) If you know someone who owns a cottage at a lake in northern Saskatchewan, let them know. Acid rain is invisible. Lakes die slowly and imperceptibly. They, and their Cottage Owners Association should be aware of this information. (You will be astounded by the number of Albertans who own property on Saskatchewan’s northern lakes).

(3) More important than cottage owners are the native people and others who live in northern Saskatchewan. Many are dependent upon the lakes and rivers. Much of their groceries come from the land, not from the grocery store. They should be aware that acidifying emissions from the Tar Sands exceed the critial loads.

(4) I would think that people in Ft McMurray might also like to know? Acid rain (sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide) affects more than lakes. It affects forest growth and human health.

(5) Media people in Alberta should be informed.

(6) You will have ideas of your own.

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

PUBLIC MEETINGS IN ALBERTA START TODAY, SEPT 13, UNTIL OCT 4

Thanks to Susan Howatt from the Council of Canadians:

Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 2:29 PM

Subject: Alberta Oil Sands Consultation Hearings

While these hearings are about the oil sands, it is well known that the oil sands are a very thirsty operation. The petrochemical industry freely depletes water at an astonishing rate and/or returns it in a polluted state to the environment.

The Alberta Government has released the dates and times of the Oil Sands Consultation Hearings. They are at:

Bonnyville Agriplex Sept. 13 11:00 am – 9:00 pm

Peace River Travellers Motor Hotel Sept. 14 11:00 am – 9:00 pm

Fort McMurray MacDonald Island Pavillion Sept. 18-19 11:00 am – 9:00 pm

Edmonton Holiday Inn Express Sept. 25-26 11:00 am – 9:00 pm

Calgary MacEwan Conference Centre Sept. 27-28 11:00 am – 9:00 pm

Wabasca TBA Oct. 2 TBA

Fort Chipewyan TBA Oct. 4 TBA

You can go to:  http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200608/2043864FA271E-F909-56EC-AA0C44163E40056E.html  for the news release and links to the Oilsands Consultations website.

If you wish to sumbit a document in writing, you can mail it to:

Oil Sands Consultations

Alberta Department of Energy

North Petroleum Plaza

7th Floor, 9945-108 Street

Edmonton, Alberta

T5K 2G6

Or you can e-mail it to: oilsandsconsultations@gov.ab.ca

 

All written submissions must be in by October 4, 2006.

I have registered to speak in Edmonton on Sept. 26 at 3:00 PM. Oral presentations can be no longer than 15 minutes. The format is as follows:

 

Open house from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm – hearings from 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm;

5:00 – 7:00 is a break and open house, 7:00 – 8:00 PM are presentations and an open house from 8:00 – 9:00 PM.

 

 Older Entries  Newer Entries