Sandra Finley

2021-01-24 Can Water issues be used to help understand the difference between Revolution, Coup, Insurrection, Insurgents, Counter-Insurgency?

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 242021
 

QUESTION:  Can Water issues be used to help understand the difference between terms like Revolution, Coup, Insurrection, Insurgents, Counter-Insurgency, Up-rising?

these are political terms, they are not legal or technical terms, they are used and abused in the media and used interchangeably . 

I don’t think the meanings/distinctions are clear.

  • In some situations the term used revolves around whether Corporate America (Corporate Canada) has financial or strategic investments in the country, and whether those interests are threatened.
  • WHO? needs to be overthrown – –  or the opposite, to protect “our” financial interests – –  in the country?  . . . Is it the Government or the People in the Streets?
  • WHO? defines for our Government and media who the “Bad Guys” and “Good Guys” are.  Terms perceived to be more pejorative are for the “Bad Guys”.  (Terms like “environmentalist”, “advocate”, “activist”, “protestor” become “Bad Guys” worthy of RCMP Surveillance, Police and tear gas when they threaten the rule of the Corporatocracy and its minions.

__________________________________________________________________________

  Water networks involving thousands of people across Canada have worked to restore protection for Water for decades.

4 points at the bottom speak to the obstacles to success, why the water won’t be protected. 

________________________________________________________________________________

When decades of needed and legitimate citizen effort run parallel to steadily worsening systemic problems,

the land has been sown and steadily fertilized for Revolution by citizens.  (Protection of Water is far from the only issue.)

We conclude that the Government has abdicated its assigned role  to protect that upon which we all, humans and other life forms, are dependent for health and ultimately for survival.

The Government has also abdicated its assigned role of guarding our ideal of “peace, order, and good governance” in Canada.  Or so it seems to me.

Eventually, the natives realize, in spite of the rhetoric, which way the money is flowing (the ever-widening income gap);  the water is not being protected.

We talk and we get restless (ref:  common sense).  We Protest, we Occupy and we Idle No More.  For how long?

When/if citizen action looks like it might result in actual protection of Water (e.g. stop the export-for-profit),  there is push-back from corporate and government players, those who want the money, “the economic development”).  They fight to maintain the power and control they have over Water, whether to sell it, pollute it as a cost-saving measure, or exploit it in other ways.

Democratic government is replaced by corporate or fascist government.

Steadily worsening systemic problems, corporatist values

Lead to

Mobilization of citizens, non-violent resistance.

Outcomes?

The Montebello experience

The G-20 experience in Toronto  . . .

There is a nuanced line between Revolution and Insurgency.  Insurrection is  defined as an act or instance of rising in revolt,  rebellion or resistance against  civil authority or an established government.

Sometimes, words have different meanings and emotional content, depending on where they originated.

We know “Revolution” as what happened in France, and in the United States.

But Canada was loyal to the British Commonwealth.  We upheld the Colonial Power that the American Revolution was against.  I would bet that the word “revolution” does not carry the same emotional content for Canadians as for Americans.

AND THEN,  if you look at French Canada and English Canada:  as example,  St Jean Baptiste Day is scarcely known in English Canada.  Whereas, the emotional content of the word in Quebec is fiery.  Obviously,  the “We” that upheld the Colonial Power during the American Revolution does not include the Quebecois.  A few, sure.

There was active fighting and funding by Canadians, on the side of the Americans.  And anti-Government emigration to the US from Canada.

On the other hand, over time, American textbooks, media and immigration have transported American sentiments into Canada.  Canadians end up with the confusion created by the same word, from different origins.  Is it a Revolution, Coup, Insurrection, Insurgents, Counter-Insurgency, Up-rising . . . or what?

(Another example:  the word “table” in the context of meetings has opposite meaning in The USA and The UK.  Canada has large influence from both places. Canadians use the same word, but do not usually know that it can mean two different things, depending on which culture you were most influenced by.  Hence confusion over “to table …”.)

FURTHER: 

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________________

CANADA WATER AGENCY

4 points speak to the obstacles to success,

why water should be, but won’t be protected. 

 

  1. HEALTH and WATER QUALITY are inextricably connected.

True PREVENTION of disease is the goal.  Early identification is not the same as prevention.  Prevention comes with REMOVAL OF CAUSE.

The strong Laws & Regs to keep poisonous pollutants out of Canadian water supplies are a thing of the past;  over time they have been gutted.  To serve economic interests.

  1. Establish informed expectations about any proposed Canada Water Agency.
  • Typically, the economic interests in water, trump the need to protect it, at our peril.
  • Typically, “agencies” of Government in Canada are a way to loosen democratic oversight and control.  There is far less transparency and accountability.
  • Typically,  “agencies” are run by un-elected officials who have a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) or equivalent.  They have been TRAINED & CREDENTIALED, in a specious mindset.
  1. The Federal Govt has well-resourced and funded programmes to expand the export of water from Canada.  Water export is seen as a tool of economic development.  Lots of money to be made.  Even if export-for-profit and government revenue were desirable,  water export creates VERY FEW jobs.  It moves water out of “the commons” into the private sector.  Quislings sell out the public interest.
  1. Just before Christmas, the CME Group, the New York-based market operator that takes its name from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, began trading water futures.For the first time, Wall Street traders are now able to take a stake in the future value of water, the way they have with other agricultural and mineral commodities. So far, the water contracts being bought and sold are limited to five water districts in drought-prone California, representing a tiny fraction of the water actually used in the state. But the idea of water as something to be bought and sold by Wall Street speculators does not necessarily sit well with those who study the economics of this resource in Canada. “I find it quite disturbing,” said Jim Warren, Regina-based scholar and author of Defying Palliser: Stories of Resilience from the Driest Region of the Canadian Prairies. “I mean it’s upsetting, especially since, you know, the world will be watching and others will be thinking it’s the way to go.” Read more analysis of water trading:  http://newsletters.cbc.ca/c/1F7Ks4WF0FDfJgom1noffLIuG

 

2020-09-23 re Nuclear Issue & the Throne Speech (Small Modular Reactors – SMR’s)

 Climate, Corruption, Nuclear  No Responses »
Sep 242020
 

There is a large factor to be considered:   Corruption.

How much money the Cameco executives, for example, are making.  (Cameco is vertically integrated.  Uranium mining and Nuclear industry.)

Provinces like Saskatchewan do not have laws against Corporate contributions to political parties.

How much influence Anne McLellan, one of the “Good ol’ boys” in Liberal circles,  has.  She’s on the Board of Cameco.   Since her retirement from politics, and now sitting on a number of corporate boards, she’s raking in a lot.  From Cameco ALONE, in the million dollar range.  Why was she attractive to the Cameco Board?

You may recall that the Uranium Producers in the World formed an alliance with respect to Climate Change.  Canada AGREED to an agenda to promote Nuclear as green solution to Climate Change.   Russia is partner,  Australia, too.  Countries with uranium – – the U.S.?  I don’t know about them.   Anyhow, that was the Canadian position at the Bonn Germany Round of international negotiations  (incorrectly identified as the Copenhagan round by a parliamentary secretary).

It will not have changed, because too many people are making too much money through public subsidization.  Look at the corporate history – – WHO has invested in the development of SMR’s? (Small Modular Reactors)   Universities (green-washing).  Westinghouse. Big corporates.

Seamus O’Regan (Minister of Natural Resources from 2019 to 2021. Liberal, O’Regan represents St. John’s South—Mount Pearl) got hammered for the interview, through the online Comments.  HOWEVER, dropping the word re nuke from the Throne Speech would have been a REACTION to the hammering.  That does not mean they are not pursuing nuclear.  They simply move it out of the public spotlight.  Carry on under-ground, so to speak.

The NATURAL RESOURCES MINISTERS from various provinces, I don’t know if all,  have been commandeered for the job of promoting nuclear.  They form a cohesive unit with support staff.  Their JOB is to SELL CANADIAN NATURAL RESOURCES.   There is a large divide between Departments of Environment and Natural Resources.

Documentation below.  Sorry – – I don’t have time to edit.   Skim it,  you’ll get the idea.  If corruption is not addressed in our actions,  we are but “bleating sheep”.

 

FROM:  2019-05-25 Input to Govt, Bill C-69 will exempt Small Modular Reactors and other nuclear/uranium reactors from impact assessment.

TO:  Govt of Canada,  Impact Assessment Regulations,  Consultation on the proposed Project List

Bill C-69 will exempt Small Modular Reactors and other nuclear/uranium reactors from impact assessment.

The elephant in the room is CORRUPTION.   You have to deal with it.

It did not make sense that the Liberal Govt would throw weight behind nuclear energy as a response to climate change (2018).    If you know the cross-Canada history in the last decade of the nuclear/uranium industry, no political party would champion nuclear.

When things don’t make sense, try “follow the money”  (Cameco, nuclear/uranium)

From 2013 to 2014 Key Executive Compensation rose by 43% (from $10 million to $15 million), at a time when Cameco share value had been in uninterrupted decline since February, 2011.

Today’s (2018) share value is down by 80% over its June 2007 high.

And the CRA is after Cameco:  through off-shoring,  the uranium producer estimates it has avoided declaring $4.9-billion in Canadian income, saving it $1.4-billion in taxes, over the last 10 years.

WHY would  Bill C-69 want to exempt Small Modular Reactors and other nuclear/uranium reactors from impact assessment?  

It’s explained in an email I sent to Minister McKenna, posted on my blog (http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=20712  ).   Please go to the posting for the first part of the email.

SECOND HALF OF THE EMAIL (the corruption):    

When a population fights a reactor because it will enslave them to very expensive electricity, at the cost of investing in alternatives, and

then turns around to fight the transportation of (the industry’s estimate in 2009, more now) 20,000 truckloads of accumulated high level radioactive waste, you may, as I did, come to view the nuclear industry as a Ponzi scheme.  Someone gets left holding the bag, at the end.   “Someone” is the good old, not-yet-angry-enough citizen.

It’s pretty simple:   a business needs a revenue stream to cover its costs.  The industry has old reactors in Ontario;  billions of dollars are being spent to extend their lives.   Costs go onto electricity bills.

The last “new” reactor began construction in July 1985,  more than three decades ago.

No new reactors means no new revenue streams to replace the old ones.

BUT,  simultaneously, the industry has (by its own estimates in 2009, more now) upwards of $24 billion for the cost of building a Repository for its accumulated waste.  That estimate does not include the cost of transporting all the waste to the site. (Some years ago, the industry was required to start putting money into a fund to address those eventual costs.  It has so far collected a small portion of the necessary money.)

There’s the Ponzi:

Without new reactors they don’t have a replacement revenue stream.  So, dwindling cash in-flow.  Large out-flows.  How are they going to pay the cost of accumulated waste disposal, an estimated $30 billion dollars?   What are the existing debt-loads?  There are contaminated sites to be cleaned up, at large expense.  There is not one insurance company willing to sell insurance to nuclear reactors of any kind.    A new reactor requires capital investment.  But investors don’t line up when the potential for returns looks lousy.

No new reactors?  . . . in a Ponzi, the last guy to buy in (Ontario?) ends up footing the bill.   Most of the other provinces have said. “It’s not going to be us.”

UNLESS  . . .  unless the industry has access to the public purse to foot the bills, they’re hooped.

The Liberals appear to be gambling that they can use spin doctors and count on ignorant voters.  I don’t think we are that gullible.

The first part of the letter to Minister McKenna (at (http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=20712  ) has

  1. the record, by province, of “It’s not going to be us.”  And
  2. sources for the following “Big push” by the Govt )

So WHY the big push, by the Trudeau Government, to commit Canada to nuclear reactors and to have other countries adopt them as a (false) answer to climate change?   . . .   follow the money.

When I read the words of Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr’s parliamentary secretary,

we have ensured that nuclear energy will have its place,

I went to Cameco’s website.  (If you don’t know Cameco, see Wikipedia)

Who are the current Executive and Board members?    https://www.cameco.com/about/board-of-directors 

 No longer:  Nancy Hopkins, Saskatoon corporate lawyer who had been on the Cameco Board since 1992, had Cameco shares and options worth $1,001,871 in 2008;  $1,843,273 in 2009.

The fight over the North Sask River reactor was in 2009.  As mentioned, the reactor was defeated.  Not good news for Cameco’s share value.

The Fukishima nuclear reactor disaster was in March 2011, seven years ago.  Cameco shares fell, but had been falling.  The high was in mid-June, 2007,  $59.46 per share.  The next high, mid-Feb 2011, $41.34.   Down to $18.41 by the end of 2011;  no recovery – – trading around $12.00  in mid-March, 2018.   Today’s share value is down by 80% over its June 2007 high.

If Nancy did not unload her shares, the value of her portfolio investment in Cameco has plummeted.  The same is true for other Executive members of Cameco.  But investment in Cameco shares is only part of the money.

What does the compensation look like for Cameco Executives?  What’s at stake for them, or for the aspiring executives to succeed them, if the industry can’t bring new reactors on-stream?  It will be compensation + perks + share value + intangibles of being on the Board (influence, connections).

(Ref, chart from:  (link no longer valid)

 

Key Executive Compensation

     2012

10,234,004

     2013

10,497,424

     2014

15,062,235

      2015

14,617,837

      2016

14,446,905
Timothy S. Gitzel/President and Chief Executive Officer 4,772,534 4,720,325 5,099,097 5,917,347 5,924,134

 

Grant E. Isaac/Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer 1,818,511 1,760,075 2,791,418 2,076,531 2,558,113

 

Robert Steane/Senior Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer 2,396,780 2,223,135 2,591,850 3,370,965 2,624,740

 

Alice Wong/Senior Vice-President and Chief Corporate Officer 1,246,179 1,172,529 2,198,320 1,552,552 1,679,768

 

Sean Quinn/Senior Vice-President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary – 621,360 2,381,550 1,700,442 1,660,150

 

These people are in the 1%, having been given access to a public resource, once owned by a Crown Corporation.   From 2013 to 2014 Key Executive Compensation rose by 43% (from $10 million to $15 million), at a time when their share value had been in uninterrupted decline since February, 2011.   And just after more hot water from the CRA .)

Grant Isaac was into his fourth year with Cameco (Chief Financial Officer), Nancy Hopkins, corporate lawyer, her 21st year on the Board, when the CRA went after Cameco, over offshore shell companies:

The uranium producer estimates it has avoided declaring $4.9-billion in Canadian income, saving it $1.4-billion in taxes, over the last 10 years.

2013-05-01   Cameco’s $800-million tax battle, Globe & Mail

 

Citizens were pretty pissed.  We pay taxes, they don’t.  That’s not all.  Intolerable conflicts-of-interest:

Nancy served as a Director on the Board of Governors of the University of Saskatchewan from 2005-2013, serving as the Chair of the Board in the last three years. Nancy also sat on the Board of Cameco Corporation (CCO on the TSX; CCJ on the NYSE) for 24 years, and, in that time, chaired the Compensation Committee, the Audit Committee, and the Governance Committee. (search www.mcdougallgauley.com for full bio)

During Nancy’s time as Chair of the University Board of Governors, the Provincial Government of Brad Wall transferred between $30 and $47 million to the University EAR-MARKED for the nuclear industry.    (Mar 02, 2011 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-spending-30m-on-nuclear-research-centre-1.987996 .  Nancy did not protect University autonomy by insisting that public funding of the University has to be “no strings attached”.  Further:

Grant Isaac was Dean of the Edwards School of Business at the U of S.   In July, 2009, Cameco Corp hired him; in 2011 he became Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer.   In January 2013, Grant was appointed by the Government to the Board of Governors of the University.

(I met with Grant when he was still Dean of the Business School, to understand whether what is taught in Economics classes is still the same as it was when I was a student there, (1967-71).   Grossly deficient economic indicators, GDP, the ability of corporations to offload costs to the public to pay, etc..   The answer was “yes”.   Grant put it this way:   “If there was a way to change it, it would have been done by now.”   So, no problem teaching junk to students.   That was in 2008 when the faculty was still on strike.  Grant went to Cameco in summer 2009.  Would he have been selected if he had been active in seeking changes to a flawed economic system that is taking the planet to the brink?

(INSERT, UPDATE:  OTHER universities ARE doing something:   2018-03-21     Hallelujah! GDAE Textbooks for Economics Courses (Tufts University)

There are no laws in Saskatchewan to prohibit corporate (or union) donations to political parties.  (FEDERAL Law prohibits it.  I don’t know how many Provincial Govts prohibit corporate donations.)

In  2009, the President of the University, Peter McKinnon, was hosted at Cameco’s fly-in fishing lodge,  Yalowega Lake, in northern Saskatchewan.   The Lodge has its own gourmet chef.   https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/follow-the-yellowcake-road.

McKinnon (who was dean of the Law School, before becoming President of the U) attacked those who challenged Nancy Hopkins’ conflict-of-interest (heavily invested in Cameco, Chair of the U Board of Governors, involved in decisions re allocation of university priorities and Government funding for the nuclear industry).  He angrily declared that there was no conflict-of-interest.

So,  WHO ELSE is on the Board?  And does it have any bearing on my question:

WHY the big push, by the Trudeau Government, to commit Canada to nuclear reactors?  It doesn’t make sense – – the level of resistance right across the country is high, and known.   The last “new” reactor began construction 30+ years ago.   To go into international negotiations and try to foist nuclear energy on other countries, when your own citizens won’t tolerate it, only undermines the integrity of Canadian business.    What’s up? 

Anne McLellan?   She was brought onto the Cameco Board in 2006.  You may recall Anne – – for years, the only federal Liberal elected in the West (Edmonton).   Served 4 terms.  She was Federal Minister of Justice, of Health, of Natural Resources, Deputy Prime Minister, , ,  under Paul Martin and Jean Chretien.

A Liberal of influence.  Was awarded an Order of Canada.   After politics she went on corporate boards.   She earns a million dollars a year from her Cameco board work alone.  I assume there’s a reason why she was called to the Board of Cameco.

On February 11, 2016, as Natural Resources Minister, Carr purchased seven tickets to a NHL game featuring the Winnipeg Jets versus the Boston Bruins. His guests included the energy ministers . . . .

Carr represents the riding of Winnipeg South Centre,   https://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/Jim-Carr(89059).

Kim Rudd, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources, Jim Carr, from Cobourg, represents the Ontario riding of  Northumberland—Peterborough South. 

Her speech to the Canadian Nuclear Association on February 22, 2018:

. . .meeting again in Copenhagen in May (mistake – not the Copenhapen round, the Bonn Germany meetings) and we have ensured that nuclear energy will have its place in a broad, high-level discussion on a global transition to a low-carbon economy,”

Jerri Rudd,  “spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada”,  “Nuclear energy is an important part of Canada’s current clean energy basket and will continue to play a key role in achieving the country’s low-carbon future.”

Who is Kim Rudd?  see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerri_Southcott    

 

Anyhow, there you go.   When I followed the money, on the thing that didn’t make sense to me – – if I know the list of provinces that have fought against nuclear and won – – the extent of the dedicated “no to nuclear“  (for good sound economic reasons – – as a tax-payer and consumer, I’m getting screwed), surely the Liberal Party knows the same.   I conclude it is not the interests of Canadians that are being served.   Yet again.   Corruption trumps.

For your consideration, Minister McKenna.

For your sake, for the sake of  Tax-payers’ wallets, for the sake of democracy and integrity, I wish it was otherwise.

Best regards,  Sandra Finley

= = = = = =

Bill C-69 will exempt Small Modular Reactors and other nuclear/uranium reactors from impact assessment.   For whose benefit? 

The elephant in the room is CORRUPTION.   You have to deal with it.

= = = = = =

ALSO A PART OF “CORRUPTION”.  

Real-life examples of the propaganda you will receive from the industry.    From a presentation by the industry to the American National Academy of Science (NAS), in Saskatoon. The state of Virginia was under petition to lift its 30-year moratorium on uranium/nuclear.  The NAS came to Saskatchewan to collect information on first-hand experience with uranium/nuclear.

I sent the documentation of the propaganda, in support of what Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee was saying.

2018-04-23 Nuclear: In support of Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee, email to CBC (The Current).    http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=20981

= = = = = =

Corruption is a serious issue in Canada.   There are million-dollar salaries and perks to keep in place.  Some MP’s are very well rewarded upon retirement, for Good Service to Industry.

Submitted, with hope of a vote for the Public Interest.

Sandra Finley

 

 

2020-09-08 First open source detection test for a gene-edited GM crop – Greenpeace European Unit

 Corruption, Genetically Modified  No Responses »
Sep 082020
 

Hey!  Some good news.    /Sandra

Kim G writes:

This Greenpeace test to detect GM crops is an important breakthrough that should help keep Bayer/Monsanto and other ag biotech companies in check.

https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/nature-food/4102/first-open-source-detection-test-for-a-gene-edited-gm-crop-2/  

2024-10-02:   COMMENT (Sandra).    I am not abreast of where the de-regulation of GM organisms currently stands.  CBAN would be the best place to look for info.  /S

2020-09-04 To CBC: What gets reported affects my decision to turn off the radio

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Propaganda  No Responses »
Sep 042020
 

From: Sandra Finley
Sent: September 4, 2020
Subject: To  CBC:  what gets reported  affects my decision to turn off the radio

Hello Gregor and Crew,

I appreciate On the Island.

I want myself AND others to have access to good quality media.

FYI.

And you might want to forward this to the producer of World Report (precedes On the Island) because it might affect your listenership numbers.

Friday Sept 4,  I turned off the radio in the middle of anchor “Katie Simpson Washington” ‘s presentation of the 8:00 AM World News.  It was not good.  It was frivolous and could not be called journalism.   I needed to leave the radio off, including your programme On the Island, even though it had nothing to do with On the Island.

World affairs are important.  So is democracy.  I have expectations of the 8:00 am world news.

When I looked this morning after turning off World Report,  the CBC had nothing on the American story regarding Edward Snowden (not actually what caused me to turn off the radio).

Why, especially when Katie Simpson is reporting from Washington, was that not newsworthy?  Surely she would have known about it.

2020-08-23 Secrets about Salaries.  Cultural taboos.  Subversion.

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Aug 232020
 

From: Sandra Finley
To: thesundayedition  cbc.ca; Melanie Simms
Subject: re Secrets about Salaries. Cultural taboos. Subversion.

Dear Kevin Sylvester and Melanie Simms,

(I was raised in small-c conservative rural farm culture; graduated from a College of Commerce a long time ago.  I did not intend to become an activist, a subversive as you name it.  An obvious need emerged, also a long time ago.)

Cultural taboos.  Subversion.  (Secrets about Salaries.)   In response to your discussion.

Cultural taboos protect the interests of those who benefit from the wealth of a country and its workers.

Interesting – your discussion stopped short of questioning, for example, the salaries of the executive class.

Re covid discussions about who gets paid and who doesn’t, who contributes and who doesn’t:   I have not heard or seen anything about the class of people who offshore their money to avoid taxation.   We are not, as proclaimed, “All in this together”.

Why does the discussion have the cheek to climb up the ladder into the lower ranks of management and administration (the courtiers?) and then stop short.  Maybe a plexiglass ceiling?   Maybe out of deference:  we worship money?   The more you have, the more timid we are in your presence?

Speaking to the subversive action, the revolutionary:  our tongues are more free, our actions less inhibited, the less fearful we are.   Timidity doesn’t work.

Two anecdotes that might be helpful to your deliberations.  I will spare you more.

  1. I used the example of an imperilled water supply to ask Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul why, when the public needs “educated persons of influence” (water scientists in this case) to speak up on an important public issue, the public is lucky to find one scientist who will open their mouth.  This was in the University city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  Lots of government and university water scientists.  Used to be home to the National Water Research Institute.

Ralston Saul said (not his precise words) the educated class have worked hard to get to where they are.  They have entered the class of The Respectables.

The taboo in Canada, respectable people do not speak out in public or protest in the streets, was reinforced during Stephen Harper’s 2010 G-20 and G-8 meetings.  Protestors were rounded up and thrown in jail in numbers never before seen in Canada, quite brutally, without cause.  Most were detained to be released the next day without charge.  Creates Fear.  Keeps mouths shut.  Public money flowed into Conservative constituencies.  Corruption.  The bill to Canadians was close to a billion dollars for the few-days G-20, G-8 summit.  Who benefitted? 

 

  1. A single-parent cousin of mine worked for a ScotiaBank branch in Calgary.  She complained that it was month-end and she had to work overtime, breaking a visit we’d planned.  I replied with the bright-side:  she’d be paid time-and-a half.   She said no.

Later I phoned ScotiaBank headquarters (Toronto) and asked how it was that they could pay the CEO $3.5 million, while denying overtime pay to the frontline workers who made it possible for the CEO to be grossly overpaid?  The reply was oh no, we have rules – – the overtime has to be paid.  My reply:  you know that branch managers work their way up the corporate ladder according to the performance data of the branch.   There’s a built-in incentive not to pay overtime.

Well, it “has to” be — “the CEO will be seen as inferior if he is not paid in line with the salaries of the other CEOs in the banking industry.”  Bull-shit.

Women whose families are financially dependent on them are the majority workers.  Who among them is going to stand up and speak out if they aren’t paid fairly?  Fear of losing the job, and chances for promotion. // Ambition (branch manager) trumps ethical.  // Systemic problems are not addressed.  Common sense evaporates, conveniently.

Who benefits?   The branch manager, the CEO, the investors.  Often the investors include large pension funds, for example of teachers’ unions. All are Beneficiaries of the wealth that comes from unfair treatment (exploitation) of the women – – a resource of the country.

So what about that subversion? . . . Yes, fight the taboos.  Open up.  Ask your questions about salaries.  How much do you get paid?  Timidity doesn’t work.  Eat some spinach (Pop-Eye).  Put some iron in your spine.

Thanks for the programme.

/Sandra Finley

2020-08-20 Letter to Tim Bousquet, journalist. Canada’s justice system. Podcast Dead Wrong. Wrongful conviction, Glen Assoun.

 Change, Corruption, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Rule of Law  No Responses »
Aug 202020
 

Glen Assoun was wrongfully convicted of murder.  He spent close to 17 years in prison.  The podcast Dead Wrong is a careful and troubling documentation of the miscarriage of justice.

I speak to one aspect of the remedy.  I am afraid it will not be considered, even though it is one root of the problem.

Tim Bousquet and his colleagues at the Halifax Examiner created the podcast.

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

From: Sandra Finley  (some edits)
Subject: re wrongfully convicted. Podcast Dead Wrong

Hello Tim Bousquet,

I have mailed a cheque to the Halifax Examiner today.

Prompted by podcast re Brenda Way’s murder & the wrongful conviction of Glen Assoun.

After hearing on today’s episode (CBC, The Current, 2020-08-20) the names of judges on the Appeal panel, I am impelled to write.   Three points:

  • I want your journalism to help bring about change.
  • However, If a major root of a problem is not effectively eradicated, the remedies will be a bandaid that PERMITS the situation.   Typically in Canada our remedies are bandaids.
  • In general, not only in justice, a major root problem in Apparent Incompetence, that in the end leaves us with corrupted institutions is old friends and long term relationships.  We are human beings.

In the specific “for example”, Suzanne Hood, the judge who presided over the murder trial, and Jill Hamilton, one of 3 justices on the NS Court of Appeal panel are well-known to each other, for more than 40 years.  They can’t help but be friends, I would think.  They are both good, competent, community-minded people;  40 years in the same community (Hfx-Dartmouth);  shared values; the same career paths, many of the same friends, acquaintances and life experiences.  They probably know something of how personal challenges (trials and tribulations that are part of people’s lives) have been handled.  That’s the stuff of which our Beliefs about a person are formed.

The phrase they did not hear (the innocence of Glen Assoun) was repeated in the podcast.

Yes, that is to be expected.  People Do Not Hear What They Do Not Want to Hear.  Simple as that.   Brain research using the most powerful of MRIs shows what happens when information that confronts our “deeply held beliefs” enters our heads;  it is routed to circumvent rational processing.  We literally do not hear challenging information – – in one ear and out the other, as the old adage says.   Do you want to hear that persons well-known to you, respected, that the system you want to believe in – – you are part of it, has delivered a wrongful conviction?  No.  You are predisposed to support and have confidence that the persons you know would have done good work.  Arguably, they COULD not hear.  

(If I personally know a person, it is more difficult  to do something that is openly critical of them.  Easier if I don’t know them.)

One major root of the problem –why  justice was not delivered:

The legal community in N.S., and in Canada is relatively small.  Most lawyers, prosecutors, judges, profs, the directors and players in various legal-related institutions, many Politicians, are graduates of the same 24 law schools.  Many relationships in the tightly-knit legal community go back to student days.  Their grapevines pulsate through strands inter-woven across the country.   Those grapevines predate electronic communications by a couple of centuries.  It is an old boys n’ girls network.  Participants form strong bonds.

There is a reason why the justice system in Canada is static, relatively unchanging in the face of need for substantial overhaul.  Not even repeated blunt demands for change from former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, had much effect.   No, the system is not going to change itself dramatically.  There are too many strong bonds amongst the players, rooted in the status quo.  In too many cases they cannot hear, let alone deliver.  It may be impossible just because they are human beings.

The STRUCTURE has to be re-configured, in order for justice to claim its place.   The natural bonds in the existing structure have to be neutralized.  There is some movement along those lines, but not enough, and not timely.

I remember Hannah Arendt’s phrase from the Adolf Eichmann trial (1961) and her subsequent book – – the banality of evil.    It is not evil in the beginning.  It just has the potential to become evil.  It is well-documented that in Germany, in the lead-up to WW2 the justice system was among the first to capitulate, to become collaborative (enablers) by issuing decisions that wrongfully convicted.   (I am not suggesting that this statement applies to the justice system in Canada today.)

We are repelled by what happened in Nazi Germany.  But Arendt came away with understanding.  Your podcast Dead Wrong in its depth provides a base for attempting to gain better understanding.

In this example, the decisions to convict, to uphold the conviction under appeal, and to deny appeal to the highest court, enabled the evil that was happening on streets in Halifax-Dartmouth to continue, unchecked.  And,  people in our institutions were not held to account.  Not until today.  Holding to account  is the job of the media and citizen.  We too enabled the evil that was happening on streets in Halifax-Dartmouth AND elsewhere in Canada, as we know well from “murdered and missing”.  Too many people did not care enough about the lives of the prostitutes, what’s happening in the streets, to stand up and speak out.

The police, the prosecutors, the judges, did not INTEND to be collaborators with the evil on the street, nor did we;  the opposite would be true.  Such is the banality of evil.  The everyday gets in the way.

I want remedies for Canadian institutions to include built-in safeguards, firewalls, to protect and promote the integrity of OPERATIONS.  No more bandaids.

Because it is natural for human beings to bond with each other (a good thing and a bad thing), the Justice System cannot be entrusted to a cohort of law school graduates, as it is today.  They did not hear, they can not hear, they will not hear – – in too many cases (not in all cases).  Not because they are bad or incompetent or uncaring.  Isolated and insulated, maybe.  Although I think that if a judge has presided over many trials, they will likely have been well exposed to sad, tragic, dysfunctional lives.

I am thankful for your fine JOURNALISM!  Real and needed stuff.

/Sandra Finley

 

 

2020-08-14 Letter to activist organization re covid: You can bleat all you want; nothing changes if corruption is not addressed. Unholy alliances.

 Corruption, Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  1 Response »
Aug 142020
 

(Organization Name) does NOT FACTOR THE ROLE OF CORRUPTION into its campaigns.

You can bleat all you want, nothing changes if corruption is not addressed. See below, a list of compelling statements by seven “thinkers of the day”. A hundred more examples could be added.

The “research” on vaccines that is done in Canadian universities and other institutions, that is “government funded” is done through public-private-partnerships, through collaboration agreements. Researchers are affected. The age-old adage applies: he who pays the piper calls the tune. If you believe it’s not the case, I’d say you are naive; read the statements by the seven thinkers, below.

I recently emailed CBC Radio, The House, unapologetic promoters of mandatory covid vaccination (you can’t call it journalism).

I will be joining those who do not sign up for a covid vaccination.
I have followed the vaccine question for at least 15 years.

It has been announced that Canada has signed up with Pfizer and Moderna. Are you afraid to ask the Minister of Public Procurement, or the medical authorities, about contracting with a company that has a decades-long public record of big-time corruption?

Let me tell ONE Pfizer story to make the point:

In 2007 the news of the criminal charges against Pfizer was little heard in western countries. It was eclipsed by a same-day scare-story about tuberculosis – – the Globe & Mail carried the latter, for example. Not the former.

(INSERT)  Manipulation of the media by the unethical (“communications specialists” / propagandists) is often done this way – bury the corporate name and the unsavory real story with a sometimes-fraudulent press release that diverts attention and sets off another round of fear-driven behavior.  Some media and their followers, irrational flocks of sheep, embrace the reassurances offered and the products – –  Without Questioning the conflicts-of-interest, the universities that are in bed with big pharma, the experts spawned in a very conflicted “educational” environment, the long-standing, well-known public record of a very corrupt and corrupt-ING industry.  The mantra trust us is for sheep and lemmings.

In 2009 there was an out-of-court settlement:
PFIZER TO PAY £50m ($75 million) AFTER DEATHS OF NIGERIAN CHILDREN IN DRUG TRIAL EXPERIMENT.

Out-of-court settlements come with a gag order. Convenient? But not for the public record.

The book and movie, “The Constant Gardener”, is based on what PFIZER did to the Nigerian children, during the chaos and confusion of a meningitis outbreak. Pfizer tested their new “blockbuster” drug Travon on human guinea pigs. Illegally, using trickery; deadly. In a different context it would be called manslaughter.

Pfizer is ruthless in the pursuit of money. You will know the long list of outrages brought by the pharmaceutical industry. They are now in the white-washing business, “partnering” with organizations and institutions to sanitize their image. But everyone makes money.  The public purse is generous to the courtier class.

The corruption in the vaccine (pharmaceutical) industry appears to be immune to media scrutiny.

But good news (potentially):

The earlier talk of mandatory vaccination against covid SEEMS to have lessened. I suspect polling results play a role: the numbers of people who will not comply is too high.

You may remember what happened not too long ago when the Government of New Brunswick was going forward with a mandatory vaccine schedule for children, desired by Big Pharma. When confronted by the evidence of the dangers, risks, and inefficacies involved, the Legislature did not pass the legislation.

There are very good reasons for not making a potential covid vaccination mandatory.

What we can now expect is a “communications” plan to convince Canadians of the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The “new”. The campaign is already underway.

If it doesn’t work, scare tactics will be employed. Not science.

There is plenty of good science to guide us. It is not heard because of the “unholy alliances“.

= = = = = = =

PROBLEM:  THE (NAME of ORGANIZATION) DOES NOT FACTOR IN THE ROLE OF CORRUPTION.

= = = = = = =

THINKERS OF THE DAY

on the UNHOLY ALLIANCES between Government (public institutions) and Industry.

The statements are applicable to public institutions in general, not just “Government”.

(1) From John Kenneth Galbraith’s “The Economics of Innocent Fraud – Truth for our Time“, published in 2004

“… As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves, predictably, the corporate interest. That is its purpose. …One obvious result has been well-justified doubt as to the quality of much present regulatory (and educational / research) effort. There is no question but that corporate influence extends to the regulators. … Needed is independent, honest, professionally competent regulation (persons) … This last must be recognized and countered. There is no alternative to effective supervision. …”

(2) John Ralston Saul, “Health Care at the End of the Twentieth Century”, 1999

“The Panel identified… serious concerns about the undermining of the scientific basis for risk regulation in Canada due to… the conflict of interest created by giving to regulatory (and training) agencies the mandates both to promote the development of agricultural technologies and to regulate it…”

Note: the ONLY people who get a job in the regulatory agencies are those who get trained by the University.

(3)  President Dwight Eisenhower’s prescient Words of Wisdom     

(https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=980 

Right down to the involvement of the university, Eisenhower predicted the road ahead. His words motivate us to find our better selves.

EXCERPT:

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion,   the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

  • and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

(4) We have Justice Krever, Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada, 1996

“Industry can’t be regulated by government – and for environmental and health reasons they must be – if that government is in bed with them.”

(5) George Soros, “Open Society [Reforming Global Capitalism]”, 2000, publisher PublicAffairs. p. xi,

“… the greatest threat to freedom and democracy in the world today comes from the formation of unholy alliances between government (insert: public institutions) and business.”

(6) Jane Jacobs’ “Systems of Survival, the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics” sets forth a framework for understanding that the system of governance will succumb to corruption if we fail to appreciate the functional roles of two separately evolved sets of ethics, one for the commercial function in a society and the other for governance (guardianship). But,

“Societies need both commercial and guardian work … the two types are prone to corruption if they stray across either their functional or moral barriers.”

(7) Mae-Wan Ho, “Genetic engineering – Dream or Nightmare?”, 1998

You may not like this one, but it rings absolutely true for the me that worked with others to open up the debate on genetically-modified organisms. There are many postings about GMOs on my blog. There is important information collected by this network, still valid today, that documents some of the propaganda used by educated people, refuted by common sense about the real world and nature, that most people would understand.

“To reassure us, they lie to us, and then treat us as idiots by insisting on things we all know are untrue. Not only does this prevent a reasonable debate from taking place, but it also creates a very unhealthy relationship between citizens and their elected representatives”. (and the “intellectuals” who train the regulators)

2020-07-08 Bill Gates: From Entrepreneur to Supervillain (consequences for covid)

 Economy / Political Economy, Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Aug 092020
 

– July 8, 2020

bill gates

Bill Gates is regretting things left undone. Gates is sorry he hasn’t done “more to call attention to the danger” of a pandemic.” In an interview, Gates said, “I feel terrible. The whole point of talking about it was that we could take action and minimize the damage.”

For his critics, rather than minimizing the damage, Gates has done too much to set a course of action having disastrous unanticipated consequences. Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, has become a supervillain.

Since April, over 500,000 people have signed a petition at whitehouse.gov calling for an investigation of the Gates Foundation for “medical malpractice and crimes against humanity.”

Admirers of Gates blame “anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy-minded posters” for spreading “misinformation” damaging to Bill Gates’s reputation. In May, one essay claimed to debunk the assertion that Gates plans to make South Africans early test subjects for a COVID-19 vaccine. A month later, the “myth” was revealed to be true. 

Gates has taken up the cause of global warming too. He is funding a mad geoengineering scheme at Harvard to partially block sunlight. Imagine setting in motion a “solution” that has the potential to destroy all life on earth. Gates’s hubris seems boundless.

You don’t need a conspiracy theory to explain Bill Gates’s transformation from entrepreneur to supervillain. Gates has always been a ruthless zealot. Yet when he was at Microsoft, his worst character flaws were held in check by the demands of running a competitive business and the necessity of meeting the needs of consumers. As a philanthropist, he is not disciplined by forces of the marketplace. Empowered by government coercion, there is nothing to keep him or us from his worst instincts.

Good Intentions Don’t Matter

Gates is ready to give away most of his vast fortune, in his words, to “coordinated global action” to prevent disease. You might give Gates high marks for his good intentions.

History is full of reasons why we should not trust those with good intentions. A common trope in movies and comics is the supervillain who is ready to sacrifice the well-being of many people to further a warped pursuit they see as noble.

In his book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman explained why “concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” Friedman pointed to internal threats to freedom that are far more difficult to see than external threats:

“It is the internal threat coming from men of good intentions and good will who wish to reform us. Impatient with the slowness of persuasion and example to achieve the great social changes they envision, they are anxious to use the power of the state to achieve their ends and confident of their own ability to do so.”

When Gates the entrepreneur was wrong, he was held accountable by consumers and competitive forces. When Gates the philanthropist is wrong, politicians and academics will evaluate him by different criteria.

Gates at Microsoft

When Gates co-founded Microsoft with the late Paul Allen, he didn’t build Microsoft on good intentions. Paul Allen described “ruthlessness” as a character flaw of Gates. Gates routinely browbeat and denigrated those he disagreed with. Allen saw himself as the real innovator but valued Gates as a “sanity check” on his ideas. Allen and Gates needed each other to build Microsoft.

Others confirm Allen’s view of Gates. Ed Roberts has been called the father of the personal computer. James Wallace and Jim Erickson interviewed Roberts for their book Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. Roberts recalls Gates being unyielding: “We got so we didn’t even invite him to meetings where we were trying to come up with a new software approach or something like that because he was impossible to deal with.”

Roberts believed, “Paul Allen was much more creative than Bill. Bill spent his whole time trying to be argumentative and not trying to come up with solutions. Paul was exactly the opposite.”

A Financial Review essay describes Allen “as an intuitive thinker who had a sixth sense about new products” while Gates “was the driven, clear-headed partner who turned Allen’s sometimes random ideas into successful products.”

Synergies between Gates’s and Allen’s differing leadership styles made for success. “Gates was explosive and confrontational while Allen…was thoughtful and empathetic.” Fights were typical: “The two argued frequently, often screaming at each other in front of employees. But the fights, colleagues said, frequently resulted in good business decisions.”

Why did the fights result in good decisions? On some level, Gates and Allen were willing to be led by consumer needs.

In his seminal leadership book Good to Great, Jim Collins found that the most successful leaders blended extraordinary “personal humility and professional will.” Gates lacked humility and may have been a miserable failure without Allen’s partnership.

The late Harold Geneen was CEO of ITT. In his instructive book, Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday quotes Geneen who compared egoism to alcoholism: “The egotist does not stumble about, knocking things off his desk. He does not stammer or drool. No, instead, he becomes more and more arrogant, and some people, not knowing what is underneath such an attitude, mistake his arrogance for a sense of power and self confidence.”

A leader with an unbridled ego is a danger, Geneen explained:

“Whether in middle management or top management, unbridled personal egotism blinds a man to the realities around him; more and more he comes to live in a world of his own imagination; and because he sincerely believes he can do no wrong, he becomes a menace to the men and women who have to work under his direction.”

Holiday adds, “If ego is the voice that tells us we’re better than we really are, we can say ego inhibits true success by preventing a direct and honest connection to the world around us.”

Market forces reward businesses that maintain an ongoing “direct and honest connection” to the needs of consumers. Ludwig von Mises explained why consumers are the real “bosses:”

“[Consumers], by their buying and by their abstention from buying, decide who should own the capital and run the plants. They determine what should be produced and in what quantity and quality. Their attitudes result either in profit or in loss for the enterpriser. They make poor men rich and rich men poor.

The consumers are merciless. They never buy in order to benefit a less efficient producer and to protect him against the consequences of his failure to manage better. They want to be served as well as possible. And the working of the capitalist system forces the entrepreneur to obey the orders issued by the consumers.”

Gates the Philanthropist

Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College London had inordinate influence “advising national governments on pathogen outbreaks.” Ferguson listens to Gates, as his center receives “tens of millions of dollars in annual funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

The model Ferguson used to advise draconian lockdowns in response to COVID-19 has been thoroughly discredited both on theoretical and empirical grounds. To err is to be human, but this was not Ferguson’s first disastrous prediction. As AIER president Edward Peter Stringham points out, “Ferguson rose to fame in 2005 when he predicted that up to 200 million people could be killed from the bird flu.” The actual number of deaths was 50.

Gates, the businessman, would have long ago cut off Ferguson. No successful entrepreneur insists on partnering with a dismal failure. Yet for Gates, Ferguson’s performance as an epidemiologist didn’t seem to matter. What matters to Gates is that Ferguson’s view of the world is aligned with his own. Both support quarantining healthy people without regard to the human and economic cost.

Bill Gates has enjoyed a partnership with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Of course, it is natural to partner with those who share your worldview. Problems arise when a partnership leads to the use of the coercive arm of government to implement what you believe is your superior vision.

In his April blog post on COVID-19 vaccine development, Gate explains how a new rushed to market COVID-19 vaccine is likely to be a RNA vaccine. With an RNA vaccine, “rather than injecting a pathogen’s antigen into your body, you instead give the body the genetic code needed to produce that antigen itself.” Gates admits the process is risky. “It’s a bit like building your computer system and your first piece of software at the same time.”

Rushed vaccines have unique safety concerns, and RNA vaccines deserve heightened scrutiny. Gates admits the vaccine may not be both safe and effective:

 “If we were designing the perfect vaccine, we’d want it to be completely safe and 100 percent effective. It should be a single dose that gives you lifelong protection, and it should be easy to store and transport. I hope the COVID-19 vaccine has all of those qualities, but given the timeline we’re on, it may not.”

Heightening potential risks, vaccines are shielded from liability when they turn out to be unsafe. Nobody is held accountable for the consequences of taking shortcuts in the development process.

A COVID-19 vaccine has not even arrived and already some doctors are advocating for compulsory vaccination. Gates himself says, “We need to manufacture and distribute at least 7 billion doses of the vaccine.” With polls showing only 50% of the population planning on taking a COVID-19 vaccine, presumably, Gates and vaccine manufactures are banking on the government making the vaccine mandatory.

Gates is now actively stoking the fires of fear. He warns that this fall “COVID-19 will be back in big numbers, if we don’t restrain our behavior more than it looks like we are right at the moment.” He complained that we’re not tough enough “on contact tracing or enforcing quarantine.” In short, obey Gates and his favored “experts” or doom will befall us all.

Gates insists normalcy cannot return until “we have an almost perfect drug to treat COVID-19, or when almost every person on the planet has been vaccinated against coronavirus.” Yet, death rates from the COVID-19 virus are falling. Without a deadly virus it is hard to sell a potentially dangerous vaccine.

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt repeatedly warned that the doomsday exponential models, such as Ferguson’s, were wrong. Instead of examining Levitt’s analysis, Levitt received only “abuse” from other scientists. You need to “stop talking like that,” he was told. Another Nobel laureate, Saul Perlmutter, observed the “tendency to circle the wagons and hide all the conversations that need to happen.”

Entrepreneurs don’t hide conversations that need to happen; it’s bad for business. Those with a one-track agenda seek to maintain control by suppressing conversation of divergent viewpoints.

I will leave it to others to parse Gates’ philanthropic motives. His good intentions don’t matter. What matters is that Gates has access to world leaders who have coercive power. Gates, undisciplined by consumers or business partners, will make errors. Given his character flaws, Gates is likely to ignore and not learn from his mistakes.

Supervillains coerce and harm. Successful entrepreneurs serve and enrich humanity. Gates should return to his entrepreneurial roots.

Barry Brownstein

Barry Brownstein

Barry Brownstein is professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. He is senior contributor at Intellectual Takeout and the author of The Inner-Work of Leadership.

2020-08-08 To CBC re mandatory covid vaccine

 Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Aug 092020
 

From: Sandra Finley
Sent: August 8, 2020
To: The House at CBC.CA radio
Subject: Will I be joining those who don’t sign up for a covid vaccination?

Dear Chris Hall (host of The House),

I will be joining those who do not sign up for a covid vaccination.

I have followed the vaccine question for at least 15 years.

It has been announced that Canada has signed up with Pfizer and Moderna.  Are you afraid to ask the Minister of Public Procurement, or the medical authorities, about contracting with a company that has a decades-long public record of big-time corruption?

One Pfizer story to make the point:  In 2007 the news of the criminal charges against Pfizer was little heard in western countries.  It was eclipsed by a same-day scare-story about tuberculosis – – the Globe & Mail carried the latter, for example.  Not the former.

The criminal charges against Pfizer were initiated by the Government of Nigeria.

In 2009 there was an out-of-court settlement.

PFIZER TO PAY £50m ($75 million) AFTER DEATHS OF NIGERIAN CHILDREN IN DRUG TRIAL EXPERIMENT,  2009-04-06  The Independent (UK newspaper) headline.

Out-of-court settlements come with a gag order.  Convenient?  Absolutely.  But not for the public record; it leaves no disclosure.

The book and movie, “The Constant Gardener”, is based on what Pfizer did to the Nigerian children, during the chaos and confusion of a meningitis outbreak.  Pfizer tested their new “blockbuster” drug Travon, on human guinea pigs.  Illegally, using trickery; deadly.  In a different context it would be called manslaughter or murder.

Pfizer is ruthless in the pursuit of money.  You will know the long list of outrages brought by the pharmaceutical industry.  They are now in the white-washing business, “partnering” with organizations and institutions to sanitize their image.

The corruption in the vaccine (pharmaceutical) industry appears to be immune to media scrutiny.   But good news (potentially).

The earlier talk of mandatory vaccination against covid has been dropped.  I suspect polling results played a role:  the numbers of people who will not comply is too high to attempt forced vaccination.

You may remember what happened not too long ago when the Government of New Brunswick was going forward with a mandatory vaccine schedule for children, desired by Big Pharma.  When confronted by the evidence of the dangers, risks, and inefficacies involved, the Legislature did not pass the legislation.

There are very good reasons for not making a potential covid vaccination mandatory.

What we can now expect is a “communications” plan to convince Canadians of the safety and efficacy of vaccines.  The “new”.   The campaign is already underway.

If it doesn’t work, scare tactics will be employed.

Sincerely,

Sandra Finley    (contact info)

UPDATE:  the changed communications strategy is to address “vaccine hesitancy”  (there was no success using phrases such as “anti-vaxers”;   “vaccine choice” which is the position put forward is not acknowledged.

So now the arguments address why, in childish ignorance, people may be “hesitant” about vaccines.

Jesus!  What we need is honest discourse, an effective assault on the corruption, and Governments that will do the job assigned to them:  protect the public interest.  Educate (which is different from Communications Specialists and propaganda).  REGULATE and see that regulations are ENFORCED. . .    I have to laugh, sorry! It seems funny because the basics seem kind of easy.)

 

2020-07-04 Food, distract the consumer from what the product is made with (GMO Canola oil)

 March Against Bayer-Monsanto  No Responses »
Jul 042020
 

I like to be healthy;  I believe that what I eat affects the health of my body.

I made some ginger molasses cookies that I did not like;  I wanted something more like a “ginger snap”, so bought some, without paying attention to where (not local) and what they were made from.

The outcome of which was the following note to the owner of the food store:

The “GLUTEN FREE” banner is replacing the “organic” on food products.

It distracts consumers from what the product is made with.

MI-DEL Ginger Snaps (Panos Brands, New Jersey).

Canola oil.   . . .  The first GMO crop, Monsanto seed, engineered so it can survive spraying by Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.  Other chemical companies followed with their versions of same.  Patented seed.  Vast prairie acreages, blanket spraying of crops.  Monoculture.  Lots of cancer.

Decades of resistance, the March Against Monsanto started by young mothers who wanted alternatives for their children, court cases,  the selling off of Monsanto products to Bayer (Germany) because of public opposition to all that the name “Monsanto” represents.

What’s the market for canola oil?   A large part is as a cheap oil for making french fries – – fast food restaurants, etc.    Basically high volume, industrial food production.

MI-DEL cookies might be “GLUTEN FREE” (the only choice of a ginger snap on the shelf) and in a natural foods grocery store.  They are made with GMO canola oil (have a look – – the canola oil is not labeled “organic” and it would not be – – over 90% of the canola grown in the U.S. is GMO (Canadian figures will be as high, or higher).  And the non-GMO canola seed is heavily contaminated with the GMO stuff – – you cannot visually distinguish between the two.

GMO crop production means heavy chemical applications, in addition to GMO status.  We cannot continue to poison the planet, as we are doing.   Let not “GLUTEN FREE” distract people from what’s in the food they are eating.

 

 

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