While The Great Pretender and his faux Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, continue to utter platitudes about climate-change action while visiting formerly Beautiful British Columbia, smoke is not the only pollutant in the air. The unmistakable stench of a steaming pile of bovine excrement is also becoming
Continue readingTag: alberta tarsands
Politics and its Discontents: Call Him By His Real Name
I hope Justin Trudeau has a vivid imagination and total recall. That way, he can revisit the fall of 2015, depicted above, a time, you may remember, when he was exultant, having won his a majority government after posing as a man who was going to bring Canada into the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Trudeau Betrays Canada And The World
If you know anything about the climate-change peril within which the world lives, you will see this announcement by Justin Trudeau and his cronies as nothing less than a betrayal of the entire world. The federal Liberal government has agreed to buy the troubled Trans Mountain expansion project from Kinder
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Note To Justin And Rachel
Please explain again why your insistence that we need to build more pipelines is valid, given these facts: A new world record price for electricity set earlier this month signals a radical disruption in global energy markets — and Canada, whose economy was once powered by some of the world’s
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: When Is The Anti-Trump Not The Anti-Trump?
Answer: When you scratch beneath the surface of Justin Trudeau’s soaring rhetoric. In his scathing assessment of our prime minister, 350.og founder Bill McKibben says that Trudeau is, in fact, a fellow traveller with Donald Trump when it comes to climate change, something I suspect more and more thinking Canadians
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Speaking The Truth: A Crime In Harperland
I was going to write about Linda McQuaig’s honest assertion that much of the tarsands’ oil will have to be left in the ground if Canada is to meet its climate change mitigation targets. It is an assertion that world experts agree with. However, since Bill Longstaff has beaten me
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Back To Business As Usual?
After all of the feel-good rhetoric of the Climate Summit of the Americas, held last week in Toronto, it would appear that we are back to business as usual, at least in Canada. The Globe and Mail reports the following: Canada’s premiers are poised to sign an agreement to fast-track
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The High Cost Of Integrity
In this world, remaining faithful to one’s principles can be a very difficult proposition. We often hear how important it is to “go along to get along,” and while we all make compromises during the daily course of living, sometimes the issues confronting us are too large to ignore, too
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Folly of Harper’s Economic Emphasis
While no reasonable person would suggest that Canada should immediately turn its back on it resources, the folly of self-described economist Stephen Harper is the undue weighting his regime has placed on that sector for fiscal health. Other countries have been looking toward the day when our dependence on fossil
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: And Speaking Of Labour
All kinds of abuses continue under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. As reported by the CBC, an Italian company, Saipem, contracted by Husky Sunrise to build a multi-billion dollar plant 60 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, is employing 344 foreign tradespersons and others who are either unqualified, uncertified or cannot
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Guest Post From The Mound Of Sound
Steve Harper and his chums have transformed cognitive dissonance from an affliction into an art form. Harper’s prime directive, his overarching quest, is to get as much Athabasca bitumen as possible to foreign buyers as quickly as pipelines and tanker ports can be built. Now square that single-minded purpose with
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Parsing Justin Trudeau’s Words
Like many, I have real reservations about Justin Trudeau’s capacity for the kind of leadership that reflects a mature and nuanced mind. While many praise him for his spontaneity and unorthodox pronouncements, I look for substance and an indication of policies that suggest a significant departure from the mindset of
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Charge Protestors With Terrorism And Throw Them in Prison!
Richard Hughes-Political Blogger This compelling video landed in my inbox this morning courtesy of a Cowichan Bay activist. It claims that a Canadian corporation Trans Canada Pipeline, the force behind Keystone XL pipeline is training FBI and local law enforcement agencies on how to charge legal protestors with terrorism. They say that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Happy Earth Day
I truly wish there was something to celebrate. Take a look at my previous post and the commentary from the Mound of Sound that accompanies it; then watch this short video. Their commonality? A rapacious industry and an economic system that disdains impediments to their profits, and a federal government
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Tale of Intimidation At TransCanada Corporation
Despite the best efforts of the Harper government to make its own addiction to the fossil fuel agenda the Canadian people’s as well, increasing numbers are voicing their concern and opposition to the expansion of the Alberta tarsands through new pipelines. And evidence is mounting that those concern are wholly
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Timely Reminder
In light of the National Energy Board’s rubber stamping of the Enbridge Line 9 reversal with very few safeguards, here is a timely reminder of the inherent dangers of pipelines: Post by West Coast Native News. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Not Everyone Has Drunk The Kool-Aid: A Doctor Speaks Out On The Health Effects Of Tarsands’ Development
As reported in The Vancouver Observer, grave health risks from the Alberta tarsands are both statistically significant and deeply disturbing. A northern Alberta doctor, John O’Connor, was invited to Washington to brief two U.S. Senators who are against the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline that would carry bitumen from Alberta
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The CBC Responds To My Complaint About Rex Murphy
I received the following email yesterday from Jack Nagler, Director of Journalistic Public Accountability and Engagement at the CBC, regarding my conflict of interest complaint about Rex Murphy. Because the review is ongoing, I am treating this only as an interim response. I therefore present the letter with no commentary
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Fear And Loathing In Peace River
While the Harper cabal proceeds full-tilt with its tarsands advertising campaign, the details of which Canadians are being denied, a game of inconvenient truth versus consequences is being played out in Peace River, Alberta. According to a report in The Edmonton Journal, Peace River may be making people sick. The
Continue reading