Railroaded by Metrolinx: Stiffed with the Bill: A Private Banquet at Civil Society’s Expense

“With a stroke of the pen, a government can destroy the social safety net built carefully by generations.”
– John Hilary, Executive Director of the War on Want
Left: A trade union picnic banquet before the G20 Rally on Saturday, June 26th

An untendered contract for $16 billion for unneeded fighter jets. $1.3 billion spent on security for the G8 and G20 Summits. 116 votes passed quickly by Premier McGuinty – time for consideration approximately 8.2 minutes each – to pass unheard of laws to criminalize dissent, days before the G20 Summit. A federal Conservative Party which filibustered the vote for a full public inquiry into police conduct during the Summits, calling all 25,000 protesters ‘pro-violent’.

The provincial Liberal government’s MacDonald Block offices raided on July 15th by the OPP – specifically, Ministries of Transportation, Economic Development and Trade and Community and Social Services – launching an investigation into “irregular financial transactions” between the provincial government and outside vendors. And the only good news – on July 30th, there was the sudden withdrawal of SNC-Lavalin from the $1 right of way contract for the Air Rail Link. The full responsibility for the ARL has been transferred to Metrolinx, whose Chief Operating Officer Rob Prichard is being replaced by Bruce McCuaig, with the possibility now of the ARL becoming electric. Preemptive?

Canada’s national deficit stands at $54 billion, yet there were $6 billion in corporate tax cuts this year. A 13% HST has been imposed which means that the average wage earner will have even less discretionary income to spend, so that companies can have even greater tax cuts, ostensibly to invest in new jobs. New austerity measures, recommended by a right wing think-tank, the Conference Board of Canada, to cut many thousands of public sector jobs in health care, education and social services in the next three years, while testing an unproven job creation scheme subsidized by the HST.

Have you ever felt that someone else has held a private banquet at your expense, and stiffed you with the bill, and tip? A bill which now has the Harmonized, also known as the Hated, Sales Tax added? Is any of this HST going toward maintaining public services? No. It is an additional tax to enable banks, corporations and the military to fortify themselves at civil society’s expense, and the public sector’s demise. As someone pointed out, a wartime levy.

Canada is becoming militarized, and as we witnessed during the G20, this military state can work against its citizens as well as its aggressors. Provincially, the HST is streaming more funds into the pockets of corporations, with a tax deduction to them as they ransack Canada for its resources, and externalize the cost of destruction of our environment, and no one is fighting to defend the imperative civil right for the full environmental assessment process. On June 8th, Bill C-9, the Budget Implementation Act was passed, which contained several provisions enabling the National Energy Board to conduct their own environmental assessments for oil and gas developments – which is like asking my students to mark themselves. This bill was passed during the BP oil spill, with minimal outcry by the Liberal Party.

And what does it mean when 11,000 jobs from the public sector will be cut by 2013?

A close friend of mine told me that when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, his family thought it prudent that she was placed into a private, rather than public, nursing home, assuming that the care was better. A few months later, they found that she was terribly neglected, and moved her into a public home. Surprisingly, they found that public sector care was much better than private, because the public nursing home was regulated by the government.

These are the public sector jobs – in nursing homes, schools, hospitals, transit, municipal services – which will be slashed to feed the bailout by the government for financial mismanagement incurred by the banks, which, incidentally, are making quite a healthy profit this quarter. The banks rebounded quickly, but our public sector, subjected to this drummed up, specious logic of emergency bill austerity measures, will not. Rather than requesting that the banks repay the debt they owe taxpayers by instituting a novel, and effective, infinitesimally small Robin Hood tax on bank transactions to tackle poverty and climate change, we will pay for these cuts with our society’s health. PM Harper opposed the imposition of the Robin Hood tax before the G20 to ensure his illusory future job as CEO of an American corporation, with Canada as a subsidiary, specializing in natural resources.

Of course, there is no interest in a long census form by the Conservative Party. They have stopped representing Canadians, particularly lower income Canadians, long ago. Their goal is to have corporate taxes cut down to 15% by 2012. What does this mean? As the social safety net is eroded, the federal government is anticipating growing dissent from those they are contesting the need to collect data about – those who are lower income, disabled and on a fixed income- to justify building a larger military-industrial complex to suppress those who are disenfranchised. Part of this Orwellian speech model is to publicly conflate protesters with vandals in the public mind so that they ramp up their expenditure on weapons of war, as opposed to building public transit infrastructure for the rabble. Sustainable, electric rail transit throughout Ontario could have been handily built with this promised contractual money for fighter jets, but was not deemed worthy. No explanation needed.

We can look forward to much more violence in our cities as basic needs are no longer met, as they have robbed Peter to pay Paul, and the Pauls are a tiny fraction of the population, secure behind a costly fence which cost $9.4 million, almost double the quoted $5.5 million by SNC-Lavalin. During the G20, the Toronto police were handed a blank cheque by the federal government, enabling the purchase of a substantial arsenal for a police state, so that the military has been fortified to quell growing dissent. It is not a coincidence that this police arsenal will be kept in Toronto, one of the hot spots of the thinking left, but it is a pity that Mayor Miller, who has felt the brunt of this G20 fiasco on police credibility, did not defend the protesters who were speaking in his best interests for the environment, transit and social justice.

Historically, when a society’s parliamentary process is suspended and disrupted, trade unions undermined, and people of property, such as the right wing press, banks and big business, are privileged, these policies are the precursors to a fascist state. I use this term with full cognizance of its weight and implication. Parliament has been prorogued twice by PM Harper within thirteen months, and the formal request by over 50,000 citizens, including lawyers, Amnesty International, and the Civil Liberties Association, for the full, public inquiry into the tactics and cost of the G20 and G8 Summit has been denied by PM Harper and Premier McGuinty. The Liberals stood up against the census, but did not speak out for a public G20 inquiry, which shows implicit support for the military apparatus being put in place. Spines, please.

In Journey to a Revolution, Michael Korda writes of the Hungarian Revolution:

“the general object of fascism was to stifle dissent, and bolster the existing establishment, while producing much drama in the way of rallies, parades, and propoganda, and the occasional foreign adventure to siphon off the energy of the lower middle class and the working class, who might otherwise have moved towards radical social reform”.

The Olympics? The G8 and the G20? The Pan Am Games? Bread not circuses, anyone? In addition to ceaseless pageantry, PM Harper deliberately prorogued parliament a second time to enact a bill, more powerful than NAFTA to undercut our sovereignty, the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This far reaching bill will provide sub-national access to municipal services, and undermine the public sector even further, losing thousands of good, Canadian jobs to international outsourcing.

Put it together. Civil society is no longer is prioritized by our government, our country is being sold off to corporations and banks, enabled by a newly armed police state, and expanding prison system, and jobs in our public sector are about to be slashed for international corporations to profit through CETA. This is a Conservative agenda campaign, military in execution, orchestrated by PM Harper, against local economies and the right to self-determination. Provincially, Premier McGuinty is designing his own policies through corporate gladhanding of governmental contracts.

Meanwhile, all over the Internet, discussion postings on news articles are polarized – are we allowed to protest, or not? And I think- for those who are Conservative – your rights are next. Although your values have been upheld by this minority government, I have noticed your online responses can only discredit the protesters by saying that they do not know what they are talking about, and labeling them as unemployed and shiftless. Name calling. Ad hominem attacks. And when you call someone names, all discussion ends. A primary school tactic used by bullies on the playground, undercutting fundamental rights upheld by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the right to assembly, and free speech, which you are using to discredit serious concerns about the democratic process, and silence those who are brave, engaged, and well-versed in international policy.

I have never been so concerned about the future of Canada, and I am hearing this from many of those who lived through the events of the past seven weeks in Toronto. Nowhere is the civil society being served or protected – by our police, by our elected representatives, by our city councilors, our Mayor, or by our media. When I read letters on the editorial page ranting about the public sector salaries, I compare these costs to the multi-billion dollar bailouts given to the banks, the golden parachutes given to bank executives, and the inflationary pageantry, and corporate contracts, for the Vancouver Olympic Games and G8 and G20 Summits. Compare these taxpayers’ expenses to those supporting our civil society, and quality of life. At least the public sector provides essential services, and is forced to be accountable.

I am an ethical citizen, yet my voice no longer matters. The moral and financial costs arising from all this pomp and circumstance, and the insidious HST, have already deeply hurt me. I have no government representation – not in Premier McGuinty, or Prime Minister Harper – and neither do the vast majority of Canadians. I cannot afford, and do not want to pay, for cuts to the public sector under these new, jerry-rigged austerity measures so that a self-selected corporate elite can pad their pockets, banks can prosper again, and a military empire, outfitted with new, massive $10.65 billion prisons, can arise from the ashes, and I am not sure I can. I am too busy counting my pocket change to pay the HST on my electricity, gas, transit and groceries to join the banquet, while predicting that I will be stiffed with the tab as the more important guests flee the table.

I ardently believe, though, if you held a poll of Canadians and asked them if they wanted to live in a country which valued the military, corporations and banks more than our health care system, social services, education, transit system and environment, even the most deeply Conservative Canadian would say ‘no’.

References:
Shout for Global Justice, John Hilary speaks at 30:00, link to
http://vimeo.com/13227243
The War on Want, link to http://www.waronwant.org/
Jeffrey Simpson, ‘Just what we need: a $16-billion fighter jet’, link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/just-what-we-need-a-16-billion-fighter-jet/article1641373/
Robert Benzie, ‘Cabinet rushed secret G20 change, documents show’, link at
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/840529–cabinet-rushed-secret-g20-change-documents-show
Steven Chase,’Tory filibuster seeks to block hearings on G20 policing’, link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tory-filibuster-seeks-to-block-hearings-on-g20-policing/article1637756/
Keith Leslie,’Questions linger over OPP raids Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne confirms Transport Ministry was a target’, link to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/questions-linger-over-opp-raids/article1652761/
Tess Kalinowski, ‘Province vows rapid rail link to Pearson by 2015 Pan Ams’, link to http://www.thestar.com/article/842240–province-to-run-rail-link-to-pearson-airport
Michael Korda, ‘Journey to a Revolution: A Personal Memoir and History of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956’, HarperCollins; 2006. page 54. Link to http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Revolution-Personal-History-Hungarian/dp/0060772611 More at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/books/Heilbrunn.t.html
The Robin Hood Tax, link to http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/how-it-works/ and http://robinhoodtax.ca/
David J. Climenga, Bill C-9: ‘Earmarks’ have no place in Canadian legislation, link to http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2010/05/earmarks-have-no-place-canadian-legislation
Heather Scoffield, ‘Canada says no to ‘Robin Hood’ tax at http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/canada-says-no-to-robin-hood-tax-91683444.html
Stephen Hui, ‘Statistics Canada head resigns over long-form census controversy’, link to http://www.straight.com/article-335208/vancouver/statistics-canada-head-resigns-over-longform-census-controversy
Lauren O’Neill, ‘G20 fence costs $9.4M, nearly double original estimate’, link to http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/833495–g20-fence-costs-9-4m-nearly-double-original-estimate?bn=1
Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, link to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html

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Railroaded by Metrolinx: Seasick or Seachange: The G8 and G20 Summits


Only when the last tree has been cut down;
Only when the last river has been poisoned;
Only when the last fish has been caught;
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
– Cree Prophecy, oft-quoted as the rallying cry for the environmental movement

A belated happy World Oceans’ Day. A plume of oil 228 km away from its source in the Gulf of Mexico has been found, and scuba divers are encountering oil masses the size of softballs. This oil spill is seven times the size than that of the Exxon Valdez, and is still growing. So far, 9.5 million litres of oil have been spilled into the Gulf.

ABC News has shown footage of the first days of the oil spill, which BP chose not to make public, which documented far more oil leaking than initially admitted by the oil company. Human error and omission on the part of BP has exacerbated the scope and size of the oil spill because of their slow response time, poor management of containment measures, and inability to coordinate clean up efforts with the thirteen American natural resource agencies, waiting for instruction from this British oil company. The Americans have written a letter to BP saying they have two days to contain the spill.

As oil begins to wash up on shore, white Florida beaches and marshes are blackened. Generations of fish will have birth defects, or not be able to reproduce, and coral will die, as far away as Cuba, suffocated by a coat of oil. A genie in the bottle has been let loose by unregulated offshore drilling, a legacy of the Bush era, and Barack Obama is powerless to defend American natural resources against British corporate interests, and force this renegade oil well to be capped.

When I was a child, I was given a technicolour atlas of Canada, and told that we had the second largest land mass in the world, and more resources than we could possibly ever use – that we were awash in timber, fish, and wheat. In my lifetime, I have seen cod disappear on the east coast, wild salmon become scarce on the west coast, and pine beetles ravage west coast forests. Americans are facing the probable extinction of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and this oil spill will have repercussions as far away as Vancouver.


Several months ago, while I stood in line at the grocery store, I overheard a child say that we will not have fish in twenty years. He may be right. We can extract oil, but we can never generate life, or recreate ocean species, and our oceans have changed their temperature and acidity by absorbing our greenhouse gases. A revered Canadian journalist Alanna Mitchell writes brilliantly about this in her book ‘Seasick’. She titled her book after witnessing the reaction of an oceanologist, who upon hearing of the radical chemical alteration in the world’s oceans, threw up, and was sickened for weeks by thoughts of the scientific repercussions on the reproductive capacity of ocean life in the increasing number of dead zones.

In Canada, one million wild salmon swam upstream this year in British Columbia’s Fraser River, when ten million were expected, shocking the First Nations communities and fishing industry. The government has launched a formal enquiry into the salmon farms, agricultural run off, and changing temperatures of the oceans, yet refuses to regulate oil sands’ tailing ponds, which leak millions of litres of toxins into the once pristine Athabasca River. Upon hearing of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil industry representative said that it will make Canadians think of the oil sands as a cleaner source of oil, as if leaching toxins into the Athabasca River is better than spewing oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Are not all water systems interconnected?

As PM Harper spends $2.1 million to build a Fake Lake as a backdrop for journalists to sell off the ‘Muskoka Experience’ to international interests for the G20, I have witnessed climate change in this lake district firsthand. There have been two hurricanes within the past five years in Muskoka. A century old tree fell down within two inches of a neighbouring cottage, and entire swathes of old growth forest have been ripped up throughout this region. Historically, there have never been tornadoes of this magnitude in Northern Ontario – this is a direct result of climate change, and our unlimited desire for oil. Meanwhile, PM Harper is touting Huntsville and the rest of the Muskoka Lakes region as a tourist destination, encouraging more traffic, exurban expansion, Big Box Stores, and oil consumption, both on and off the water.

During the past ten years, I have watched Muskoka become a suburb of Toronto, and lose much of its rustic charm. You can buy pillows embroidered with Muskoka chairs made in China in its gift shops, purchase pre-fabricated birch canoes, and watch Sea Doos roar through shallow inland bays, tearing up clam beds in their wake. Tourist traffic can protect a region through revenue, but in many cases throughout Muskoka has not, as some of those who vacation there have no vested interest in preserving its natural beauty, environment or heritage, as they are just passing through, interested in cottage culture as a commodity, far more than the actual experience.

In a few years, I honestly wonder what natural resources Canadians will have left after the Conservative and neoliberal ‘Open for Sale’ agenda has taken full affect. As world leaders ask that the environment be included on the agenda of G20 international trade summit, and PM Harper refuses this request, this media spectacle is a harbinger of what we will leave future generations- a Fake Lake with plastic Muskoka chairs, a small pool with chlorinated water, and a sky with artificial stars as a backdrop for TV journalists as they describe our Canadian natural vistas – when a short walk away is Lake Ontario, one of our great inland seas, which we have done little to protect environmentally, and in which many of its 179 fish species have become extinct (see FishNet for a fascinating art project on this issue). In America, Jean Baudrillard may have it right- all we may have left is the false front of what was once culturally important, and contained our heritage, like the storefronts along main street in the Wild West movies, or the view of a kiddy pool version of Muskoka Lake, from a dock no longer owned by us.

I would hope that the G8 and G20 Summits become a forum to discuss global fiscal initiatives to enter a post carbon future, including curbing transportation emissions, to protect the world’s natural resources for future generations, but this discussion did not happen during Copenhagen, and has been suppressed once again. In effect, $1.1 billion in security measures have been paid by Canadian taxpayers to hold 18 hours of meetings to privatize our assets and sell off our natural resources to resolve our debt, while incurring a debt of over $2.1 billion for the summit. Dissenting voices have been discredited by the media as ‘protesters’ rather than as peaceful citizens with a sincere desire to represent our country’s best environmental and social interests. Business as usual in the suicide economy is the agenda in these summits, despite the possibility of economic growth through the international coordination of sustainable environmental policies, and development of green technologies.

Whether oil is absorbed as carbon from the air into our oceans, or exists as greenhouse gas emissions in our air, we need to discuss going toward a post carbon future to protect our health, and this carbon orgy must come to an end. With a Fake Lake as a backdrop to our media campaign for the G8 and G20 Summits, PM Harper, and our leaders, are about to sell off our country’s natural resources, and right to self-government through the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, as if our country is a tourist attraction for the fire sale of our citizens’ hard earned assets. Politically, our land, air, and water should be protected by us, because they belong to all Canadians as our birthright, beyond present federal policy and corporate agenda, or we will be left with only memories of what was once our country, like the fading technicolour on the resource rich map of my childhood.

O Canada, I stand on guard for thee.

This article is dedicated to my nieces, Jesse and Sally, to whom I read on the dock each summer.

References:
Live feed footage of Gulf of Mexico oil spill, link to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/live-gulf-oil-spill-video-feed_n_583682.html
Alanna Mitchell, ‘Seasick’, link to http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771061165
Claire Ironside and Angela Iarocci, ‘ FishNet Art Project on Species in the Great Lakes’, link to http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/freshground/fishnet.cfm
David Korten on the Suicide Ecoomy, “Economies for Life”, YES!Magazine, Living Economies Issue. Fall 2002, link to http://peoplenotprofit.org/livingeconomies.htm

Jean Baudrillard on the ‘aesthetics of disappearance’ in America, Excerpts 2 Link to http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/america-excerpts-2/
Important information on the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Link to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html
and Maude Barlow explains how the proposed Canada-EU trade agreement would deprive all levels of government of their ability to invest money in local economies, through programs such as Ontario’s Green Energy Act. Link to http://www.canadians.org/tradeblog/?p=850
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Thus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Secret Copyright Negotiations Disregard Canadian Consultation

Because of recent leaks, the public has learned that the minority Conservative government is engaged in at least two sets of secret negotiations to bring forward new copyright and “intellectual property” regulations without the consent of Canadians. The Conservatives got their first two attempts at copyright change wrong. Later, the government set up

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