Chief Theresa Spence (by Regina Southwind, Rabble, December 17) As we enter 2013, how is Canada doing? How do we stack up against other rich countries? Emerging from the year of the 50th anniversary of medicare, the 30th anniversary of the Charter, are we making progress? Do we even have
Continue readingTag: David Suzuki
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Suzuki makes the case for evaluating our well-being through Gross National Happiness rather than GDP alone: There’s more to happiness than just having a clean environment – and Bhutan has yet to get there. According to research for the UN Conference on
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: IT’S STILL A RACE! With one week left, a second poll shows three-way race in Calgary-Centre.
TweetWith one week left until voting day, a new survey released by Forum Research continues to show a three-way race in the Calgary-Centre by-election between Conservative Joan Crockatt, Liberal Harvey Locke, and Green Chris Turner. As reported by …
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: IT’S A RACE! New poll shows emerging three-way race in Calgary-Centre by-election.
TweetA new survey conducted by Forum Research shows a three-way race in the Calgary-Centre by-election between Conservative Joan Crockatt, Liberal Harvey Locke, and Green Chris Turner. As reported by the Globe & Mail, the November survey of 376 ran…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Calgary-Centre By-Election: Accusations and high-profile visits.
TweetThe by-election in Calgary-Centre is in full-swing with accusations and high-profile becoming a distinguishing characteristic of the campaign in advance of the November 26 vote. 1CalgaryCentre, the group bidding to unite progressive voters behind …
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Moffat On Suzuki
Mike Moffat has a valid point. It isn’t, as David Suzuki sometimes contends, that economists don’t understand “externalities” or claim we should ignore them. The term is a bit of economic jargon, after all. No. The people who ignore/downplay externalities are those folk who, for example, say they want to
Continue reading350 or bust: David Suzuki & Jeff Rubin Address Our Economy’s Disconnect With Reality
I had the good fortune this week to be in the audience during Dr. David Suzuki and Jeff Rubin’s Eco Tour stop in Winnipeg, part of a cross-country book tour. Dr. Suzuki is a world-renowned geneticist and Canadian television personality who has hosted the CBC science show, The Nature of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Celebration of Literacy
Despite its rather lengthy history, yesterday was the first time my wife and I attended Toronto’s Word On the Street, a celebration of books, literacy, and the dispelling of ignorance. As a retired English teacher and keen observer of the political machinations that envelop our society, it was very heartening
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: Massive Peaceful Tar Sands Protest Before B.C. Provincial Legislature Planned For October 22
Over 80 influential leaders from the business, First Nations, environmental, labour, academic, medical and artistic communities across Canada today announced an upcoming mass sit-in in front of the provincial legislature in Victoria, British Columbia on October 22. The sit-in will oppose tar sands pipelines and tankers and the threats they
Continue readingImpolitical: Bad environmental choices, bad economics too
David Suzuki’s column today on the government’s choice to close the Experimental Lakes Area magnifies the tremendous cost to taxpayers: The world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area in Southern Ontario has served as an outdoor laboratory for this purpose since 1968. By manipulating and studying conditions in 58 small lakes and their
Continue readingDrive-by Planet: 350.org’s Bill McKibben on Colorado fires and the global warming threat
On the heels of the failures of Rio+20 initiatives, the US has been hit by environmental wake-up calls in the form of a devastating heatwave and flooding. These are hardcore warnings of what the future holds unless we act to address the devastating impact of global warming. Our children’s future,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Gardner draws some parallels between the Cons’ attacks on Europe and the well-worn (and entirely false) Reagan-era “welfare queen” line of spin. But I wonder whether the Cons are making matters somewhat more difficult for themselves by trying to negotiate a free
Continue reading350 or bust: McCarthyism, Canadian Style
In Tuesday’s Huffington Post Cameron Fenton, National Director of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, wrote an excellent article about the Harper government’s hounding of environmentalists and First Nations opposed to the Northern Gateway Pipeline. In Harper Government Can’t See the Forest For the Trees, Mr. Fenton starts off by describing
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Clarification On David Suzuki: The Globe Misleads
The Globe has sown confusion in the blogosphere this morning with this story, which begins: Seeking to blunt Conservative attacks, Suzuki quits board of environmental foundation Canada’s most famous environmentalist, David Suzuki, says he left the board of his charitable foundation to avoid being a lightning rod for criticism and
Continue readingNEW MEDIA AND POLITICS CANADA: More Hash April 11, 2012
So the real costs of the F-35 program continues to make news, while from the opposition we hear calls for the resignation and/or firing of the Defense Minister who is described by Liberal House leader Marc Garneau as being, “…either incompetent or not too bright!” I don’t see why it’s an either/or situation. It could be both. I’ll admit it also could be neither. Perhaps the Minister simply lied. Those numbers are pretty much the same as the ones the PBO announced them back in March of 2012.
So where are the media at currently on the issue of the over-priced F-35 First Strike Fighter Jets replacing the soon to be mothballed CF-18’s? Well, over at Canada’s National Newspaper, J.L. Granastein makes a really poor argument that these jets aren’t just shiny new toys for the military by… talking about all the neat gadgets we get if we buy the F-35:
We might be involved in coalition air operations, and the F-35 could fill that role, both as a strike aircraft and as an interceptor. Its stealth technology – and a host of additional high-tech wonders – make it potentially the best fighter available anywhere for the next quarter-century, and that explains why so many countries want to purchase it.
There’s a lot wrong with his argument for procurement of these first strike weapons, number one of which is (aside from spending exorbitant amounts of Canadian taxpayers money) the idea of always being at the ready to join the Americans in bringing war and destruction to the Middle-East instead of doing something useful like say, peace-keeping. Also the Canadian press is doing its standard crappy job of informing Canadians about the Tory wish list of other toys for the military over the next 6 years. That’s gonna’ cost upwards of $115 Billion. Health care anyone?
Vroooom Baby, Vroooom!
So yesterday I’m having sport at the Tories expense about their lack of a jobs for youths strategy, which they’ve gone and made worse during the current economic downturn by cutting funding for Katimavik. So I open the morning’s local fish-wrap and behold the Conservatives are announcing $27 million dollars worth of spending on… yeah, a youth jobs program. Well good, I think to myself. It’s something anyhow. Right? Wrong!
The $26.7-million, a mix of previously committed and new money, is earmarked for eight projects. The biggest beneficiary is the YMCA of Greater Toronto, awarded 90 per cent of the money. Nearly $9-million of this will be used over the next three fiscal years to bankroll and administer the Y’s youth exchanges program.
So most of this money (90 %) is going to be spent in Toronto. Students looking for a leg up in finding a job in other parts of Canada are on their own.Canada’s Tories are nothing if not short-sighted.
Speaking of which, guess what government department is getting hit hardest by Harper’s budget cuts: …the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture Canada will be among the hardest-hit departments as Ottawa rolls out where it will cut 19,200 jobs across the country. What could go wrong with that?
David Suzuki writes about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its importance to our Canadian identity and the legislative changes made by the governing Tories that will have serious repercussions for the health of marine environments in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. (i.e. ‘…gutting the Fisheries Act by stripping down habitat protection provisions, and it plans to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in a way that would make it easier for mining and oil companies, for example, to jump through regulatory hoops and get projects up and running faster than the time required to evaluate all their impacts on nature.’)
And wrapping this up this wee post, here in Quebec, students are holding rolling protests today in their latest salvo against planned tuition hikes. They hope to finish the day having held 12 different demonstrations in various parts of Montreal. I wonder who blinks first, the premier or the students?
Cheers!
Continue readingNEW MEDIA AND POLITICS CANADA: More Hash April 11, 2012
So the real costs of the F-35 program continues to make news, while from the opposition we hear calls for the resignation and/or firing of the Defense Minister who is described by Liberal House leader Marc Garneau as being, “…either incompetent or not too bright!” I don’t see why it’s
Continue readingNEW MEDIA AND POLITICS CANADA: More Hash April 11, 2012
So the real costs of the F-35 program continues to make news, while from the opposition we hear calls for the resignation and/or firing of the Defense Minister who is described by Liberal House leader Marc Garneau as being, “…either incompetent or not too bright!” I don’t see why it’s
Continue readingLeDaro: David Suzuki on American Tigers
Should Tigers be saved from extinction? I think so. Should you have a tiger as a pet? Very dangerous.David Suzuki had a fascinating documentary about Tigers on CBC. Here is a preview. You may watch the full episode here.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Climate Change Denial Isn’t About Science, or Even Skepticism
David Suzuki.png Cross-posted from the David Suzuki Foundation's Science Matters blog. By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Editorial and Communications Specialist Ian Hanington. Let's suppose the world's legitimate scientific institutions and academies, climate scientists, and most of the world's governments are wrong. Maybe, as some people have argued,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Ethical Oil? – Ezra Levant Still a Douche
It is good to see yet another right wing fanatic has a crunchy crazy wing-nut history savour when suddenly(?) they attempt to get all serious and try interacting with empirical reality. Ezra Levant has little traction with reality and seems to have more interest in keeping his oil friends
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