Recently Morris W. Dorosh had a piece published in the Financial post: Tom Mulcair’s incoherent farm policy. In it he questions Mulcair’s logic and math, when discussing agriculture and supply management. Incoherence is the expected thing from Mulcair. His arithmetic seems a bit off. Supply management nationally provided 16.9 per cent
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Pushed to the Left and Loving It: Mulcair’s Environmental Record #2: Minister of Hog Development
Recently Morris W. Dorosh had a piece published in the Financial post: Tom Mulcair’s incoherent farm policy. In it he questions Mulcair’s logic and math, when discussing agriculture and supply management. Incoherence is the expected thing from Mulcair. His arithmetic seems a bit off. Supply management nationally provided 16.9 per cent
Continue readingPushed to the Left and Loving It: Mulcair’s Environmental Record #2: Minister of Hog Development
Recently Morris W. Dorosh had a piece published in the Financial post: Tom Mulcair’s incoherent farm policy.
Incoherence is the expected thing from Mulcair. His arithmetic seems a bit off. Supply management nationally provided 16.9 per cent of farm-gate cash revenue in 2014 and 17.0 per cent the prior year, so Mulcair must have been referring only to Quebec. In that case gross revenue from milk, egg and poultry sales in Quebec was 2.55 per cent of Canadian farm cash income. Employment allegedly created by the system can be almost any number depending on how creatively it is defined.
How can we give credibility to the words of a minister when his statements are different from one newspaper to another or from a television program to another or simply false.(1)
“By authorizing new hog barns, the government is giving municipal officials and citizens a fait accompli. It is preparing for the worst crises than previous ones, since people feel cheated. The BAPE gave them hope and yet nothing changes, “says Gilles Tardif of the Citizen Coalition.
“The Environment Minister Thomas Mulcair, seems to have turned into the minister of pig development,” adds Tim Yeatman … citizens have just elected candidates who campaigned against hog farms projects.
The groups are outraged that the government ignored the recommendations of the BAPE in regard to the protection of the environment and risks to the health of people drinking from artesian wells. “Despite clear evidence to the effect that the spreading of pig manure, slurry is not adequately controlled to prevent the pollution of watercourses, the Liberal government seems to be unconscious,” says Martine Ouellet Vice President of the Coalition Eau Secours. (4)
The major issue in Quebec is the ever-expanding hog industry, and its impact upon the environment and rural communities. In the fall of 2003 The Quebec government released its report on a public consultation process which recommended fundamental changes to hog production in order to make it sustainable in Quebec. A moratorium on hog production expansion followed, installed until new regulations and policies could be implemented, but was lifted prematurely in December 2004. Since then, grassroots community groups have been calling on the province to heed the Canadian Medical Association’s resolution to ban the expansion of the hog industry until the inherent risks of industrial hog farming are understood and the appropriate solutions.
Political Eh-conomy: No thanks Uber, I’m not signing your petition
So the ride-sharing app Uber is urging Vancouverites to sign a petition on its site to put pressure on the City to allow Uber to operate. An ad for the petition invaded my Twitter feed and I decided to take a closer look. Here’s the petition with my commentary. Spoiler:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Rick Perlstein observes that Ronald Reagan’s most lasting contribution to American politics may be his admonition not to recognize flaws or past sins which might require serious responses – and that democratic discourse in the U.S. and elsewhere has yet to recover: (T)he
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: All You Need to Know About Dr.OZ
One video, sixteen minutes equals deep insight into how American society runs. (Hint: Most likely not for your benefit.) I grow tired of hearing arch-conservatives rail on about the evils of regulation and how it stifles industry. People die because of deregulation and lax standards – but somehow the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: BC’s New Landscape and Ecology Eradication Projects!
Once upon a time, before we knew much about ecology and systems theory, corporations just went around raping and pillaging the countryside, polluting whatever they wanted. Shhh, there’s a secret new law: it’s open season for corporations to rape and pillage our environment. This came back to me grotesquely in
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Privatizing Everything In Sight
There is a belief commonly held that the private sector will always be “more efficient” than the public sector. Outside of the United States, nowhere is that more prevalent than in Alberta. Alberta has moved regulatory oversight of the Oil Industry to an “arms-length” regulator … which is funded by
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Something Is Fishy With The CFIA and XL’s Meat Facility
Richard ‘Hub’ Hughes PM Steve Harper’s hands off self regulatory model is I expect at the root of the problems at XL’s Brooks, Alberta Facility. Throughout Canada, the fashionable with the right wing regulation and self inspection experiments have proven to be a dangerous diversion with deadly serious consequences. How
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Trouble with Billionaires – Linda McQuaig
I wish I had gotten around to reading this book sooner. It is a great read and takes a great deal of piss out of the arguments (made by our beloved conservative/libertarian friends) for lower taxes and more love for the wealthy. I highly recommend reading it. Check out other
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Deregulation and privatization – a cautionary tale
Terrance Heath writes a story of frequent and ruinous power outages in territory served by The Potomac Electric Power Company, a utility supplying electricity to Washington, D.C. and surrounding communities in Maryland. For reasons that should be obvious, Business Insider ranked Pepco the most hated company in America. Powerless: Conservative
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Deregulation and death
Government Press Release, January 2012: “Finance Minister Kevin Falcon has won the Canadian Federation of Independent Business Golden Scissors award for cutting red tape for small business by more than 40% …” I wonder if CFIB hero Kevin Falcon and his wealthy business and real estate developer backers plan to
Continue readingLarry Hubich's Blog: Inside Job, Narrated by Matt Damon (Full Length HD)
Inside Job, Narrated by Matt Damon (Full Length HD) on Vimeo. “‘Inside Job’ provides a comprehensive analysis of the global financial crisis of 2008, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused millions of people to lose their jobs and homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression, and
Continue readingA. Picazo: Chevron – Because BP Wasn’t Drilling Deep Enough
Fifty miles off the coast of Louisiana, upwards of 100,000 barrels per day of oil are gushing from BP’s Deepwater Horizon well into the Gulf of Mexico. With the equivalent of one Exxon-Valdez seeping into the Gulf every three days, mass devastation of the wetlands, wildlife, and marshes surrounding the
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