Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sid Ryan rightly criticizes Tim Hudak’s anti-labour plans as a push toward poverty rather than prosperity. – Via Climate Progress, Steven Mufson reports on the causes of Enbridge’s Michigan oil spill – with Enbridge’s complete failure to repair known defects over a period
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Accidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on what we should learn from the recent spate of Alberta oil spills. For further reading…– Stephen Hume finds that Alberta’s pipelines have spilled roughly 28 million litres of oil in thousands of leaks and ruptures just since 2006, and puts the results in perspective: (C)onsider the campaign by
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Self-Imposed Crisis in Post-Secondary Education
On June 7, I gave a keynote address to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Education Sector Conference. My PowerPoint presentation (with full references) can be found at this link. Points I raised in the address include the following: -Canada’s economy has been growing quite steadily over the past three
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – May 7, 2012
Monday, May 7 saw another day largely dominated by debate on the Cons’ omnibus budget bill. The Big Issue Plenty of MPs rightly focused on the Cons’ move to combine so many disparate types of legislation into a single behemoth of a bill. Don Davies remembered his first instruction as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Bruce Johnstone reminds us that much of Stephen Harper’s low-wage, anti-worker agenda has been rather poorly hidden for a long time: Everything from growing trees for farmers to processing immigration applications to inspecting meat to examining evidence in criminal investigations, all of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: April 30, 2012
Monday, April 30 featured discussion of two opposition motions dealing with the federal government’s responsibility to ensure the safety of Canadians. And on both fronts, the Cons went out of their way to disclaim any such role for our public servants. The Big Issue Jack Harris started off the safety
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fracking Disclosure Proposals: Way Too Little, Much Too Late
frackingfluids.jpg The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has finally decided to do something about the lack of oversight regarding fracking fluids. A new proposal by the agency would finally require the fracking industry to disclose the chemical cocktails they are injecting into the ground at fracking well sites. The
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Mining in the NWT: Who Gets What?
In a recent blog post at Northern Public Affairs, Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox looks at the issue of ‘who gets what?’ when a mine is developed in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Here is an excerpt from the post: – The resource extractor: they pay royalties (the NWT has the lowest royalties in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, following up on Sarah Schmidt’s report showing that an outright majority of tested food products are inaccurately labeled by noting that nutrition information is just one of many areas where we’re being told to take the corporate sector’s word as to what’s good for us. For further reading:– Joanna
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Who Is Monitoring Fracking Wells And Pipelines? Nobody
see-hear-speak-no-evil.jpg As we here at DeSmogBlog have been covering in exhaustive detail for quite some time now, there is virtually no safe way to perform hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for unconventional oil and gas. Fracking has been linked to numerous problems, including the release of radioactive molecules that cause an array
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – William Black suggests that we consider applying the “broken windows” theory to the financial sector – particularly since the signs of a severely damaged system are still obvious. – Jim Stanford proposes one way to make sure that resource extraction actually does benefit
Continue readingopenalex: Farming in the City: Make environmental legislation flexible!
Cities are blanketed by a mesh of rules. Some of them are well known and clearly signaled (think traffic lights). Others only become visible when you start asking questions about your city. “Why aren’t there trees on my street?” “How come there aren’t any corner stores in my neighbourhood?” On
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Here We Go Again – Republican Attacks On EPA Kick Off 2012 Agenda
business-anti-environment.jpg With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set to finally enact stricter air pollution standards in accordance with the Clean Air Act and two subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions requiring them to do so, powerful Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are working to make sure that the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Exporting Emissions: Coal Supplies Heading Overseas, But Pollution Will Hurt Everyone
coal transport – motomo flickr.jpg The coal industry in the United States has found a way to increase their profits, while at the same time avoiding the cumbersome environmental standards in place to protect American citizens from coal emissions – they can just ship their filthy products overseas where regulations
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jim Stanford highlights a trend of employers forcing work stoppages in order to force massive concessions out of their employees – and notes that the Harper Cons seem to be entirely in favour of that kind of economic disruption as long as it’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – I’d planned to post on the sheer arbitrariness of the Cons’ insistence on eliminating a regulation for any new one they implement. But Erin gets there first: At best, this rule is a gimmick. At worst, it will delay or prevent the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Deregulation: A Bad Idea Crosses the Atlantic
The Harper government announced today that federal “regulators will be required to remove at least one regulation each time they introduce a new one that imposes administrative burden on business.” At the risk of imposing a proofreading burden on communications staff, that sentence is missing the word “an.” I first
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne juxtaposes massive profits and public concessions for Caterpillar and Rio Tinto against their attacks on Canadian workers: (T)he demands by ElectroMotive, a subsidiary of equipment giant Caterpillar, are about as outrageous as they get, including a 50 per cent cut in
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: US Chamber of Commerce Jobs Plan Rehashes Old, Debunked Talking Points
US_Chamber_of_Commerce_logo-740806.jpg The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released its “The State of American Business 2012” plan this week, outlining their own vision of how to create jobs in America. There were no surprises in Chamber President Tom Donohue’s address to business leaders. He simply rehashed the same tired talking points that
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Report: Arsenic From Coal Ash Disposal Sites Leaching Into Groundwater
toxic water 2.jpg The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has released a startling report showing that coal ash dumps near coal-burning power plants are leaching arsenic and other toxic chemicals into water supplies. The new report identifies 20 new sites in 10 different states where coal ash is contaminating water supplies.
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