Stephen Harper Allowing More Toxic Waste to Poison Our Water

I had posted before on Stephen Harper using a loophole to allow mining companies to dump their toxic waste into our lakes and rivers.

Well apparently, the water was still too clean for his liking, so he has given the Brazilian company, Vale, the right to spew more junk into the beautiful waters around Newfoundland.

A coalition of environmental groups is fighting to set a national precedent by stopping Brazilian mining giant Vale from dumping 400,000 tonnes a year of toxic tailings into a Newfoundland lake known for its prize-winning trout.

“Sandy Pond is a wonderful, beautiful lake and all aquatic life is going to be annihilated,” said Meera Karunananthan, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians and a member of the newly-created Sandy Pond Alliance. “The authorities are allowing the company to use our pristine water as one big garbage dump.”

Vale plans to use the lake for waste from a nickel processing plant, set to open in 2013. It’s located near Long Harbour on the Avalon Peninsula in southeastern Newfoundland, about an hour’s drive from St. John’s. The environmental alliance recently filed a legal challenge in federal court to what they see as a loophole in the Fisheries Act. It allows Canadian lakes to be reclassified as “tailings impoundment areas.” Once a body of water is reclassified, a company can’t be sued for dumping.

Look on the bright side. I guess we can always build more "fake lakes". Goodbye Stephen Harper.

Fake Names, Fake Lakes and Swat Teams

Our campaign efforts were also energized by the initiative of some younger Reformers, headed up by Kory Teneycke, who took it upon themselves to help "win Ontario." They raised enough money to finance a month-long bus tour ... Dubbing themselves "The Reform SWAT Team ... the team campaigned vigorously, helping out in every way possible, from dropping literature to chanting and waving banners at Leader's events, to mounting counter-demonstrations to quell the occasional group of protesters.

For a little variety and stim­ulation (this was an energetic bunch), the SWAT Team would also drop into the campaign offices of opposition candidates to see what they could stir up. - Preston Manning (1)

Kory Teneycke has remained a Reform movement supporter, following them through their metamorphosis to Alliance and then the Conservative Party of Canada. In 2008 he was named Stephen Harper's spokesman, and in 2009, with Harper in tow, met with Rupert Murdoch and on our dime, finalized plans to launch a Fox News North.

This has met with a lot of opposition in Canada, especially from those of us who are politically engaged and have witnessed how Fox News has destroyed political debate in the United States.

And much of this opposition is now focused on a petition, started by a group called Avaaz, that now has over 71,000 names. Sun Media cried foul because this group is U.S. based, (whereas their group is Australian based and runs U.S. Fox News)

For me as a Canadian, the issue is that I was inspired to sign the petition, no matter the source, and not because of the preamble, but because I know that this kind of vitriol is wrong for this country, that is already suffering the effects of right-wing whiplash.

Susan Delacourt wrote an excellent column for the Star, on this issue: Journalism, petitions and activism, and while she questions the motive of U.S. involvement, brings up several other important issues.

One is fraud:

Fake names* -- including those of some well-known Hill journalists as well as Conservatives and fictional characters -- were added to the petition sometime on Thursday. The head of business development for SunTV wrote a column for Friday's paper, slamming the petition because of the existence of fake names. Problem -- Kory Teneycke seemed to have inside knowledge of the fake names on the petition, and thanks to some dogged inquiry by O'Malley and Avaaz, we learn that these fake names were submitted by one person -- either known by Kory or Kory himself. (Kory did say on TV last night that he didn't do it, but he does seem to know who did.) Conservatives say the issue is the validity of the petition. Avaaz, and those whose names were appended to the petition without their knowledge, say the issue is forgery/fraud. On the issue of the fake names, I'm in agreement that the issue here is fraud -- not the validity of the petition. I think there should be an investigation into who submitted the names and the person who did it should be punished. This isn't high school here; we're talking about people's jobs and reputations.

Another is the "creation" of news:

On the road this summer aboard the "Liberal Express", I witnessed several occasions where Sun reporters in the regions produced a piece of paper with a question for Michael Ignatieff. They would read this query, sometimes saying they'd been told to ask the question by their bosses. Funnily enough, the questions mirrored Conservative talking points that were also sent by email to reporters aboard the bus. Then we had stories in the paper the next day saying that Ignatieff's tour was being "derailed" by questions about his candidates. The "derailing" (which was a bit of an overstatement) came from journalists' questions, nothing else.

And the third is according to Delacourt, when journalism strays into activism.

In 1996, David Taras at the University of Calgary, wrote an article: The Winds of Right-wing Change in Canadian Journalism. In it he discussed a new phenomenon in the Canadian media: the increasing number of journalists who had become "ardent political activists". It was in reference to the Winds of Change conference that was taking place to try and unite the right wing parties under one banner.

The Winds of Change conference, which took place in Calgary in May 1996, brought together approximately 70 leading right-wing thinkers and activists in an effort to bring unity to conservative forces before the next federal election, expected in 1997 ...... The conference's real significance, its real meaning, however, may have little to do with whether the goal of unity on the right is ever achieved. More important perhaps is that the conference highlighted a phenomenon that has been taking place for quite some time in American politics, but seems only now to be emerging full-blown in Canada: that an increasing number of journalists have become ardent political activists. Where objectivity was once the gold standard on which the professional credibility of journalists rested, today the rules seem to have changed. Some journalists have been able to enhance their status by openly championing partisan positions and causes. (2)

And the number of journalists who have been able to enhance their status by openly championing partisan positions and causes, is growing.

This doesn't mean that journalists have never been partisan. But there is a difference between writing with a partisan bent, and openly creating news stories, in an attempt to promote a political party, as Sun Media has recently done.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines journalism as: "writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation."

What Teneycke and Sun Media have done is not journalism. But it goes back to the days when Teneycke's "Reform SWAT team" dropped "into the campaign offices of opposition candidates to see what they could stir up." (1) Nothing more.

And this is what Fox News North will be all about. Single party campaigning and attacks on the opposition. Do we really need that 24/7?

Footnotes:

Popular columnist Greg Weston was fired from Sun Media for breaking the "fake lake" story.

Sources:

1. Think Big: My Adventures in Life and Democracy, By Preston Manning, McClelland & Stewart, 2002, ISBN: 0-7710-5675-3, Pg. 163

2. The Winds of Right-wing Change in Canadian Journalism, By David Taras (University of Calgary), Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 21, No 4, 1996

Harper Would Lose at least 29 Seats if an Election Were Held Today

And that's without any of the other parties campaigning.

Harper always starts an election polling higher than the outcome, so I don't see him winning even a minority.

Of course the big news in my Sun Media newspaper today was that he was refusing to take questions from reporters.

Since when is that news?

Poor boy's just realized that he's going to have to allot another billion dollars for crystal balls so Stockwell can nab those "unreported" criminals, and an extra billion and a half for Peter Mackay's thereapy.

We can no longer afford to keep this party.

Peter MacKay Spies Fake Planes Flying Over Fake Lake

I'm so glad we have a defense minister who's on the ball ... or off his rocker.

Seems that once again Peter Mackay is crying wolf and even sending out talking points to MPs, to help with his fabricated tale of another threat by Russian planes.

I'm feeling more secure already.

A larger number of those in the military community that I talked to (or sent emails to me) tend to believe that the “leak” of information regarding the intercept to the Sun newspapers was done to focus attention on the Conservative government’s stance on Arctic sovereignty and in particular to build the case for the purchase of the Joint Strike Fighter.

MacKay has denied that the information was released to support Canada’s participation in the JSF program.

But his denials were undercut somewhat when the Conservative government a short time later issued “talking points” to its MPs on how they could take advantage of the news stories about the Bear bomber intercept and drill home the point that the JSF was needed and that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff wanted to cancel the program (Ignatieff has actually said he wants to review the program).

We can't afford the damn planes. End of.

Jason Kenney Lambasts Government for Overspending on Summit

Jason Kenney is livid that the government is spending so much money hosting these summits:

The federal government "should have chosen a location which wouldn't cost that kind of money," said Jason Kenney ... "There are conference facilities available, I'm sure, in that part of the world as well as across Canada that could have hosted an event like this without spending several million dollars to upgrade them."

The infrastructure money is being used for everything from road repairs and a new outdoor stage to temporary parks that will cover vacant downtown lots. Boards around empty buildings will be painted.

"We're supposed to be a major industrialized country,'' Kenney said from Toronto. "A major industrialized country surely has conference sites where it can host significant dignitaries without having to spend millions of dollars sprucing up the environment.''

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Jason Kenney.

Of course, he isn't talking about his own government's boondoggle, and his words were from 1995. Kady O'Malley dug this up. Love that girl.

Fake Lakes, Fake Prime Ministers and Fake Economic Statements

With everything about these summits being fake, one thing that is real is the cost to taxpayers.

Louise Elliot also reveals the hidden costs of having a fake fiasco.

Many people are arguing that the current price tag for the summit is misleading. That's because it doesn't factor in the massive economic cost of effectively shutting down downtown Toronto. The tricky part is, it's almost impossible to put a dollar figure on lost revenue in advance of the event. I took a trip down to the Toronto's downtown core, where the summit will be held, to assess the situation.

It's the uncertainty that's keeping business owners like Hugh Mansfield up at night."So it would be fairly easy for somebody to get in here, if somebody was up here now. Again, just the added expense of what's going to happen if there's ten people in that freight elevator with a baseball bat..."Mansfield is busy these days trying to secure all the rickety old entrances to this warehouse which houses his communications and marketing firm.

"This leads to a fire escape but it's all under alarm system right now, but you know, it's not rocket science to get onto this fire escape from outside..." Mansfield's warehouse -- smack in the middle of Toronto's entertainment district -- is just two blocks north of the summit's northern perimeter-- right where the waves of protesters are expected to wash against a 10 foot fence and then rebound, venting their fury in the surrounding streets. Mansfield says his decision to close the office for all of next week was a no-brainer. "Watching helicopters flying in formation over your office is a little daunting. As well as seeing dress rehearsals of various people in various combat gear on a daily basis." Mansfield believes the business closures will come at a significant cost not just to his business, but to the Canadian economy at a whole.

I think we should just cancel them. Roll up our fake lake and forget the whole thing.

Harper's Ship is Sinking in Fake Lake

When your entire administration is based on nothing more than photo ops and controlled information, sooner or later it's going to topple, and I think that may finally be happening.

The United States are giving travel warnings telling their citizens to avoid Toronto during the G8/G20 summits.

Criticisms about spending and management around this year’s G20/G8 summits continue to grab headlines in this country and beyond. The US has issued a travel alert for Americans, advising them not to visit Toronto during the G20 summit as protests could quickly turn violent. “Even demonstrations that are meant to be peaceful can become violent and unpredictable,” the advisory reads.

“You should avoid them if at all possible.” Bloomberg News weighed in saying this summit has allowed Canada’s opposition to attack the Prime Minister’s economic credibility, damaging a the message Harper wanted to impress on colleagues and voters: that this country was the last in the G7 to enter the global recession and the first to recover.

It's quite interesting that the message he wanted to send was as fake as his lake. We only appeared to fair better because Jim Flaherty bought up 125 billion dollars worth of sub-prime mortgages. The same sub-prime mortgages that he allowed to infect our once sound banking system with in the first place.

Even Forbes magazine weighed in on the subject:

For all the recent bravado claiming that Canada's supposedly boring yet prudent financial regulations have steered it permanently clear of housing bubble territory, the simple truth is that key causes of the U.S. housing bubble have been sufficiently replicated in Canada.CMHC: Fannie and Freddie's Canadian Cousin - For example, while it is technically true that Canada does not have its own publicly-traded GSEs such as Fannie Mae .. and Freddie Mac .. to artificially inflate its housing market, it has the next best thing. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is Canada's national housing agency used to provide mortgage insurance, which is fully integrated by the federal government ....

(Uh) Oh, Canada! - Since 2007, when the first effects of the credit crunch began to be felt, the Canadian government postponed the housing bubble's burst by dramatically loosening lending standards, allowing CMHC to insure mortgages with 40-year amortizations and 0% down-payments for the first time in history. This of course flooded the market with new, high-risk borrowers, propping up already historically high prices with unsustainable, artificial demand. From 2007 to early 2009, the total dollar value of CMHC's outstanding MBSs grew from $138 billion to $265 billion, an increase of 92%. During this same time, the total mortgage credit outstanding on the collective books of Canadian banks increased by only 1% to $447 billion.

In other words, all the market demand that has been propping up Canadian house prices can be attributed to Canada's version of subprime loans that the free market was not willing to bear the risk of.

The conservatives are now at their lowest level in the latest EKOS poll: 30.5% and many of Harper's staff, seeing the writing on the wall are planning their exits, even Guy Giorno, the man who's really been running the country for the past two years.

The media have mutinied, the staff are bailing and Harper is up his lake without a paddle. Hope he can swim.

Mr. Colossal Fossil Goes Green. Canadians See Red

Clearly not having embarrassed us enough by winning the Colossal Fossil award at Copenhagen, our new and improved "go green" dictator is pulling out all the stops to make Canada look like complete idiots for the G8 and G20.

The international media is having a ball lampooning us and I'm sure many in the foreign press are looking forward to visiting "fake lake" just so they can share our incompetence with their readers.

And leaders of other countries will be able to use this as a benchmark for decades. "We may waste taxpayer's money, but remember Canada in 2010?" They'll be able to get away with anything.

Besides learning that they spent 19 million dollars on flowers and dancers:

Conservative ministers argue the government would be remiss if it didn’t try to sell Muskoka as a tourist destination to the 3,000-odd international journalists trapped covering the summits from Toronto. True, but do the math — for the cost of the fake lake, the government could have given every foreign journalist a free weekend in the real Muskoka.

But that’s not the end of fiscal follies summit-style. Down the hall from Loonie Lake in the Toronto media centre, taxpayers are being hit up yet again, this time for something called “The Living Wall.” Summit organizers are contracting a massive wall of pre-cultivated plants that come with their own irrigation system.

This, we are told in government documents, will be the G20 summit’s “signature environmental project.” ... (Speaking of legacy, Toronto taxpayers will have to take care of this vertical flowerbed for the next century). How much The Living Wall will end up costing Canadian taxpayers is anyone’s guess. With two weeks to go before the structure has to be in full bloom, the summit management office sent us a note saying it still had no cost estimates for the project. Likely translation: The bill for this thing is too outrageous for publication.

I hope this fake lake has a fake bridge so that we can all jump off it.

... taxpayers are shelling out $207,000 for 15 of what have to be the world’s most expensive solar lights to illuminate the pathways at Deerhurst Resort, where the eight leaders are staying for one night. While it is hard to believe this five-star resort had no path lights of its own, the federal contract assures us “this signature environmental project will contribute to the overall greening of the G8 summit.” And when the leaders have left the next day, the contractors have to dismantle the six-metre lights, and reinstall them somewhere in the nearby town of Huntsville. Your tax dollars at work over and over.

From Colossal Fossil to Colossal Idiot. I'm so proud.