The Canadian Manifesto 10: The Exploitation of Religion Has Many Victims

David Kuo was a foot soldier in the Evangelical army that stormed the White House for George W. Bush. He eventually came to realize that his role was purely political, and that the Bush administration had no intention of honouring their promises.

At a particularly bad time, when his spirits were at their lowest, Kuo was asked by a senior official what they could do to fix things.

"For starters", Kuo said, "you could stop calling us the f...ing faith-based group". They had been reduced to an annoyance and diminished through profanity.

Kuo, like many others, had been led into politics by people like Ralph Reed and Karl Rove, believing that he could make a difference.  His "faith-based" priority was to end abortion, but he also wanted to eradicate poverty, improve education and set higher moral standards for politicians.

Instead he spent his time polishing Bush's halo and fundraising for the Republicans.  So he resigned and wrote a book of his experiences; Tempting Faith: An inside Story of Political Seduction.

Kuo advises that Evangelicals need to take a time-out from political activism, and re-connect with their faith. 

I have seen what happens when well-meaning Christians are seduced into thinking deliverance can come from the Oval Office, a Supreme Court chamber, or the floor of the United States Congress. They are easily manipulated by politicians who use them for their votes, seduced by trinkets of power, and tempted to turn a mission field (politics) into a battlefield, leaving the impression Jesus' main goal was advancing a particular policy agenda. I know: I've seen it, I've done it, I've lived it, and I've learned from it. (1)

"Little Platoons" of Soldiers for Christ

“To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed toward a love to our country and to mankind."  Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

One of Kuo's bosses and mentors was Chuck Colson, who rallied his troops under the battle cry:  "Storm the battlements for Christ!" 

Using Edmund Burke as inspiration, an army of political Evangelists would have to create "little platoons" that could be easily mobilized to bring down the enemy.

Of course, this meant different things to different people, and for David Kuo, an enemy he was inspired to destroy was poverty.  What he found instead was that he had been inducted into an army trained to attack the poor.  He referred to them as "little platoons against the welfare state".

Using terms not unlike those used by Harrisites (Mike Harris) and Harperites, he had allowed himself to be convinced that only "tough love" would heal the nation, and that the only way to get people off welfare was to make them work.  (2)

When Mike Harris first ran in Ontario, he promoted the same thing, prompting many on social assistance to vote for him, believing that he would help them find a job.  Instead they had their benefits slashed by 22% and were left to their own devises, looking for jobs that never existed, and would never exist.

More "tough love" was aimed at single mothers, especially those who had children out of wedlock.  "Welfare needed to stop paying people to have illegitimate children and needed to be a much tougher way of life". (2)  Spoken by someone who has never had to live as a single mom on the meagre welfare "hand out".  It doesn't get much tougher than that.

In Ontario under Harris, John Baird became so ruthless that it resulted in the death of a singe mom, who was trying desperately to claw her way out from under the welfare system.  His reaction:  Oops!

The "faith-based" crew saw the government undermining God, by providing services that ought to be left to the Church and their "little platoons".  Yet churches and poverty have co-existed for centuries, so clearly that strategy wasn't working.

Conservative activists love to quote Edmund Burke as inspiration, often citing:  "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".  However, that quote cannot be found in any of Burke's writings.  The closest attribution comes from Tolstoy's War and Peace.

An actual quote of Burke's, is the one they should be paying attention to:

"The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.”

"Faith-based" Organized Crime

One area in which George Bush's "faith-based" group hoped to have an impact, was in the allocation of government grants.

Conservative Republicans were in the midst of derailing carefully laid plans. One thing they wanted was more Charitable Choice—that is, a broader range of religious charities eligible government grants ...  Now, with a conservative evangelical president in the Oval Office, with Republicans controlling the House and nearly the Senate, some conservatives thought it time to allow "real" faith-based groups to receive federal funding. In short, they wanted to allow groups that aimed to convert people [my emphasis] to a particular faith to be able to receive direct federal grants which was far beyond what Charitable Choice was actually intended to do.

They also wanted numerous large federal grant programs converted to vouchers so that grant recipients could have access to plainly religious groups. Finally, they wanted to give religious groups receiving public funds an unfettered right to hire and fire people based not only on their professed religion but on whether they lived according to the "rules" of their religion ( no gay Catholics, pork-eating Orthodox Jews, bug-killing Jainists, leather-wearing Buddhists, or drinking Christian fundamentalists). They wove these objectives together into a single, highly partisan bill. It wasn't exactly the legislation-free bipartisanship that Brother John had hoped for. (3)

This was not charity, but proselytizing, and taxpayers were being asked to fund it, despite the fact that unless they adhered to the stringent requirements, they would see no benefits.  Only the corporate sector and the "God for the creation of personal wealth" elite few, would cash in.  A perfect example of this, is one I already provided, that is taking place in private (for-profit) corporate prisons.

Hundreds of millions of dollars to "save" instead of rehabilitate prisoners.*  Cha ching, cha ching.

Another priority for "faith-based" was a change in the tax laws that would make it more appealing to donate to charities.  That too got lost in the shuffle.

In my third day on the job, President Bush signed the tax cut that had been one of his top priorities .... There were cuts in capital gains taxes (p: from the sale of stocks and land). The inheritance tax was with the exemption slowly increasing to $3.5 million ($7 million for couples) .... But something was missing: the president's promised $6 billion per year in tax credits for groups helping the poor. Those tax credits had been the centerpiece of compassionate-conservative efforts for years and the centerpiece of the president's own compassion agenda during the campaign. The best estimates projected that the proposal would create more than 11.7 million new givers throughout the country, stimulate an additional $14.6 billion in charitable giving in the first year and more than $160 billion over ten years, and increase current giving levels by 11 percent.  Unfortunately, those charity tax credits weren't listed by the White House as must-haves, so the House skipped over them. (3)

Bush's changes only benefited the already wealthy, or soon to be wealthy, as couples could now inherit up to seven million dollars without paying a dime.  This hurt charities, because it meant that there would be no incentive to give some of it away, as a means to avoid paying tax.  The wealthy recipients could just keep it all, and usually did.

The National Council of Churches spoke out against the 2001 Bush tax cuts, that favoured the rich as a means to "balance the budget".  Their General Secretary Rev. Dr. Bob Edgarru, said that "There’s no budget surplus if there are still people living in poverty."

As millions of people – parents and children, the elderly, people with disabilities and the working poor – are driven to seek charity to meet their most basic needs, we are appalled that the focus of attention in this Congressional session is not on meeting their needs; rather, it is on tax cuts that will mostly benefit the affluent."  (4)

The tax cuts and changes to tax laws, actually hurt legitimate charities, because the corporate sector only found a new way to not only avoid paying taxes, but also to obtain government grants.  What I like to call "Faith-based organized crime".

And those "little platoons" were demobilized, only to be called to action again, when they were needed to fight another election.

So Again, What Does This Have to do With Us?

Kuo tells us that prominent Republican pollsters like Frank Luntz and John MacLaughlin, advised that issues should be framed in such a way as to appeal to "religious conservative voters".

Frank Luntz has worked with the Reform-Alliance-Conservative Party for many years, and was the one who told Stephen Harper to talk about hockey as much as possible, to sell himself as a man of the people. (5)

John McLaughlin is the ad man who handled campaigns for the National Citizens Coalition (where Harper was president) and according to his 2004 bio:

John McLaughlin has worked professionally as a strategic consultant and pollster for twenty years. During this time he has earned a reputation for helping to guide underdog Republicans and conservative challengers to victory. He has worked across America and internationally in hundreds of campaigns.  Within the past year, John McLaughlin has helped elect Iain Duncan Smith, the leader of the Conservative Party (United Kingdom); Stephen Harper, the leader of the Canadian Alliance Party (Canada); Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore; and a historic 30-seat Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. (6)

Stephen Harper digested the "Bible according to Republican strategists", and has tapped into the vote-rich and cash-rich, Religious Right.

He has also tapped into the Bush Doctrine, not only when it comes to an aggressive foreign policy, but also in the creation of tax measures designed for the well-to-do.

However, there may be something else on the horizon, when it comes to corporate run and taxpayer funded charities.

Well known Reform-Alliance-Conservative insider, Gerry Chipeur, (also a Republican insider), wrote an op-ed piece for the National Post, soon after the Harper government announced that they would be taking their lead from George Bush's "cutting red tape" initiative (massive de-regulation), and resurrecting Mike Harris's "Red Tape Commission".

Without mentioning that the sweat on his brow came from a backroom meeting with the Harperites, hammering out their plan of attack, he outlined ten ways that Harper could cut the public out of public policy.

Targeted was Health Canada, Agriculture Canada, the CRTC, The Canadian Wheat Board (already gone), Canada Border Services (being handed over to the Americans), Fisheries and Oceans, Parks Canada ....

But one mentioned by Chipeur was removing Revenue Canada's oversight from charitable organizations.  This no doubt comes from complaints by people like Faytene Grasseschi Kryskow, who was turned down for charitable status because prayer gatherings are not classed as charity.   Apparently there have been many quasi-religious groups with the same complaints.

What Chipeaur suggested was that only CIDA should be involved with charities.  We all know how that works, when Bev Oda altered a contract AFTER it was duly signed. 

However, I see this as being a major problem.  Without Revenue Canada being involved, how do we know what are legitimate charities and what aren't?  Corporations could set up their own charities, with the money going right back into the corporation.

They could also donate to AstroTurf groups, and receive a charitable donation, despite the fact that the AstroTurf group was created by them to promote their own interests.

The National Citizens Coalition could not only apply for charitable status, but receive CIDA grants for questionable activities.

And all of this could be funnelled to the Conservative Party.

The media and the Opposition have to stay on top on this before we end up a one party/one religion state.

And the public have to separate the legitimate charities and community churches, from the Religious Right money machine. Many Christians who got involved in the associated political activism, may not yet realize as  David Kuo did, that they are being used.

According to Lloyd Mackey, in The Pilgrimage of Stephen Harper, our PM was "saved" after being introduced to the writings of C.S. Lewis.  This claim is made by many in the New Right movement.  However, Kuo found a passage in a Lewis book, that frightened him, and helped to make him realize that what he was doing was sinful.

If the Tea Partiers could read, they might learn something here too.

The passage is from the Screwtape Letters, near the end when Screwtape advises his cousin:   

Let him begin by treating patriotism ... as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the "cause," in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce ... Once he's made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. (7)

Footnotes:

 *I was told recently that an old cell block at Collins Bay Pen/Frontenac Institute, that was destroyed during a riot years ago, is being renovated to possibly be used as a "repent or regret for profit" rehabilitation centre, to replace the Prison Farms.  I hope not.

Sources: 

1. Tempting Faith: An inside Story of Political Seduction, By David Kuo, Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 13: 978-0 7432-8712-8, p. xii

2. Kuo, 2006, p. 59

3. Kuo, 2006, p. 160-165

4.  "RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY FOR RESPONSIBLE TAX POLICY" IS LAUNCHED, National Council of Curches, April 5, 2001

5. American Strategist teaches Tories tips on keeping power, Canwest News Service, May 7, 2006

6. Catholic Citizen Announcement, February 10, 2004

7. Kuo, 2006, p.57

Look Out! Tim Hudak is Running With Scissors

If there are three words that will warm the blood of the New Right and their corporate pals, they are "cutting red tape".

The picture to the left was published on June 3, 2003, with the caption:

Determined to cut red tape and reduce the regulatory burden are (l-r), Office of Thrift Supervision Director James Gilleran, Jim McLaughlin of the American Bankers Association, Harry Doherty of America's Community Bankers, FDIC Vice Chairman John Reich and Ken Guenther of the Independent Community Bankers of America"

This was during the Bush administration when they allowed the banking industry to write their own regulations, and as a result, that industry deregulated themselves into a global economic meltdown.

The notion of "cutting red tape", is a wonderful populist sentiment, attacking the bureaucracy that can slow down the processing of licenses, etc.

But to the new religion of "Market Fundamentalism", a coin termed by George Soros, "cutting red tape" has an entirely different meaning.  Industry lobbies hard to take the scissors to the tape, but they're not concerned with licenses or any of the other menial government functions that can become a minor annoyance.

Removing red tape actually means removing the public from public policy.

Fundamentalists believe that if the marketeers can regulate themselves, the profit margin will guide them to eternal salvation.  In other words, if they sell a tainted product and it kills people, they could lose sales, so it's in their best interest not to sell products that kill people, unless they're making bullets or bombs.

The theology worked well when Stephen Harper allowed meat processors to inspect themselves, resulting in the listeriosis outbreak that killed 23 Canadians.

A leaked cabinet document outlined a plan to save money at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) by shifting federal meat inspectors into an oversight role and leaving companies to implement their own methods of making sure that their products aren't lethal.

That's cutting red tape.

And cutting red tape also resulted in the 2000 Walkerton Tragedy in Ontario, when cattle manure leaked into the town's drinking water, killing seven people and making half of the town's population violently ill.  Their grief turned to anger when they learned that Premier Mike Harris's Red Tape Commission had deliberately dismantled vital parts of the public health infrastructure in the name of cutting red tape. They knowingly ignored repeated warnings from their own experts who stated that cutbacks in environmental and health protection could have a disastrous impact on public health.

But free market dogma has no room for such considerations, so instead they cut inspection staff, shut down testing labs, and eliminated reporting and enforcement procedures.

As an MPP Tim Hudak claims to have been a strong supporter of Harris's Red Tape Commission, but I notice perusing Hansard, that he failed to show up on the day that a group of high school students from Walkerton visited the Ontario Legislature, telling their story of what cutting red tape meant to them.

Hudak must have taken a prayer day.

"Bless me Ronald Reagan for I have sinned.  I almost let my emotions get in the way of carrying out your mission.  But the holy mother, Margaret Thatcher, appeared to me in a vision.  I am now cleansed, and will never again believe that public interest should get in the way of corporate profit."

In the UK, there is concern over a review conducted by their market fundamentalist government, that is “ part of a package of changes to Britain’s health and safety system to support the government’s growth agenda and cut red tape.”  They see it as a workplace death wish.

The Harper government has resurrected the Red Tape Commission, and are looking at removing public protection from all areas of business.

On the campaign trail, Hudak is also blessing us with the red tape creed, even promising to reduce his cabinet by 20%.  Concentrating power, giving us even less of a voice.

We need to change the dialogue.  This is not about cutting red tape, but cutting us out, in favour of those we need protection from.  Hudak refuses to say where he will make his cuts, but it could very well be in employment standards, including minimum wage.  Or workplace safety, product inspection.  The list is endless.

Yet he claims that by cutting red tape it will create jobs, and not just for morticians.

Food tasters for the rich.  Overseers for slave camps, also known as your place of employment.  Whip makers.  Enormous opportunities.

We elect people to represent our interests, not work against them.  We need to keep our red tape, before it turns into yellow tape, and we all become victims of corporate greed and government crime.

More Alarm Over Harper's Plans to Reduce Food Safety Regulations

A story over the weekend, revealed that U.S. scientists are concerned with the fact that traces of feces are being found in imported food. Not exotic food found in import shops, but fruits, vegetables and other staples, sold in our supermarkets.

Michael Doyle, a microbiologist with the University of Georgia, was to address that topic Monday while making the keynote address at the general meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.

Doyle and others are sounding the alarm about increasing proportions of food being imported - mostly because it costs less - from countries where sanitary standards for production are not as stringent as in places such as Canada and the United States.

And how safe are Canadians?

A Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokeswoman, when asked for comment on the safety of imported food, said in an email that "Canada's rigorous food safety requirements apply equally to imported and domestic foods." ... However, an internal audit of CFIA released in September found there were "deficiencies" with regard to its procedures dealing with imported food. The audit found that there are no mechanisms in place to ensure the quality of imported food is equivalent to that produced in Canada, other than for meat, fish and eggs. It said there was poor tracking to ensure the quality of products including beverages, infant formula, confectionaries, cereals, spices and seasonings, and baked products.

That CFIA report said the inflation-adjusted value of food imported increased to $21.8 billion in 2006 from $14.2 billion in 1997. On its website, the CFIA says more than 70 per cent of food products sold in Canada are imported.

But Canadians also need to be concerned with food processed at home.

Under the guise of eliminating red tape, the Harper government has been systematically tearing down any protections that stand in the way of corporate profit. At what has been dubbed the "jelly bean summit", Harper and George Bush agreed to lower safety standards, to come closer to those of Mexico, and adopted a new strategy, known as "risk management".

This allows many companies to inspect themselves, but if things go wrong, they have to clean up their own mess. The government will take no responsibility.

When Jim Flaherty announced the elimination of 80,000 public service jobs, many of those jobs are in "food safety".

They say "you are what you eat", and that could mean feeling crappy.

Red Tape and Jelly Beans. Just How Safe Are We?

One of Canada's first experiments into neoconservatism, was the Mike Harris government (1995-2002) in Ontario. And it was an experiment that failed and failed badly, on many levels.

But one of the most devastating failures resulted in the deaths of 11 people in a place called Walkerton.

And the cause of their deaths can be attributed in a large part to something called the "Red Tape Commission."

Look Out For Neocons Running With Scissors

When Jim Flaherty, a former Mike Harris cabinet minister, brought down his latest budget; he mentioned that his government was looking to cut down on some of the bureaucracy by establishing a "Red Tape Commission." This was presented as a cost cutting measure, but in fact it has little to do with saving money and even less to do with public interest.

It's just a nice sounding term for deregulation.

And for a government that has already deregulated this country to the point where many Canadians are now just "future victims", we need to start paying attention.

Like Stephen Harper and his free marketeers, Mike Harris and his inner circle believed that the private sector knew more than the bureaucrats and " ... anything that interfered with the private sector - environmental regulations enforced by busy-body inspectors, for example - is nonsense and needs to be dismantled. You don't need public input or so-called "expert" advice to figure that out." (1)

As a result, environmental programs and agencies were attacked with a vengeance and the Ministry of the Environment lost 42% of its budget.

Front-line staff, charged with monitoring, testing, inspection, enforcement, and research, are decimated: 900 of 2,400 front-line staff are laid off. Regional offices are closed. Environmental agencies set up over the years to respond to complex environmental problems are dismantled in days. What remains of the Ministry is in total disarray. Similar cuts hit other ministries, including Natural Resources and Agriculture. A number of industries formerly regulated by the government are told they can now regulate their own environmental performance. (1)

And despite repeated warnings that the cutbacks were compromising the safety of Ontario's drinking water, the priority was business and for Harris it was business as usual.

Until tragedy struck, when a deadly E. coli bacteria found it's way into Walkerton's water, killing eleven people and leaving hundreds more seriously ill.

And in a case of "Deja Vu all over again", the Harper government is also moving toward doing away with environmental assessments.

OTTAWA - Environmental groups and opposition politicians say the federal Conservatives are trying to gut environmental assessment laws by sneaking in new rules in budget legislation."This is a big step backward about 20 years," John Bennett of the Sierra Club said Wednesday.

A big step backward indeed. Right back to the dark days of Mike Harris, that included not only Jim Flaherty, but John Baird, Tony Clement and Peter Van Loan.

Can You Count the Jelly Beans in the Jar Not Laced with PCBs?

In 2007, Stephen Harper met with then U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Montibello, Quebec; to discuss the product standards of the three nations, and how to remove them. That wasn't officially how the meeting was sold to the public, but it was the end result of intense bargaining.

Well not really intense bargaining so much as Bush saying these are our regulations and you two must match them, end of. And since Bush had reduced government regulations to the point where they could fit on the head of pin, this meant that Canada was forced to pretty much dismantle our own safety standards, to meet those of the U.S. President.

So too did Mexico, and many believe that this was the cause of H1N1, now dubbed the "NAFTA Flu."

But while these connivers were inside scheming, a large group of protesters had gathered outside, well aware that Canadian sovereignty was on the line. So to silence the crowd, Harper appeared with his cohorts to put them at ease. Looking a little tipsy (Watch at about 45 seconds and 1:25 of this video .... I'm just saying), he asked the humble masses: “Is the sovereignty of Canada going to fall apart if we standardize the jelly bean?”

'Jelly Bean' must have been some kind of cute word association (wink, wink), for something they called "risk management."

"At the heart of both systems is a reliance on industry reporting and monitoring, rather than independent government testing, and an emphasis on cleaning up the mess (to the environment or human lives) caused by bad products after the fact. They call this “risk management,” an about-face from the “precautionary principle” of better safe than sorry." (2)

On April 1, 2008; the Harper government began putting their new "risk management' plan into place, beginning with meat-processing companies who were no longer required to alert Canada's food safety agency about listeria-tainted meat.

This resulted in the death of 22 Canadians, but Maple Leaf foods kept up their end of the bargain, by launching a series of "Maple Leaf, we care" ads.

See how this works?

And ironically, it is now the U.S., under a different president, who is demanding that Canada cleans up it's act.

But look on the bright side. It gave agricultural minister, Gerry Ritz, a fall back career in stand-up comedy, if the whole politics thing doesn't work out for him.

So please join Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, and help us get rid of this destructive force. Because jelly beans should only rot your teeth; not take your life.

Sources:

1. Contamination:The Poisonous Legacy of Ontario's Environmental Cutbacks, By Ulli Diemer, Radical Digressions.

2. The Jelly Bean Summit, Council of Canadians, Autumn 2007

Flaherty's Not so New Red Tape Commission is Code for Deregulation

In a post the other day on Paul Calandra, Reform-Conservative MP for Oak Ridges-Markham; I mentioned that I was surprised he would boast of his involvement with the Red Tape Commission; a scheme introduced by Mike Harris that was devastating for Ontario.

As much as the term 'red tape' has negative connotations, it is really just a clever way of saying deregulation.

Ulli Diemer wrote extensively on the subject back in 2000, when the Walkerton tragedy was directly linked to this horrendous bit of government hanky panky.

Contamination: The Poisonous Legacy of Ontario's Environmental Cutbacks

This is a story about fanaticism and death. The dead are buried in fresh graves in the cemeteries of Walkerton, Ontario. The fanatics are very much alive, going about their daily business in the Premier's office and the cabinet room in Queen's Park ... Investigators are still working to determine exactly how deadly E. coli 0157 bacteria found their way into Walkerton's water in May, causing at least seven and perhaps 11 deaths, and leaving hundreds seriously ill.

The story of the Walkerton tragedy is not, however, primarily a story about Walkerton at all. This was no unforeseen accident. It was the predictable - and predicted - result of deliberate policy decisions which gravely compromised the safety of Ontario's drinking water. The broader story of Walkerton is the story of repeated warnings, from many different experts, officials, and agencies, that the Harris government's environmental cutbacks were putting public health in jeopardy. And it is the story of how those warnings were dismissed ...

Devastating cutbacks, media manipulation and calculated photo-ops, defined the Harris government, and his was a legacy of deceit. Sound familiar?

Well so does this:

The chain of events begins in June 1995, when Harris's Progressive Conservatives take office, and start ramming through their "Common Sense Revolution." The phrase was concocted by the party's election strategists, but it captures perfectly the attitudes of Harris and his inner circle: The private sector can do everything better. That's a fact. That's common sense. Obviously, then, anything which interferes with the private sector - environmental regulations enforced by busy-body inspectors, for example - is nonsense and needs to be dismantled. You don't need public input or so-called "expert" advice to figure that out.

Armed with these certainties, the Tories set out to slash Ontario's "bloated" public services and "red tape."

Environmental programs and agencies are attacked with particular savagery. The Ministry of the Environment loses 42% of its budget. Front-line staff, charged with monitoring, testing, inspection, enforcement, and research, are decimated: 900 of 2,400 front-line staff are laid off. Regional offices are closed. Environmental agencies set up over the years to respond to complex environmental problems are dismantled in days. What remains of the Ministry is in total disarray. Similar cuts hit other ministries, including Natural Resources and Agriculture. A number of industries formerly regulated by the government are told they can now regulate their own environmental performance.

This sounds very much like Stephen Harper's "risk management" scheme with double the death toll of Walkerton, when the Listeriosis outbreak exposed that he was to blame.

In Harper's plan, created with George Bush; the industries could inspect themselves, but if anything went wrong, they must do the PR clean up. Remember all those Maple Leaf ads, portraying themselves as a company that cared?

That was simply part of the agreed upon clean up. This is a tragedy waiting to happen.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?