How the Canadian Government Plans Its Tar Sands Action

Could have been a same sex too!  This is Toronto after all.

See the full redacted scribd version.  Hope it doesn't get redacted too.  Seems that the government has been removing documents from the archives.

The Real Davos Story 2012

Harper went to Davos prepared with the big reveal, the Transformative  Strategy for Canada and by extension to the world economic leaders.  As he held Mark Carney in captive thrall running through his talking points and polishing his delivery,

The veteran founder and Chairman of the Davos World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab, declares that "Capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world around us."

 Reporter:  Terry Milewski, CBC.ca

Harper's plan for Capitalism is that it should grow and find markets everywhere unfettered by government intervention.  Hence, less taxes for corporations.  His message was the debt.

"It threatens the strong, sustainable balanced growth that G20 countries have made their priority and risks bringing the world to another recession."

 "We have failed to learn the lessons from the financial crisis of 2009," he goes on. "A global transformation is urgently needed and it must start with reinstating a global sense of social responsibility."

Harper didn't mention his failed policies such as putting too much money into one region for oil development and encouragement of investment which impacted the rest of Canada because of a petro dollar or "Dutch disease" result.  Investors felt free to take the money grants and then leave without penalty.  

Even though Canada shares NAFTA policies with the U.S., Obama has moved towards protectionism, and buy American policies in order to insulate workers from job losses.  The U.S. presses charges against "dumping" of solar panels by Chinese.

Even though the world is in chaos from corruption in banking, excessive movement of money away from stakeholders and into the hands of shareholders where it is parked out of country or used in a virtual way as commodity flips and trades make money and inflate goods beyond real value. 

Free trade and free markets won't cut it anymore.

That's obvious in Canada.  Yet, Canadian goods are struggling to compete against the influx of Target, Wallmart, Ipods instead of Blackberries.  

"seriously address the social impact of globalization," he says. "Growing inequities within and between countries and rising unemployment are no longer sustainable ... We must rethink our traditional notions of economic growth and global competitiveness, not only by focusing on growth rates and market penetration, but also, equally — if not more importantly — by assessing the quality of economic growth."

"How sustainable is it and at what cost to the environment? How are the gains distributed? What has become of the family and community fabric, as well as of our culture and heritage? The time has come to embrace a much more holistic, inclusive and qualitative approach to economic development."

"The success of any national and business model for competitiveness in the future will be less based on capital and much more based on talent. I define this transition as moving from capitalism to 'talentism'."

Some tweets via hashtags.org  search term Davros


"Growth was achieved at the cost of greater inequity, higher unemployment, weak
democracy,loss of identity, & overconsumption" #Davros #WEF



Important to read re-read & absorb - World Bank Beyond Economic Growth
ISBN 0-8213-4853-1 (+ pdf) CH 1 "What Is Development?" #Davros #WEF

Invest for the long term future, Stop short selling the World. #Davros #wef Take options for decency and reasonableness.

Humanity has for many years known the correct action to support and maintain health world economics but Fail as are too greedy #Davros #WEF

Look here for my shared Tweet Grid on topics on the blog

Harper's Davos Talking Points

Canada is recovering well from the global recession.

change how Canadians finance their retirement.
overhaul the immigration system. (Canadians want job security.  Well we won't let you indulge in the old notion of "jobs for life" - unless, of course, you run a company, are in finance or work for the Harpercons.)
make oil and gas exports to Asia a “national priority”(not climate change, clean water, Aboriginal birthright)
aggressively pursue free trade in India and Europe. (our corporate boots have already signed the contracts and you'll hear about it soon enough.  Only when we find a safe place to hide when Harper reveals it center stage at a WTO or banker's forum in China).
“Western nations, in particular, face a choice of whether to create the conditions for growth and prosperity, or to risk long-term economic decline. In every decision, or failure to decide, we are choosing our future right now,” Mr. Harper said. (plagiarized from words of climate scientist Bill McKibben)
He did not spell out whether seniors will have to wait longer to receive the benefit or whether clawbacks would be increased for higher income earners. (bad news is incremental).
(or like the EI - we might just find that there are fewer staff to disburse cheques at Christmas time)
(there are more people employed looking for cheaters of EI than there are in the EI office of disbursements)



“a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish.” Preserving those social programs will likely mean cuts elsewhere.  (Old people are a burden and a threat to his new vision of Canada.)

Slanted Media Coverage of the Keystone XL

Balance in reporting by major US outlets

The Canadian media is certainly slanted towards the pro tar sands angle.  Just today, an article quoted three MP's and Harper and not one Aboriginal voice or environmental position.  It's almost as if silence has descended on this issue.

Media continued to frame the story as a jobs issue, as a cudgel by which to punish Obama's reluctance to move forward with a nasty Republican power struggle, and as an ethical oil alternative.

Breakdown by medium and message bias

Television often played down environmental risks.  That's a surprise, given that the Concordia disaster played constantly as front page news.  Normally, disasters make good press.  I guess not oil spills.  Protesters were often seen being dragged away, or were called "actors".


Headlines are extremely important in digital culture as this determines whether we pay attention or not.  A continuation of positive headlines made the story seem to be always a "no brainer". 

Of those quoted by the major newspapers, 45% were in favor of the pipeline and 31% were opposed. The New York Times was the most balanced, quoting 35% in favor and 27% opposed. The Wall Street Journal was the least balanced, with 52% in favor and 21% opposed.

I'm sure if you used an aggregator to determine sentiment, one would find that the same lack of balance would be found in social networking sites like Twitter, Blogs and rss feeds.  So we do have the same perceptions repeated in the minds of the readers and media consumers.  Don't forget too that there is a huge media machine pushing the tar sands in the social media.

NCC is a SuperPAC

Negative ads by National Citizen's Coalition and a US SuperPAC are drawing comparisons triggered by an article in The Globe and Mail. We all know how much Harper has abused the control of free speech from environmentalists, scientists, reporters and questioners in the HOC.   Here is a very cogent argument put forward by Diane Marie in response to the article which states that third party ads must be considered free speech, else we have none.  

diane marie

12:01 PM on January 25, 2012

First of all, there are laws pertaining to election advertising at the federal level, and other laws (or maybe none) at the provincial and municipal level. Being that I don't live in Ontario, I really don't care about relevant Ontario provincial laws. I do know that here in Alberta, the Conservatives were incensed when unions took to the airwaves during the last provincial election. Fair is not fair, apparently.

There is a difference when groups such as the NCC engage in public advocacy and when they act as a Super-PAC. The NCC ads were not about public policy, they were personal attacks. Groups such as NCC are limited as to how much they can spend to intrude into an election. In parallel with the Conservatives, they've decided that we must have a perpetual campaign, so they're doing some of the Conservatives' dirty work for them.

Americans are inundated with "free speech" such that no one really knows who's behind the billions being spent to sway their opinion, and their politicians are so busy trying to stay in the money game that they don't have the time or the inclination to actually govern, a process that involves consensus-building and cooperation.

Until the Reformers arrived in town, we've enjoyed a comparatively sane amount of "free speech", but now the election-spending limits are irrelevant when the dropping of the writ is a mere formality. We're in perpetual campaign mode now and I heartily object to it for the simple reason that the aim of the "free speech" crowd is not to inform voters but to overwhelm them with paid opinion .

 A negative ad attacking Bob Rae appeared on Youtube when Canada is not in election time.  It's time to curb what are clearly unfair attack ads that unnecessarily interrupt the process of good government.  Don't we have enough partisanship and ill will already?  Ought we not to concentrate on real co-operation?  Looks like this government is offering up a toxic environment amidst the secrecy, dirty tricks, labeling with stereotypes, bad mouthing in the press that are hallmarks of bully tactics. 

Keeping Up To Date With Oil Sands Daily

Harper Threatens Forest Ethics, Employee Fired

"PMO branded environmental group an ‘enemy’ of Canada, affidavit says."  I'd call it a threat from head office which ends up losing the whistle blower's job. 

Here's the government's statement to reporters. 

“The government of Canada has used the language of anti-terrorism, language that is violent and above the law, to describe legitimate critics of unsustainable resource development,” he said in an affidavit released to reporters Tuesday.

Andrew Frank, a 30-year-old instructor in the environmental protection program at Vancouver’s Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also claims the Prime Minister’s Office wanted McMillan to revoke funding to the organization.

When Frank made the threat public, he was fired by Forest Ethics.

Full letter is on scribd here.  What will happen now is frightening to think.  Especially if people walk away from the obvious crossed line.