Anatomy of an Oil Spill

The Oil Industry works just like the aftermath of Katrina.  Once the land has been spoiled after a spill, the only gains will be to industry.

Northern Canada and the treaty lands of the Indigenous Peoples are replete with gold, minerals, copper and are being eyed by industry to encroach upon the territories.  So far, the native peoples have stood strong against pollution to their lands.  But slowly, as with the Athabasca tar sands, the rivers are becoming worse.  Eventually, no one will want to live there, just as in New Orleans.  This video shows the slow creep of oil in the Gulf.



Is this what you want for Lake Louise?  The MacKenzie river? 

Alberta Isn't Getting the Profits of the Oil Either

Read the book by  Kevin Taft Follow the Money  for a complete analysis of how our resources, our crown land, is being appropriated for foreign profits.  Each Albertan owns 5Million in oil wealth, yet they must put up with potholes on the roads, long waiting times in emergency, teachers losing jobs.  It's the old capitalist shell game, enabled by bad political deals intent on keeping Canadians suppressed and impoverished while closed doors meetings decide how to further enslave us.

New Federalism, Harper Style, Deadbeat Dad

The Agenda, with Steve Pakin, always seems to be hitting hot points in the Canadian political scene as they happen.  I don't know how Pakin manages to reserve his judgement so impartially.  Thank goodness he's no Ezra Levant!  Here's a very even handed debate on the dumping of the shortage of money for health care upon the provinces.  It was a dirty Harper trick, that the media framed as balsy.  Oh, puhleeeeze!  As a result, I will have to be paying for orthoscopic surgery, my doctor will be working for less, people will die in remote areas because of lack of air ambulances.  But we'll be distracted daily by some rubbish about how much weight Rob Ford lost!  Harper took the puck home and the rest of the street has to play with horse turds.

Harper Hates to Back Canadian Workers Fighting for Fairness

Caterpillar, an American company that was lured to London, Ontario with 5 million in incentive dollars has locked out Canadian workers on New Years Day 2012.

Harper refuses to get his hands dirty in this case, even though he was happy to get the press credit and photo op when the company arrived on the scene.

How unlike the very swift defense of the Keystone Pipeline, the many trips as ambassador to big oil and the monied interests that hold much more allure to an ego driven leader.  Harper will avoid a bad press opportunity at all costs.

Bob Rae, is doing a great job at protecting the backs of Canadian workers.

This story needs much more coverage from the point of view of how Canadian jobs are at risk, unionized or not with the tory policies of foreign investments capitalizing on our weak willed and unethical government.

“So far this year we have two private sector employers (one in Quebec and one in Ontario) who have opted to lock out their employees, yet your government has been silent on these disputes.”
Aluminum giant Rio Tinto Alcan locked out 800 workers at its smelter in Alma, Que., this week after contract talks collapsed. (Globe and Mail)

Outsourcing Ad Jobs To Avoid Responsible Accountability

Here are my notes for followup and research.  Soon to come are who to contact with a complaint.

ShakeTheTree

10:27 PM on January 19, 2012

What a laugh.

With this type of Harper Government logic, we can see how they will shrink the size of Canada's Federal Government. Get rid of everything except the Ministry of Finance and the PMO. Take all the revenue and give it to for profit companies to run our country.

There, reduced government to almost nothing.

Have these clowns ever looked into the business of advertisement? Do they truly think that it is an industry that doesn't charge huge sums of money or thrive on hidden perks? Do they honestly believe that it is an industry that promotes honest and reliable content?

Nick the Centrist

10:45 PM on January 19, 2012

If the EAP program has concluded, why are we still seeing ads on TV and in print?

If Murcdoch can go down, so can Harper.

Stealthiest

8:26 PM on January 19, 2012

Or as Doug Ford so eloquently put it...

"Gravy train! Gravy train!"

No doubt Paul Rhodes will be high on the list as recipient of taxpayers largesse

Loon-A-Tick

9:05 PM on January 19, 2012

If the Harper Government is going to start hiring their Marketing as outsource, at least fire all the communications people (Torie Animators) who you hired into the Civil Service over the last 5 years.

JohnBook

9:39 PM on January 19, 2012

Government ads and websites feature heavy splashes of blue – the colour of the Conservative Party – and press releases promote the accomplishments of the “Harper government.” At times, these changes have riled the bureaucracy.

That's the job of the civil servants. They are paid by the people of Canada, through the House of Commons, and not by the Executive Council.

When the executive Council steps outside their authorities they are to inform and caution and to be available to inform the House of Commons.

No PR firm dependent on their employment to the Prime Minister and his Cabinet has no such restraints and would see the House of Commons no different than someone to be convinced by spin.

We have seen how Harper "informs" the public now, imagine what he could do if he could lock the Professional Civil Service out of policy formation.

Harperland!!

CIDA Used for Whitewashing Mining Interests in Foreign Aid

MONEY IN MINING

WUSC-Rio Tinto Alcan project
Total budget: $928,000 over 3 years
CIDA: $500,000
WUSC/Rio Tinto Alcan: $428,000
Rio Tinto net profit in 2010: $726,000,000

Plan Canada-IAMGOLD project
Total budget: $7.6 million over 5.5 years
CIDA: $5.7 million
Plan Canada: $0.9 million
IAMGOLD: $1 million
IAMGOLD gross profit in 2010: $597,000,000

World Vision-Barrick Gold project
Total budget: $1 million over 3.5 years
CIDA: $500,000
World Vision/Barrick Gold: $500,000
Barrick Gold net profit in 2010: $3,279,000,000
Source: Canadian International Development Agency, Sedar.com

 selective aid sent to developing countries which has been shown to serve two purposes.  Both to greenwash, that is to give environmental rehabilitation projects and to give cash greenbacks which serve Canadian mining companies highly invested in those countries.
Canadian International Development Agency has less money to spread around now that we are in recessionary times.  Nevertheless, we cannot abdicate our humanitarian aid.  To this end, the Conservative government has pledged "more transparency, timeliness and predictability" in the expenditures.

 University of Ottawa professor and CIDA critic Stephen Brown terms a blatant effort to "whitewash the negative effects of their resource extraction."

Oda announced four CIDA projects - totalling $26.7 million - in September that will "help developing countries in Africa and South America manage their natural resources to ensure they are the source of long-term sustainable benefits to their people."

Perhaps. But these projects also help highly profitable Canadian mining companies. CIDA will provide money to help Canadian companies Rio Tinto Alcan, Barrick Gold and Iamgold create corporate social responsibility projects with aid agencies near mining projects.

More criticism of a similar nature is found here:

“CIDA has always worked government-to-government,” said Coumans. “Now what CIDA is doing is channeling Canadian taxpayer money directly to the mine site and basically paying for (CSR) corporate social responsibility projects, and that is very bizarre.”

“The Canadian government is using aid to support the expansion of Canadian mining...[and] to determine development paths inside countries according to the logic of mining companies,” Yao Graham of Third World Network Africa, a research and advocacy organization based in Ghana, told The Dominion. Graham has seen many communities in Africa ravaged by the exploitative labour practices and lax environmental practices that often accompany mining megaprojects.

Companies Involved:

Plan Canada Plan Canada will receive $5.7 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to fund activities relating to IAMGOLD’s mining activities in 13 communities in Burkina Faso. 

 Other extracting operations.   The Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability documented how government initiatives in Colombia and Tanzania have translated into weaker environmental and social safeguards, reduced royalties for the host countries and new tax holidays.

Last May, IAMGOLD had to close down operations at its Essakane mine in Burkina Faso due to labour unrest.  See here:  Pambazuka News -Pan African Voices for Freedom and Justice

The projects include one run by Plan Canada in partnership with Iamgold to provide training in Burkina Faso and another by the World University Service of Canada to provide training in Ghana, in partnership with Rio Tinto Alcan.

CIDA has set aside nearly half a million dollars for a third project - in which World Vision Canada will work with Barrick Gold in Peru to "increase the income and standard of living of 1,000 families affected by mining operations." Barrick Gold says it also contributed $500,000 to the project.

Brown calls it "scandalous" that some of the most profitable companies in Canada are, in effect, supported by foreign aid dollars to set up programs that compensate for the negative effects of mining.

In a time of shrinking foreign aid dollars, taxpayers should not be on the hook for corporate social responsibility projects. The programs might be welcome and worthwhile, but they should be paid for by the companies that are reaping the profits and getting much of the credit. CIDA's involvement in the partnerships potentially tars all Canadians, by default, for any bad corporate behaviour, or environmental damage, that results from those mining operations.

  Last year the Canadian mining sector led a successful lobby effort to defeat Bill C-300, the Bill that would have seen the introduction of minor controls on the unregulated overseas activities of Canada’s mining industry.

See how Mining Weekly manages to astroturf the bill.

"Canada's competitors would have used the passage of Bill C-300 as a tool to undermine the competitiveness of Canadian firms in the highly competitive global extraction industry. Frivolous or vexatious claims (like dangerous working conditions, pollution, unethical practices) would have been filed against Canadian firms by competitive interests at no cost or risk to themselves (except that the countries are poor and jobs are scarce and therefore necessary to feed their families), tying up important projects and putting well paying local jobs (that's why they are having strikes) and community development projects (paid for and subsidized by Canadian tax payers under CIDA)in developing countries at risk."

GM Agri-Business and Food Safety

Monsanto GM Foods are bad for the earth and humans

Monsanto threatens the food security of developed and developing countries and doesn't play fair with its incursions into the marketplace.


GM foods are marketed as the means to productivity in low yielding regions and as a solution to global food shortages due to higher yielding capacities.

Factor in the fact that farmers become dependent on purchasing new seeds each year, are hugely invested in fertilizers and pesticides to control the growth and that monoculture dominates the landscape instead of using natural farming practices - the result is costly and burdensome instead of productive.

This economic model profits only agribusiness and uses none of the age old techniques of scale, natural regeneration, leaving the land fallow for a season, using cattle as a fertilizer source, aiding small scale farmers to subsist on the land.

A favorite winter excursion used to be to pick up a huge sack of potatoes from a Hillsburgh farmer, just north of highway 7 in Halton Hills.  They were white potatoes that made fine greasy potato pancakes or latkes.  Filling and flavorful for the cold winter days.

Check your local supermarket when buying potatoes and notice the origin and kinds.  So much is from the States, especially in the low end stores like Food Basics.  Support your local farmers.

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