Not Much To Add

...as the stealth program to convert Canada into a banana republic continues apace. Our military command structure is now completely subsumed in the American one and the "War On Terror "continues to target North American citizens who speak about about the direction our lords and masters are taking us.
From The Tyee:

A top lawyer at the world's largest civil liberties organization warns that Canada's increasing participation in the so-called "War on Terror" has jeopardized democracy.
The unchecked political influence of "deep state" spy agencies -- whether the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or our own Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) -- is threatening citizens' ability to hold the state accountable, says Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
"The larger idea that we are engaged in a global war against terrorism (is) a very dangerous idea," Jaffer told the Tyee, where he addressed a BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) event on Monday. "It's a dangerous proposition that we are involved in this war that has no temporal boundary, no geographic boundary, and is against an enemy that is really difficult to identify.
"(It's) drastic and radical: it's to propose that we're in a forever war and in an everywhere war... In Canada, the Charter is a very useful tool for litigators and public interest advocates to use in articulating arguments against these kinds of counter-terrorism policies that are inconsistent with democratic values."

Liars, Damned Liars and the Conservative Party

    The Toronto Star /  Canadian Press Service are reporting that despite repeated claims that the Canadian government would address global warming and GHG emissions in step with the United States, Environment Minister John Baird has stated that this will not happen.
    With the failure to institute cap and trade in the US, the Obama administration has announced a "Plan B," passed by executive order, that strengthens the EPA regulation over greenhouse gasses. To quote the article:

    The first step tightens rules for existing facilities planning any expansion that would increase emissions. Then, starting in July, the rules will be extended to include newly constructed facilities.
    The EPA says its regulations target operations that produce nearly 70 per cent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources.
    The agency estimates the more stringent rules will require first-time permits for about 550 sources between 2011 and 2013. It also expects an additional 900 permits for new and modified projects each year.

    Although the EPA regulations are national, Texas has announced that the state will refuse to meet the federal guidelines. Baird offers the excuse that because of this refusal, this makes the US regulations "not national."
    Frankly, this position is absurd. It is the equivalent to suggesting that because Alberta has argued with, and been in contravention of, aspects of our national healthcare program, that this invalidates Medicare. It was not true in the case of Medicare, and it certainly isn't true in the case of the new EPA regulations.
    The Conservative Party has been relying on the American Republicans tactics of lies, denial, and fear to keep any meaningful change in American policy on GHGs from being enacted. With the strengthening of EPA regulation by the White House, this claim that "when the Americans do something, we'll do something" has been rendered moot. The Americans have done something-- and, importantly, something that could make a difference here in Canada. They have targeted GHG emissions from stationary sources. In Canada, that means only one thing; the Alberta tar sands projects.
    If the Conservatives were to actually harmonize Canadian environmental regulation with the US, this would force greater efficiencies on the tar sands projects, possibly restricting their (currently a cancer-like unrestrained) growth. It would do nothing to address the appalling waste handling in the tar sands, nor would it do anything to deal with tailpipe emissions (a 1970s problem addressed by a Conservative proposal to harmonize Canadian regulation with American earlier this year).
    The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper has made it abundantly clear that they will not, under any circumstances, do anything that might slow the exploitation of the tar sands, or that would impose any kind of regulation on them. This does, from their point of view, make sense; any regulation of the tar sands would raise, in Alberta, the spectre of the hated National Energy Program. Which, of course, would mean political suicide for the Tories in Oilberta. The Tories have recognized that opposing corporate interests, particularly in the oil patch, particularly in Alberta, is a non-starter. This despite the fact that most Albertans couldn't have told you what the NEP was about in the '70s, never mind now.
    In our current irony-impaired environment, Baird made his comments while preparing to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference that begins this week in Cancun, Mexico.

Sean Bruyea

So Sean Bruyea is an Canadian retired intelligence officer and (currently)an advocate for soldiers rights. When he was testifying against the new Veterans Charter about five years back, he ran into problems getting treatment for his PTSD.
Over on Sympatico, there's an article about his appearance on Question Period this week. Last Thursday, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart acknowledged that his files were indeed accessed and shared among Department of Veteran's Affairs staffers.From the article:
Stoddart's year-long investigation stemmed from a complaint made by Bruyea that his personal and medical information was contained in briefing notes prepared for then-veterans affairs minister Greg Thompson in 2006. The notes covered Bruyea's participation in a press conference in which he was critical of the department.
"What we found in this case was alarming," Stoddart said Thursday in a news release.
"The veteran's sensitive medical and personal information was shared -- seemingly with no controls -- among departmental officials who had no legitimate need to see it. This personal information subsequently made its way into a ministerial briefing note about the veteran's advocacy activities. This was entirely inappropriate."
So Bruyea is understandably upset. Then he saw a memo in which " in which a department official suggested bureaucrats get tough on him for his criticism."
"When I received that memo I was stunned that I suddenly became subversive, I became a dissident, I became an enemy of the state for the very department that I was trying to help so that it can improve the treatment of veterans," Bruyea said. "I didn't get that. For me, it was mind-boggling."

So let me state for the record that what happened to Sean Bruyea was unconscionable. It was wrong. Both the current and previous governments deserve to be slapped around for their actions and Mr. Bruyea deserves apologies, compensation, whatever.
But, to be foul-mouthed and crude about it, exactly what part of this is fucking surprising? Has he been living with his head up his ass for his entire life? Has he never read a book? A newspaper? Watched a news program? Of fucking course he became subversive, a dissident, an enemy of the state. Did he not hear of Nixon keeping an enemies list? Or watch the actions of the Canadian government over the last fifty years?
I just want to slap this guy upside the head (not that I would, but the feeling is there). He was a part of the apparatus that maintains state power. The left has been yelling about this for decades. Hell, they even get it when the right complains about the same thing.
It's this fucking blindness to anyone who isn't us that drives me insane. CSIS recruits spies to infiltrate the union movement in Canada, who cares? That's them unionists. They're all probably commies anyway. That's YOU you fucking eejit! How fucking hard is it to understand that if one of us is a slave, NONE of us is free. Maybe it''s just because I would walk away from Omelas, but this shouldn't be that hard to get.
Every time a Communist, a gay man, an accused serial killer, is treated with fairness, justice, compassion, THAT'S YOU. This veneer of rights and democracy is thin enough. We have to do what we can to strengthen it, because when we do, it keeps us a little safer. It's not that fucking hard to understand.

Having a Nice Day? I Can Fix That.

In this version of the Christian Gospel, the exploitation and abuse of other human beings is a good. Homosexuality is an evil. And this global, heartless system of economic rationalism has morphed in the rhetoric of the Christian Right into a test of faith. The ideology it espouses is a radical evil, an ideology of death. It calls for wanton destruction, destruction of human beings, of the environment, of communities and neighborhoods, of labor unions, of a free press, of Iraqis, Palestinians or others in the Middle East who would deny us oil fields and hegemony, of federal regulatory agencies, social welfare programs, public education--in short, the destruction of all people and programs that stand in the way of a Christian America and its God-given right to dominate the rest of the planet. The movement offers, in return, the absurd but seductive promise that those who are right with God will rise to become spiritual and material oligarchs.  They will become the new class.Those who are not right with God, be they poor or Muslim or unsaved, deserve what they get. In the rational world none of this makes sense. But believers have been removed from a reality-based world. They believe that through Jesus all is possible.  It has become a Christian duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a Christian America where freedom means the freedom of the powerful to dominate the weak. Since believers see themselves as becoming empowered through faith, the gross injustices and repression that could well boomerang back on most of them are of little concern. They assuage their consciences with the small acts of charity they or their churches dole out to the homeless or the mission fields. The emotion-filled religious spectacles and spiritual bromides compensate for the emptiness of their lives. They are energized by hate campaigns against gays or Muslims or liberals or immigrants. They walk willingly into a totalitarian prison they are helping to construct. They yearn for it. They work for it with passion, self-sacrifice and a blinding self-righteousness. "Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty," Simone Weil wrote in Gravity and Grace. And it is the duty of the Christian foot soldiers to bring about the Christian utopia. When it is finished, when all have been stripped of legal and social protection, it will be too late to resist. This is the genius of totalitarian movements. They convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration. 

Hedges, Chris  American fascists : the Christian Right and the war on America  New York : Free Press, ©2006

If you haven't read this book yet, you really should. No, really. the Christian Right from the inside.

The Truth Doesn't Always Show Up

I recently read Harvey Cashore's book The Truth Shows Up, and was fascinated by the amount of attention he'd given the story of Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney. So when I came across the Executive Summary of the Oliphant Report (the handier version of Commission of Inquiry into Certain Allegations Respecting Business and Financial Dealings Between Karlheinz Schreiber and the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney: Report Volume 1: Executive Summary (opens a pdf of the executive summary)) I had a little bit of background to make some sense of the book.
    Back in the day, Airbus Industries was desperately trying to break into national markets held almost exclusively by Boeing Aerospace, and one of those markets was Canada. Specifically, Airbus wanted a chance to provide AC with the new aircraft it required. This would give them some legitimacy in the North American marketplace. In order to get to Air Canada, Airbus first cut a deal with Max Ward's Ward-Air. Max Ward wouldn't have purchased the aircraft on offer from Airbus, but for a sweetheart of a deal they offered him, making it impossible to turn down. This led to Airbus being able to approach Air Canada and pursue a deal. Air Canada ended up buying from Airbus a number of unsuitable aircraft, which were eventually sold to the Canadian military who neither needed nor wanted them, but the deal allowed AC to get out with a minimum of financial loss. But the poor old Canadian taxpayer ended up being stuck with the bill, as usual. And Airbus, having broken into the market, has since gone on to great success.
    In order to cut the deal, Airbus relied on Karlheinz Schreiber, who developed significant relations with members of the Conservative Party establishment in Alberta and, ultimately, across Canada. Schreiber dispensed large amounts of cash to various and sundry war-chests (both to individuals and to the parties) in order to curry influence and favour. And it worked. Eventually he became tight with the lawyer from Baie-Comeau; Brian Mulroney.
    During Brian's rise to power, it was reported by various sources that his win against Joe Clark at the PC leadership convention in 1983 had been managed by flying and/or busing in large numbers of "instant delegates"; people who had never been members of the Progressive Conservatives, but had their memberships paid for just in time for them to vote at the convention. Karlheinz Schreiber has since claimed  that it was his $50,000 contribution that paid for those" instant delegates" and their transportation to Winnipeg. Whether this happened or not has never really been investigated (Clark actually came out against anyone following up on these reports, feeling, I would suppose, that confirming the rumours would tar the Progressive Conservative Party as a very sleazy operation). Oliphant, in the Report, actually addresses this story, remarking that he was "struck by [Schreiber's] proclivity for exaggeration as he described the nature of his relationships with people, particularly those in positions of influence and power. Furthermore, with respect to Mr Schreiber's testimony regarding the leadership review, there is no evidence on which I was able to rely to support this testimony. Because his evidence is self-contradictory, I found Mr. Schreiber's evidence respecting the leadership review to be unreliable." (page 8, Report). Mr. Cashore, in The Truth Shows Up, suggests that there might be a bit more to this story, and at the very least it should be pursued. After all, the suggestion that a foreign national (as Mr. Schreiber was) may have influenced the outcome of the Canadian political process might be something to look into. But I do understand the reluctance of the Canadian political establishment to pursue the issue, as it might actually expose the tremendous influence wielded by the US political right since, well, forever, but particularly the last thirty or so years. In particular, the seed capital for the Alberta (later Western) Report and the impetus behind the birth of the Reform Party.
    But even more interesting is Oliphant's commentary on the source of the $1000 bills Schreiber passed to Brian Mulroney on three separate occasions.
    The issue of where the money came from is important. Airbus has acknowledged that they did use schmiergeld (slush or bribe monies) when dealing with foreign governments around the time of the sale of aircraft to Air Canada. There still remain questions around the AC sale--was anyone paid off, if so, how much, and who received the schmiergeld. This is the question that has been haunting Brian Mulroney since his time in office. Did a sitting Prime Minister take a bribe from a sleazy representative of a foreign firm--something we might expect from a banana republic, but surely not in a nice developed-world liberal democracy like our own.
    Both Mulroney and Schreiber agree that yes, Brian was paid significant cash money to do something. But they don't agree on how much or just what services were rendered for the money. Both agree that Brian was doing work hyping the "Bear Head" project for Thyssen (a German arms manufacturer looking to establish a manufacturing facility in Canada in order to be able to export weapons to countries off-limits to German based companies). But it is clear in the Oliphant Report that Brian did nothing on the Bear Head file to earn somewhere between $225,000 and $300,000.
    Oliphant's Report agrees that Mulroney was paid out of an account coded "Britan," but is very clear that it is impossible for this account to have funds from Thyssen in it. Rather, the Report concludes that the "funds that made up the Britan account can be traced back to commission payments made to IAL by Airbus Industries in connection with sales of aircraft to Air Canada." (page 23, Report) Harvey Cashore's book on the topic delves a lot deeper into the question of Schreiber's accounts and the source of the funds in them--and where those funds eventually went. Such as how much went to Frank Moores and Mulroney confidant Fred Doucet as well as to Brian.
    But Oliphant could not pursue the question of Airbus during the Inquiry. The mandate of the Inquiry made it clear that Airbus was off the table, so seeing Brian paid out of the "Britan" account, and clear evidence from the forensic accountants that the money in the "Britan" account came from Airbus made no never mind. Oliphant couldn't pursue the question.
    But what does it matter anyway? In Germany, very connected and powerful people have ended up in jail over Airbus' actions. In Canada, a former Prime Minister has had his reputation tarnished (and honestly, could it be any blacker than it already was?). And as far as the public is concerned, the story is about over. We paid Lyin' Brian just over two million dollars for damage done to his reputation--even though he's admitted that he did take money from Schreiber after all. Questions of undue influence in Canadian politics by foreign nationals have been tabled. And whether government officials were bribed or not are to be ignored. the status quo, after all, is sacrosanct in Canada.

Commission of Inquiry into Certain Allegations Respecting Business and Financial Dealings Between Karlheinz Schreiber and the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney: Report Volume 1: Executive Summary
The Honourable Jeffery J. Oliphant: © Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada 2010

The truth shows up : a reporter's fifteen-year odyssey on the trail of Brian Mulroney and Karlheinz Schreiber
Harvey Cashore Toronto : Key Porter Books, ©2010.

Post-Copenhagen

So what did Canada get from our little trip to Copenhagen? Well, our PM made it clear that when it comes to photo opportunities, he's your guy--witness all the shots with various heads of state on his carbon-intensive journey pre-Copenhagen. But when it comes to facing up to the results of his beliefs and actions, he's really not so ready to get in front of a camera (well, to be fair, with the exception of his trip to China where only the sight of him crawling would really satisfy the Chinese leadership. But I think back to a year ago when Harper wouldn't face parliament after a major miscalculation either. Not really good at owning up to mistakes, our PM.). So poor old Jim Prentiss was trotted out to deliver 9 paragraphs of irrelevancy.
But Canada did get what our government wanted; nothing really changed. A vague commitment to reduce our emissions by 20% from 2006 levels (non-binding and unenforceable) and a promise to contribute to an international fund (dollars that are likely to come out of our current Foreign Affairs budget anyway).
But in terms of real change? Well, all we're going to get is more of the same. Enbridge is trying to build a pipeline across northern BC to haul bitumen (our vaunted "heavy oil") from Fort MacMurray to a tanker terminal at Prince Rupert. The Dogwood Initiative is working hard to keep that from happening, and is experiencing some success. But the extraction at the oil sands is still set to expand without any controls or limitations.
Which is one of the reasons Harper was willing to eat shit in China; China doesn't care what people do in their own country, as long as they fulfil their contractual obligations. So war criminal, genocidal lunatic, or environmental criminal, none of it matters as long as the resources keep flowing. And the US has pointed out that it does have some reservations about Alberta's bitumen extraction process. Several states are now refusing to accept oil from the tar sands, and President Obama announced on his arrival in Copenhagen that the EPA was going to be able to regulate CO² emissions. So Canada is facing growing restrictions on its ability to export dirty oil to the US.
As an aside, the move to declare CO² a pollutant and regulate it through the EPA is an important step for the US. Recent studies have indicated that the introduction of pollution controls in the US in the 1970s was important to the US remaining an economic powerhouse through the rest of the century. By forcing industries to clean up their act, the US government forced production efficiencies on those industries, making them much more competitive. This despite the extra imposed costs. It seems obvious that the same reasoning and results would apply to restrictions on CO².
So our PM, having no intention of imposing restrictions of any type on Alberta's bitumen production (he is, after all, the son of an oil executive, and beholding to oil companies), has realized that its necessary to find new markets that will not put restrictions on methods of production. Enter China.
China indicated at Copenhagen that while they are willing to agree to CO² reductions, they really have no interest in international verification procedures. Regretfully, NASA failed the launch of a satellite capable of doing that monitoring; currently the satellite rests on the bottom of the ocean near the Antarctic ice shelf. So until the US comes up with another 230 million dollars, international monitoring of CO² emissions is nothing but a dream.
But despite their dislike of international monitoring, China bids fair to become the renewable/green energy powerhouse of the 21st century. With the ability to totally ignore local opposition, China has begun building large wind and solar installations to supplement their coal and oil power producing infrastructure. In Canada, we've lost that opportunity with the Harper government's decision to spend infrastructure funds on partisan projects. Instead of taking the opportunity to help Canada into the 21st century, Harper decided instead to continue to believe that its the 1950s, and spend on old school projects. And unless there's someone presenting an oversized Conservative-logo'd novelty cheque, good luck on finding out where our billions of dollars are being spent. The Bush regime perfected the art of spending the country into impotence as a technique of hobbling future governments. Harper does it by cutting taxes (yes, we've gone from an inherited 13 billion surplus back to deficit spending--mostly down to Harper's cutting of the GST and other taxes)(as an aside, I'm actually in favour of taxes like the GST/HST; being strictly consumption-based and applying across the board, they tend to act to discourage spending and encourage saving).
So post-Copenhagen, we're really no further along to where we need to be. No international binding agreement on CO² reduction. The sea levels continue to rise, the poles continue to melt, the death of billions over the next 50-100 years still looms, and future of human life on Earth still hangs in the balance.

Canada and the World

Even 20 months ago, no one knew what 350 meant, nor why it mattered. That's less than 2 years back. Then 10,000 year old ice sheets disappeared in the Arctic, Stephen Harper got a north of 60 hard-on, the IPCC released a report based on data that was already out of date (some of it a decade out of date), and a book detailing how James Hansen's work was censored came out. We shook our collective head, and some of us began to realize that we had entered what James Kunstler has called The Long Emergency.
It didn't take long to realize that 350 was the upper limit of atmospheric CO2 that could be considered "safe" (meaning that we might be able to keep global warming to 2°C and we might be able to live with the consequences of that rise), and here we are today looking at 390 ppm of carbon dioxide, no significant efforts being made to reduce carbon emissions, and a future that's looking at a minimum of 4°C warming and 6 metres of sea level rise--meanwhile emissions continue to increase and atmospheric CO2 rises at about 2ppm/year.
Here in Canada, we've got a Conservative government that is lead by a Prime Minister who still yet to convince anyone that he actually believes global warming may be a problem. Stephen "American Corporate Lackey" Harper is busy fiddling while the globe--including the nation of which he is nominally a member--burns. All our divorced-from-reality leader can see is the NorthWest Passage opening up and all that lovely ocean open to commercial exploitation.
Last week, the British Meteorological Office released a map of what we can expect to happen when we hit 4°C. The equatorial countries will get hotter, true, but the further you get from the equator, the more extreme the changes. But even now, Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants special treatment for Canada, allowing us--well, really just Alberta and the oil sands--to continue increasing our GHG emissions, while insisting that developing nations like China and India agree to hard caps that we ourselves will not accept. And the Canadian Government still refuses to release specifics of its plan to reduce our GHG emissions by 20% from our 2006 levels--which is light-years from our commitment under Kyoto.
Today comes the release of a new report. Quite unlike anything released in Canada before, it was financed by the Toronto Dominion Bank, produced by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, with economic modeling by the well-respected economic consultants, M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. As John Ibbitson writes in the Globe and Mail; "A major bank has paid two environmental organizations to produce a groundbreaking report that, for the first time, calculates the costs of both the Harper government's modest plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and the much more ambitious targets set by the environmental community, nationally and regionally."
The report offers a regional breakdown of economic impacts based on both the Harper government's vague commitment to 20% by 2020 (from 2006 levels) and  the impact from the deeper and harder cuts that environmentalists are calling for and that would put Canada in line with our international obligations. And guess what? Neither scenario would kill us!
According to the report,"The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan." Alberta's growth would be 8.5% less in 2020 than it would be under a BAU (Business As Usual) approach, the report concludes. Under the  same scenario, Saskatchewan would lose 2.8% of its projected growth. Central Canada, on the other hand, might well see some additional growth added to its projection. To quote Shawn McCarthy's article in the G&M; "Despite the steep costs involved in meeting targets, the analysis concludes the Canadian economy would continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace, and that investment in renewable energy and efficiency measures would result in an overall increase in employment compared to a “business-as-usual” scenario.
And even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years."
So our economy would continue to grow AND there would probably be an increase in employment as well. And the cost? A reduction in projected growth an Alberta and Saskatchewan, and a significant out-migration from both provinces back to central Canada.
To further quote Shawn McCarthy's article: "TD's chief economist, Don Drummond, said the bank has not endorsed any targets, though it has supported a policy of a national emissions cap. He said the bank's interest was to shed light on an area where there has been little informed debate: the likely cost of imposing regulations."
I'm actually not seeing any real downside here. The Globe and Mail editorial board does though. In today's editorial, we read: "[T]he study acknowledges that what is proposed is no less than an economic upheaval: “There is a migration of capital and labour out of carbon and trade exposed sectors (e.g., fossil fuels) to sectors that are less carbon and trade exposed (e.g., manufacturing, services and renewable electricity).”
Canada cannot take its national unity for granted and must not, in the service of international obligations, allow itself to be immolated by a government policy of such wrenching dislocation." And the editorial concludes: "[T]he target [of carbon dioxide emission reduction] may be unreachable without unacceptable damage to Canada's economy and national unity. In which case, it is time for new targets, and new policies."
I can't help but think that no-one raised much of a stink about the "wrenching dislocation" caused by the development of the oil sands on the communities of Atlantic Canada. And even Jeffrey Simpson concludes that the Harper government's targets are just so much smoke being blown up our collective asses.
And so we have serious economic modelling of the potential and problems with trying to meet our international obligations regarding global warming and CO2 emissions. And we can now point to the report and say, "Tough, yes. But it won't kill us, and will probably make us stronger." And what of the complaints sure to come from the political and ruling classes of Alberta and Saskatchewan? Well, both provinces have had a great decade, with both provinces posting significant surpluses in their budgets, and neither has done a damn thing to prepare for the inevitable crash (particularly Alberta under Ralph Klein). For Alberta, that's two oil-based booms they've pissed away under Conservative governments. So honestly, I have no great sympathy for the Alberta government. And regardless of any future whining, we can look at the economic model contained in the M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. report, and read again the conclusion that "even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years." And the planet (well, the human part of it) would thank us for facing up to our responsibilities.

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Copenhagen, Canada, and the End of the World

The Globe and Mail is reporting on an interview with Environment Minister Jim Prentice, saying that the chance of an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen is pretty much non-existent.
The world wants a climate change agreement in Copenhagen. The US is even onside, with President Obama actually understanding both the science and political realities of global warming. The EU wants an agreement, with Germany busy poaching Canadian alternative energy companies and the Brits launching the 10-10 campaign. China is even pursuing lower carbon emissions. So what's the problem?
The problem is the Canadian government. Canada has become the biggest roadblock to an international agreement to lower carbon emissions. According the the G&M article (23 October 2009, p A1 Ottawa dashes hope for treaty in Copenhagen) Canada is continuing to "insist that it should have a less aggressive target for emission reductions[...] because of its faster-growing population and energy-intensive industrial structure". The Harper government is also going to insist that any cap on industrial emissions will not be applied uniformly across the country, but will allow the Alberta oil sands to continue expanding. To quote the Environment Minister; "The Canadian approach has to reflect the diversity of the country and the sheer size of the country, and the very different economic characteristics and industrial structure across the country." The Harper government has also demanded that emerging economies (like China and India) agree to binding caps on carbon emissions, and has refused to release its own plan for carbon reduction until there is clarity on what the Americans are planning to do.
The New Democratic Party has a bill currently in committee that would commit Canada to an emission reduction of 25% from 1990 levels by 2020--a target that would meet our commitment under Kyoto and would be consistent with the EU's approach in the next round of negotiations. Ottawa has proposed a reduction of 20% from 2006 levels of emissions by 2020--our obligation under Kyoto was a cut of 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. The plan proposed by the Harper government would result in a 3% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. Chief climate negotiator Michael Martin said to the committee considering the NDP bill that the Harper government's targets are "comparable" because they will be just as costly to achieve as the more aggressive NDP targets.
What becomes clear, as we follow the progress towards significant carbon emission reductions, is that the Harper government has no intention of ever reducing carbon emissions. Harper simply does not consider carbon emissions to be a problem (how can I say that? By simply looking at his record).
And our Prime Minister is dragging a lot of sceptics along with him. World-wide, temperatures maxed out in 1998, leading deniers to claim that temperatures have levelled off or are even declining. But new research to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The research, "is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO₂ and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.

The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind's paper suggests." (The Guardian Online).

The British Meteorological Office released a new map of the world (below) showing the current thinking on what the world will look like with a 4°C rise in the average global temperature. The 4°C rise mostly happens at the equator--the further you move away from the equator, the greater the changes. Here on Vancouver Island, we may only see an average 5°C rise, but up in Hudson's Bay, its looking more like 16°C. What this doesn't indicate is just how this will affect global weather patterns. If it was just going to get warmer, that wouldn't be the end of the world.But all that extra energy is going to change things in ways we can't imagine yet, much less model.

The Met Office says that climate researchers have discovered that:

• levels of CO2 have risen 40% since the Industrial Revolution
• Global sea levels have risen 10cm in the last 50 years [and that's a hell of a lot of water]
• temperatures in the Arctic have risen at twice the global average [which suits our Prime Minister just fine]
• snow cover in the northern hemisphere has dropped 5% in the last 2 decades

And researchers figure that extreme temperatures will affect eastern North America, with Toronto and Ottawa seeing the temperatures of their hottest days jumping by up to 10°C to 12°C. Anyone having suffered through a GTA summer will be white with fear about now....

Ah, I Can Feel It Working

From over at IPS:
In recent weeks, Greenpeace has staged three daring protests inside tar sands mines, temporarily shutting down parts of the world's largest energy project. On Oct. 3 and 4, activists blocked construction of an upgrader needed to refine heavy tar sands oil, belonging to Shell in Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta.
Civil disobedience from Greenpeace, leading to 37 arrests, has enraged Alberta's conservative government. "We're coddling people who are breaking the law," complained Premier Ed Stelmach during a media scrum in early October.
"Premier Stelmach's public suggestion that he will use the 'force of the law to deal with these people' confirms his lack of knowledge of the limits of his authority and the clear rule that our system of justice cannot be interfered with or manipulated for political reasons," responded Brian Beresh, the defence lawyer representing arrested activists, at a news conference in Edmonton.

This is one of the uses of civil disobedience--like one of the uses of terrorism--to provoke those in power into over-reacting and doing something stupid that makes the instigator's point for them. Like the US after 9-11 made Al Qaeda's point that they were an imperial power by invading Iraq, the Alberta government is going to make Greenpeace's point for them. They are actually threatening to use anti-terrorism legislation to shut down civil disobedience at the tar sands.
"Canada's tar sands will singlehandedly produce more greenhouse gas emissions than Denmark, Ireland, Austria or Portugal by 2020 if the development continues expanding at its current rate, according to a recent report written by award-winning business reporter Andrew Nikiforuk. The tar sands already spew more greenhouse gas emissions than Estonia or Lithuania", the article continues.
It's not like Greenpeace stands alone on this; the head of the IPCC has also said that the tar sands should be shut down.
Keep in mind that this Saturday--October 24th--is 350 day, the international day of climate action. The 350 refers to the accepted maximum concentration of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere--the number we've blown past already. Last I checked, we were at 385. Write an MP, get out and be counted, ride a bike, whatever. Check the website for ideas. In Victoria, there will be a day of activities at Centennial Square on Saturday.

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Mad, And With Good Reason

Stephen Maher is mad as hell. Out in Nova Scotia, he writes in the Chronicle Herald:

In order to create a database of federal stimulus spending in Nova Scotia, it was necessary to look at all kinds of different federal websites, all with scraps of information, and then find out from other levels of government how much money was spent on each project and figure out where the shovels were hitting the ground.

In the United States, on the recovery.gov website, you can, in seconds, download exhaustively detailed databases showing where and how stimulus is being spent, who is getting the contracts, for how much, when, and how many jobs are created.
In Canada, on the actionplan.gc.ca site, there’s a map with icons showing where projects are located, but if you click on the icons, you get a popup with a charming picture of what’s his name, our prime minister, but no dollar amount.
There is a link to a video of the same guy singing a Beatles song, but there’s no database of projects available for download.

Not just one guy's experience, this is being noted by journalists across the country. The Harper government has no intention of telling the people anything. They've figured out that if you can't actually tell where the billions of dollars they claim to be spending are being spent (or not being spent), then they can claim and reclaim and re-re-claim to be spending that money. We saw this before the crisis when they would re-announce the same spending every two to three months, to make it appear that they were actually doing things that Canadians wanted.

Now, of course, they've been handed the gift of a lifetime; a demand for stimulus spending that Canadians understand and support. Not that they have any desire to actually spend it where it will do any serious long-term good, but still, they get to hand out those oversize novelty cheques and people won't be mad at them for doing so.

The rule is that the government in power gets to hand out the cheques, not the MP in a riding. Although, that point is moot when you're only spending real money in riding's that either voted Conservative or you hope you can swing Conservative. But the Harperites aren't content with politics as usual. They have to go one further and add big Conservative Party logos to the novelty cheques and have them signed with the signature of the local MP.

But this isn't the Conservative Party's money. This is money from the taxpayers of Canada to the taxpayers of Canada via their federal government. The MP gets to say "It is due to my efforts that this project was approved for funding, and I get to present this cheque." He (and, painfully, it's still primarily he in this country) does NOT get to say "My party and I are giving you this money." It's not only untrue, but it has been recognized as an unreasonable intrusion of partisan politics into the operation of government. Partisanship and governing are supposed to have a firewall between them: the visibility of being the ruling party is supposed to be all the partisan gain the ruling party gets. The linking of government spending to the way a riding voted is called (what's that name again? oh yeah,) pork-barrelling. And it's been falling out of favour among the electorate for the past half-century.

And the reason it's been falling out of favour is the blatant unfairness of pork-barrel politics. It doesn't serve the public good. Yes, it continues. After all, you have to repay the faithful somehow. But this is more in the vein of "Hey, we can finally fund those projects we think are valuable" rather than "Here's the payoff for voting Liberal (or Conservative)." One can be seen as being sympathetic with "them that brung ya" and still be seen as governing and spending with the best interests of the country at heart.

This is not true of the current government. They are not governing with the best interests of the country at heart. They are governing, and spending, only with the best interests of the Conservative Party at heart. They are proving to be incompetent at practical politics--the art of governing for all while supporting your own. The Conservative Party, Under Stephen Harper, has taken on the Prime Minister's own paranoia. Liberals, the NDP, etc. are not Canadians with differing views, but are at best unwitting dupes of pure evil in the Harperite worldview. Their belief that sometime in the past there was a perfect Canadian world and that we've gotten off track with all this crap about rights for bitches, hos, and faggots, that we need to have respect for our betters (you know them, they already have money and power), and (to quote Denny Crane) "I'm here to enjoy nature. Don't talk to me about the environment" approach to industry and the environment, well, if they had organized supporters who used physical intimidation to shut down dissent, the party would fit nicely into pre-WW II Italy. It's the same line of crap, fuelled by the same hate, the same fear, as we heard then. Thankfully, Canwest-Global is collapsing and the National Post is losing money hand over fist. Canada doesn't quite have a Fox propaganda network yet. That gives us some breathing room to fight this worldwide rightward drift here in our own country.

So What's the Big Whoop about Deflation?

So Canada has registered it first “technical deflation” in 15 years in June 2009. More than a few people are having a very quiet freakout about this. A few, like Ken Rogoff (former research director at the IMF, now Harvard economics professor), John Makin (economist with the American Enterprise Institute, a hard-right conservative outfit) and Paul McCulley (portfolio manager at Pimco—who run the world's largest bond mutual fund) suggesting that this might be the time to bring back inflation—perhaps as high as 6% for a couple of years.
The spark behind this is the release of the consumer price index for the last couple of months, showing that in May and June, prices for consumers fell for the first time in years. While you and I might think this is good news, economists and businesses think differently about this. If the CPI is dropping, it begins to make sense, as a consumer, to put off spending money on anything. Why buy now, if in a month the price will have dropped? Does it make sense to spend 20K on a car if, by waiting a year, you can save $1100 (assuming an annual 6% deflation rate)? Of course not, particularly when not buying accelerates the deflation rate.
Again, as a consumer, this sounds great. Prices falling, money worth more instead of less (inflation eats away at the value of the dollar, making it worth less. Deflation reverses that), it sounds like good times for all. But with everyone sitting on their money, businesses find no reason to stay in business, or if they do, they certainly don't need to be as big. So as consumer spending falls, unemployment rises and the economy contracts. And if nothing kicks this pattern apart, it stabilizes into a long-term nation-crippling problem. Just ask the Japanese, who have been grappling with a structural deflation problem for over a decade now, since the collapse of the commercial real estate bubble.
We're not necessarily in that position here in Canada, as the major reason for our fall in the CPI is primarily the result of a 19% fall in gasoline prices. Although, nationally, prices increased at the pump 6.8% from May to June, prices have dropped 24.3% since this time last year. It should be noted that natural gas, car, and house carrying costs have all fallen over the last year as well, helping drive the CPI into negative territory. Phillip Verleger, a U of C professor and energy economist, is now forecasting a drop in the price of oil to $20/barrel (as predicted by peak oil theory, which forecasts a series of spikes and slumps in oil prices), which will hammer Oilberta—not so much in resource revenues, but in cancelled oil sands projects, unemployment, and concurrent collapse in consumer spending which will ripple out through the economy—and will continue to push the CPI into negative numbers. But, if you strip out the effect of oil/energy pricing from the current numbers, inflation is still tripping along at 2.1%, which is why this period is referred to as “technical deflation.”
So this is why our governments are all Keynesian now. The possibility of structural deflation is scaring the hell out of all of them and the corporate community. The system we live under is predicated on continual growth, and stabilizing that growth (removing the bubbles and crashes, inflationary and deflationary cycles) has been made job one for governments. Both corporations and the public dislike uncertainty, so uncertainty must go.
From an environmental point of view, a sustained period of deflation might be just the thing we need. But a deflating economy will have more trouble making the shift to a green(er) future than one that is growing. An expectation of profit is essential for businesses in order to get them to make changes in their business models.

Corruption, Private and Public

Here in B.C., some of us have been paying attention to the Basi/Virk trial—these are the guys who got arrested in 2003 when the RCMP raided the Ledge, hauling off cartons of files and papers. B&V are charged with fraud and corruption relating to the sale of BC Rail to CN. More precisely,leaking information, rigging the deal, and taking payoffs. Their defense is based on “just following orders” to get the interest (and, by extension, price) up on the sale. They deny having accepted money in any way (other than their salaries, of course), but acknowledge that they leaked information—though on the instructions of higher ups, including from our premier. So their lawyers subpoenaed all emails relating to the sale of BC Rail, including those of the premier.

It turns out, to no one's surprise, that the email records were destroyed. Of course there are rules concerning such things; “Government records destruction must be suspended during court orders for Demand for Discovery.” Also “Records disposition must be suspended during legally mandated reviews (e.g. Litigation, document discovery, and commissions of inquiry).” “Well,” said the business charged with keeping track of government backups, “that was more than 13 months ago, and they've already been trashed.”(or words to that effect.) Except that now it comes out that some email backup records from pre-May 2004 were discovered during the election campaign earlier this spring—including some of the premiers email. And somehow, someone in a position of power decided that the tapes should be destroyed. And so they were, during a campaign in which the court case was an issue. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

And Gordon Campbell “cruised to an easy win,” returning as premier for the third time. “Cruised to a win” in an election in which 4,500 votes, in the right ridings, would have almost exactly reversed the outcome. This is the kind of crap that sent Dick Nixon down. It's sunk quite a few Canadian politicians as well.

The question of whether the sale of BC Rail was corrupt isn't in doubt; by admission of Basi/Virk, it was. But naturally this won't make a damn bit of difference to the sale. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with that. Instead, at best, it will cost a couple of flunkies their jobs and maybe some jail time. Gordon Campbell is expected to retire before the next election, and every effort is being made to see that he remains un-tarred by this particular brush (although his bio will always record that he was a convicted felon when elected for the third time (having been convicted of felony DUI in Hawaii)). He will, of course, be cared for by those for whom he's made boatloads of money over the last two terms. But anyone actually paying a price for corruption in government? Not gonna happen.

This is one of the failings in our current system of government; there is a real and serious lack of accountability. CN knew damn well that it was participating in a corrupt process, but there will be no piper for them to pay. A couple of schmucks will have their lives ruined (maybe—they too may be cared for in the end by the rich pricks ripping apart the commons for private profit).

But what would happen if the sale was nullified? The billion dollars BC took for BC Rail returned to CN, and CN not compensated for “improvements” (the line has not only not been improved, but in fact has been the scene of numerous speed-based derailments, including the one that dumped highly toxic chemicals into the river outside of Squamish a couple of years back. CN paid a few bucks for the massive destruction of salmon at the time, but apparently no changes have been made to the way they've been doing business in the region. The number of derailments since bear witness to that.), but what if CN was actually taxed to recover all the profit they've made on the line since its sale? After all, a case could be made that, by participating knowingly in a corrupt bidding process, these profits are in fact proceeds of crime, just like any pot dealer's car. Corruption flourishes because of economic benefits. If you remove the benefits, you can slow or stop corruption.

Yes, Thank You. Now Where's Ours?

President Barack Obama on Thursday outlined plans for a high-speed rail network he said would change the way Americans travel, drawing comparisons to the 1950s creation of the interstate highway system.

Obama was careful to point out that his plan was only a down payment on an ambitious plan that, if realized, could connect Chicago and St. Louis, Orlando and Miami, Portland and Seattle and dozens of other metropolitan areas around the country with high-speed trains.

From HuffPo

The question is, when is the Canadian government going to figure this out? 2070?
Bill Curry, writing in today's Globe and Mail (17 April 2009), points out how it is the fear of protectionism in the US that's driving Canada to begin the process of harmonizing our environmental regulations with those of the US. Not because human life on the planet is at risk. Not because it is the right thing to do. But because trade with the US is threatened. This is too little too fucking late. We really need to be getting out in front on global climate change--and if that means shutting down the tarsands, or going nuclear, or imposing a hard cap on carbon emissions, then that is what it means. Harper is so resistant to anything past 1950 that he actually makes me long for the days of Brian Mulroney. Yeah, that one. There was actual progress made on environmental issues under Brian, even while he pimped the country out. Harper is just so not the prime minister we need in these times. He's just intractable, incompetent, and just plain obnoxious. Revolution Now!

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