FRONT COVER
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VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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CONTENTS
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A word from the publisher and editor… Dear Reader, With this issue, we begin our 29th year of Dialogue! It is the generous enthusiasm of readers and writers that keeps the magazine alive and vital. Thank you! As you might imagine, this issue covers a lot of election topics, with the majority of comments dedicated to the litany of The Harper Government shortcomJanet, Maurice & Penny ings. As of this early date, one might sense that the wheels are coming off the Harper Campaign Bus. But perhaps Mr. Harper will get himself a new set of wheels before October 19th… We are celebrating the letter “i” – for imagination, inspiration… and illusion – and we have endeavoured to capture this historic moment with a whimsical cover – from free-flying bouquets (of campaign promises – Just remember, cut flowers don’t last long… and rarely take root!) – to UFOs over Ottawa (Mike Neilly’s column, p.22 and an article p.34) – to the ‘happilyever-after’ we tend to think of when we see a rainbow. It may happen yet! – especially if we end up with a new minority government with a good balance of perspectives. Remember the good ol’ days – the minority governments of 1963-68, which brought us Medicare and the CPP [both currently at risk of privatization!], and a time when the Bank of Canada was still being used – until 1975 (and could be again) – to provide virtually interest-free loans to the federal government. And if we are really blessed we will elect a majority of MPs who are committed to democratic and voting reforms – to empower the House of Commons to work on our behalf. At this point in the campaign, one can hope that we are moving beyond the ABCs (Anybody But Conservative movements) to the “XYZs” – i.e. looking closely at the programs, records and potential of the parties and the individual candidates and independents who are presenting themselves for election to represent their constituents in the Parliament of Canada. May the election results reflect the true desires of Canadians! As always, there are many enlightening articles and entertaining stories for you to discover and enjoy! We look forward to hearing from you. We are most grateful for your support and your voices that give Dialogue life. And please keep in mind that Dialogue makes a unique gift for readers and writers! (Details on p.58). Janet
Maurice
volunteer publisher volunteer editor …& Penny & Lucky! P.S. The deadline for the Winter/Christmas issue is Nov. 15th!
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you wish to continue receiving the magazine, please ensure your subscription is paid up! PLEASE LOOK AT YOUR ADDRESS LABEL ON THE BACK COVER of this issue to find your RENEWAL DATE. If your subscrip-
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dialogue is... …an independent, volunteer-produced, not-for-profit Canadian quarterly, written and supported by its readers – empowering their voices and the sharing of ideas. Now in its 29th year, dialogue provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and an antidote to political correctness. We encourage readers to share with others the ideas and insights gleaned from these pages. If this is your first issue, please let us know what you think of it. If you would like to share your ideas and become a writer in
dialogue magazine consider this your personal invitation to participate! We also need your support as a subscriber, to help us continue (See P. 58 for details) We receive NO government funding and no advertising revenue. We rely totally on the generous support of our readers & subscribers.
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was founded in 1987 and is now published quarterly. Maurice J. King, Volunteer Publisher Janet K. Hicks, Volunteer Editor Date of Issue: Sep. 1, ‘15
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Tel: 250-758-9877 Fax: 250-758-9855 E-mail: dialogue@dialogue.ca WEBSITE: www.dialogue2.ca Deadlines: Aug. 15th - Nov. 15th Feb. 15th - May 15th. VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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From Near & Far When complex issues need a bit of right-left thinking… From: John C. McCullough, Richmond ON Sent to: Lowell Green, Ottawa-based radio talk show host and author, Aug. 15, 2015
While I am a very elderly (88) dyed-in-the-wool, right winger, I am beginning to question if we need a little bit of a Socialist outlook in the future. Let us take an imaginary industry: -- Employing ten people: -- Hence, ten people employed, paying taxes, EI (employment insurance) and CPP (Canada pension plan), and a company health insurance package. Plus a contribution from their employer to the Government for its share of EI and CPP. The employer decides to add automation into the mix in its production operations. It works great, with increased earnings. Good news. However, four of the ten employees have become redundant and they are terminated, with a subsequent reduction in payroll expenses by forty percent – a big plus for the employer. The machines are doing the same amount of work, with the remaining staff of six. The company has
an added bonus, as their mandatory CPP and EI contributions also reduce by forty percent. Its contribution to payroll and health care has also reduced by forty percent. From the above, I see that four people have lost their incomes, possibly requiring some form of publiclyfunded assistance (an unemployment insurance cheque) until they can get re-established. Perhaps they might also require retraining at public expense. BUT! The government has seen a reduction in income tax and also reduced CPP and EI contributions -- and, -the unemployment rolls have increased by four, in this particular scenario. Hence, a reduction in income required for the government’s budget. So, many public works have to be deferred. WHAT IS THE ANSWER?? IS THIS HOW THE RICH ARE GETTING RICHER? THE COMPANY GAINS AND EMPLOYEES LOSE, i.e. automation and the downsizing
in a nutshell. I leave this for you to ponder. – JCM
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The PM’s failure to understand the cycles of economic history Erik Andersen, Gabriola Island BC Letter sent Aug. 24, to Rosemary Barton, a regular contributor & guest host on Power&Politics, at the CBC Dear Ms. Barton, Available to all economists, Prime Minister Harper included, is the research of a Russian economist, Kondratieff, who demonstrated that super cycles prevailed across the economic history of the globe. A former Canadian economist, Member of Parliament and member of the Senate, Maurice LaMontange, also presented evidence of the several cycles that prevailed in the first half of the last century in Canada.
Cycles are a fact of our history and to deny them is to wish to know no history or worse, learn nothing from history. A feature of the K-cycle is a transition period from redundant technology to emerging new technology that is always much more efficient. At the transition period, known as the K-winter, the establishment (heavily invested in old technologies) resists what needs doing, writing off past century production capacity. At this time, the globe has last-century production capacity that is capable of producing and delivering massively – that exceeds the ability of consumers to 4 dialogue
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consume, mostly because they have maxed out their credit lines. Quite understandably, the owners of "Stranded Assets" and their supporting banks are doing everything possible to keep the output at unneeded levels. That is why Andrew Haldane of the BoE asked insurers and pension fund investment managers to "derisk" commercial bank balance sheets by buying dodgy assets made even more dodgy in recent times. Our Prime Minister has been a shill for last-century technologies/business. That may be good to raise political contributions but not good for the future of Canada. I think it was A. Einstein who suggested that doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. Regards Erik Andersen ♣ From Jeremy Arney, Canadian Action Party Erik, what wonderful sense you continue to make, and please consider the job of Minister of Finance in any government I should be able to form or control. We both want the best for Canada and Canadians and time and again you have shown me that you not only care but have the necessary abilities to make sense of the most outrageous nonsense and to bring logic to bear…. ♣ www.dialogue2.ca
Canada’s fate in the hands of ill-prepared politicians Gunther Ostermann, Kelowna BC In 1996, John Ralston Saul gave us a spot-on assessment applicable to most of us: “Corporatism reduces civilization to the sum of its interest groups. We are all reduced – culture, public education, childcare and Medicare – to warring with each other for crumbs from the public purse and for charity from the private purse. If we accept that formula, we are back to the public good as nothing more than a beggar at the table of the kings and the rich.” Mr. Saul later joined the ‘privileged’ and dined with the kings and the rich when his wife became the Governor General of Canada. Paul Hellyer, former member of Parliament since 1949, and later defence minister of Canada, researched later in his private life our monetary system with astounding conclusions. At great expense, he consulted with the best minds and their computers and concluded that the debts of the federal and provincial governments could have been $220 billion less in 1992. Why was this man and his research ignored then, and later as he campaigned as the leader of the Canadian Action Party for Monetary Reform? Why was the father of Medicare, Tommy Douglas,
under constant police surveillance all his life? For wanting to improve the life of Canada’s people? And why has the NDP, the successor of Tommy Douglas’s CCF, totally abandoned their goal? Would anybody go on an airplane trip, if the unqualified passengers were to hold a vote, as to who should be the captain, co-pilot and navigator? Nobody would even dream to suggest it, as this requires knowledge and experience. Why then, do we leave the fate of spaceship Earth and all societies, in the hands of politicians who may be well-paid puppets (with some exceptions) but do little else than re-distribute ‘crumbs.’ In view that Canada in 1992 could have had $220 billion less debt, imagine what it could be today? And the wasteful and ridiculous arguments about the HST and its billion dollar gain or loss for the province(s) boils down to nothing more than trivial pursuit. What are we to think? Missed opportunities? Conspiracy? Greed? Vested interests? Or just plain stupidity, if we carry on as usual, while people and our planet suffers needlessly. [Originally published in the Kelowna Capital News in 2011]♣
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History in the Making: Greece's place in the Global Monopoly Game Mike Nickerson, Lanark ON Remember the board game Monopoly? It is based on our economic system and offers insight into these historic times. Most players of the board game know that when one player begins to win, it is very seldom that anyone else moves into the lead. Most people concede the game when a front-runner becomes obvious. According to the rules, however, the game is not over until all the properties that were acquired earlier by other players have been mortgaged and lost to the winner. When the winner has it all, then the game is over.
This end-game rule is problematic in the real life Global Monopoly Game. Greece is a compelling example. Like most nations these days, their expenditures have been greater than receipts and they have had to borrow to make up the difference. Unfortunately, as the era of economic growth ran aground in 2008, they had to borrow still more just to make their payments. It is a vicious circle leading to unmanageable, expanding debt. Once the crisis was under way, to keep getting loans, Greece was required to cut back on programs that spent money into their economy. After five years of such www.dialogue2.ca
austerity, their economic activity dropped by almost 30%, and a quarter of the workforce became unemployed. Greece became a loser in the Global Monopoly Game. Greece has lost, but that end-game rule remains. As long as they have assets that can be sold (mortgaged and lost to the winner), the Game continues. After cutting back on support programs, health care and education, they are told to give up pension funds and sell infrastructure, parks, monuments and anything else that can provide money to pay creditors. From the depth of their Great Depression, Greece elected a government committed to another approach. What other approach might there be? It is important that we find out because almost every nation on Earth is in serious debt. It isn't that there are no competent financial managers in the world. Big winners and many more losers is the nature of a debt-based economic system. The system has worked, more or less, for centuries. Accumulating debts were managed by growth. When a country doubles its economic activity (GDP), its debt becomes half the size, relative to their ability to pay. …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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The problem today is that humanity has grown to fill our beautiful planet. Limitations around fossil fuels and fresh water are evidence of humankind overwhelming the Earth, as well as the impacts of pollution. Few imagine that human activity can double even one more time, let alone every generation as it has in the past. One place after another is finding that they cannot grow enough to pay off their loans (Puerto Rico, Ukraine, New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago and San Bernardino to name a few). If a jurisdiction makes a lot of money selling natural resources or from some other activity, creditors are more than happy to lend them enough to make payments, but total debt continues to grow. Sooner or later, to maintain payments, governments have to cut back on programs that serve their people and sell public assets. From there, it is just a matter of time before those sources of funds are exhausted and . . . This is where the Global Monopoly Game differs from the board game. When one loses at the board game normal life resumes. In the Global Game, societies fall apart and life becomes extremely difficult for more and more people. It is time to recognize the winners of the Global Monopoly Game. We could congratulate them, perhaps pass out some prizes, then pack up the game
and play something else. Our focus needs to turn away from making as much money as possible, regardless of consequences, and look more toward making the world work for everyone, today and into the future. Environmental well-being and fair play need to become our priorities. There is an historic irony in the Greek story. Around 500 BC, Athens faced a similar fate, where widespread debt bondage was destabilizing their society. The Athenians elected Solon to resolve their predicament. Solon established a policy called seisachteia the 'shaking off of burdens.' It included a cancellation of debts. The result was the Golden Age of Greece. Instead of working to pay off debts, citizens worked to advance society. Great strides were made in mathematics, architecture, literature, philosophy, and democracy. The Golden Age in Greece is said to be the origin of Western Civilization. How long will it be before we recognize that our growth phase is over and we begin to fashion a mature, stable economy? The first steps may be in tomorrow's news. Mike Nickerson, Lanark ON Mike Nickerson is the author of Life, Money and Illusion; Living on Earth as if we want to stay. Sustainability Project, Lanark, ON; Website: http://www.SustainWellBeing.net ♣
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Greece is the latest battleground in the financial elite’s war on democracy | George Monbiot “From laissez-faire economics in 18th-century India to neoliberalism in today’s Europe the subordination of human welfare to power is a brutal tradition.” George Monbiot at TheGuardian.com [EXTRACT/LINK] Greece may be financially bankrupt, but the troika is politically bankrupt. Those who persecute this nation wield illegitimate, undemocratic powers, powers of the kind now afflicting us all. Consider the International Monetary Fund. The distribution of power here was perfectly stitched up: IMF decisions require an 85% majority, and the US holds 17% of the votes. The IMF is controlled by the rich, and governs the poor on their behalf. It’s now doing to Greece what it has done to one poor nation after another, from Argentina to Zambia. Its structural adjustment programmes have
forced scores of elected governments to dismantle public spending, destroying health, education and all the means by which the wretched of the earth might improve their lives. LINK: http://tinyurl.com/TG-GM9399 “Neoliberalism is inherently incompatible with democracy. This is the true road to serfdom: disinventing democracy on behalf of the elite.” – George Monbiot ♣ Comment by Vera Gottlieb: Not too long ago someone stated: it isn’t that Axis of Evil the needs watching – it is the Anglo/Saxon one. Hitting the nail right on the head! – vg. Response by R. K. Moore: The Anglo-Saxon elites ARE the Axis of Evil. ♣
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War Crime: NATO deliberately destroyed Libya's water infrastructure By Nafeez Ahmed, The Ecologist | Report, 30 May 2015 The military targeting of civilian infrastructure, especially of water supplies, is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Yet this is precisely what NATO did in Libya. […] LINK: http://tinyurl.com/TO-libya-water 6 dialogue
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Recd. from S. McDowall, with her comment: Read about the huge lies told to Canadians re our participation in the war against Libya. Every single Canadian political leader except for Elizabeth May supported Canada’s participation in the war against Libya. ♣ www.dialogue2.ca
The 2015 Canadian Election Mike Duffy trial – we have come full circle again By Peter Ewart, Prince George BC August 17, 2015: Ten years ago it was the scandals associated with the Chretien Liberal government’s “Sponsorship Program” (brought to light by the Gomery Inquiry of 2005).
Ten years before that in 1994, it was the Airbus scandal and the controversial brown paper bags of cash handed over to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney at hotels in New York and Montreal. Ten years before that in 1984, it was the Turner Liberal government’s patronage appointments to the Senate and other plum government positions. Today, in 2015, ten years after the Gomery Inquiry, it is the Mike Duffy trial and the revealing of even more lies, deception and cover-up by the ruling Harper Conservatives. And so it is that about every ten years, the rot and corruption of whichever government is in power overflows the garbage can and spills out into the public arena to stink up the politics of the country. This doesn’t mean that there are not lots of other smaller scandals during the intervening ten years. For example, the Harper government has had many mini-scandals since it took office, as have previous governments. However, with those ones, the party in power is usually able to wrap them up in perfume-scented plastic bags and disappear them down the maw of the garbage can. How can we break out of this circle of rot and corruption? It is clearly not just a question of throwing out the reigning party and electing another. Yes, the Harper government deserves to be defeated, just as the previous Liberal and Progressive Conservative ones did. But what will stop the newly-elected government from simply filling up a new garbage can? Clearly the problem runs deeper. Indeed, it is systemic in nature. The opposition parties are calling for electoral reform such as bringing in a proportional representation or alternative ballot voting method. While there may be some improvements over the current first-past-the-post method, a fundamental problem remains. And that is, under the current party-dominated electoral system, the Canadian people are kept out of any real input or decision-making. Instead, the political parties in Parliament (and especially the governing party), have a monopoly on power and operate together as a cartel that keeps www.dialogue2.ca
Canadians marginalized, reducing us to the level of mere spectators watching a highly-scripted reality show. Unfortunately, as experience has amply shown, governing political parties – which are private organizations backed by private interests – are prone to corruption and influence-peddling. There is much talk about the importance of “checks and balances” on government power. However, as many observers have noted, the existing “checks and balances” are not working and are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. As a result, we move inexorably towards more dictatorial government and the erosion and snuffing out of our rights. We do need “checks and balances” on government power, just as we need more transparency and accountability, rather than the existing garbage can politics. But how can this be achieved? We need a profound reform and renewal of the electoral process, one that will institute new mechanisms to expand and deepen democracy, empower Canadians, and enshrine our right to be decision-makers on fundamental issues. Instead of major decisions being cooked up in the backrooms of government and faraway corporate offices, and then shoved down the throats of voters, the citizens of Canada must be brought into the process, whether it is on economic development, security, taxation, resource extraction, health care, or other issues that impact our lives and futures. This is not simply a matter of having referenda on issues or other isolated reforms but rather a profound restructuring of the political process. Garbage cans operate in the dark. True democracy brings light, transparency and accountability. The best check on government is the people themselves – the governed become an integral part of governing. But we need an electoral system that can bring this about. We need to break the circle. Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca LINK at 250news: http://tinyurl.com/PEmd-circle ♣ [SEE P.20 FOR AN INTERESTING COMMENT TO THIS ARTICLE.]
See also: P. Ewart: Harper’s Responsibility in the Senate Scandal: http://tinyurl.com/PEsh-resp ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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An Open Letter to the Prime Minister by J.S. Porter, Hamilton ON Dear Stephen, I thought since you’re so familiar with Mr. Trudeau and call him Justin, I’d be familiar with you and call you Stephen. The water is rising fast, Stephen. You’re pretty good on the piano. Maybe you know how to play a little tune by Bob Dylan called “The Times They Are AChangin’.” Come gather 'round [Stephen] Wherever you roam A nd admit that the waters A round you have grown A nd accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'.
As with Richard Nixon and Watergate, the crime is not so much the initial blunder (paying Mr. Duffy 90,000 dollars to keep quiet) but the lengths you’ve gone to cover-up the crime. You did tell us some months ago that only your then chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and Mr. Duffy, knew about the personal cheque. According to e-mails uncovered by the RCMP, a number of people, including your current chief of staff and campaign manager, Mr. Novak, knew about the cheque. Stephen, either you’re not telling us the truth or you have institutionalized a technique that Nixon made famous – plausible deniability. If the people around you agree to tell you nothing about what’s going on, then you can claim to know nothing about anything potentially embarrassing or incriminating. Lucky for you my friend, we don’t have impeachment of Prime Ministers. When the New York Times ( August 14. 2015) has a feature article called “The Closing of the Canadian Mind” and includes these sentences—“[T]he nine and half years of Mr. Harper’s tenure have seen the slowmotion erosion of that reputation for open, responsible government. … He has consistently limited the capacity of the public to understand what its government is doing, cloaking himself and his Conservative Party in an entitled secrecy, and the country in ignorance”— you know you’re in trouble. The U.S. used to be our closest ally. The article also includes a very simple and powerful 8 dialogue
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sentence: “The Harper years have seen a subtle darkening of Canadian life.” We’ve learned not to seek the common ground but the personal ground, the ground that gives us as individuals, rather than a community, the advantage. You’ve taken micro-marketing to a precise art and learned to divide us, one against another. There’s been an erosion of trust under your watch and an increase of suspicion and paranoia. When Jeffrey Simpson in The Globe and Mail, August 19, 2015 (hardly a left-wing columnist in a leftwing newspaper) summarizes Duffygate in these searing words— “Throughout the affair – and this the takeaway lesson of how the Prime Minister’s Office operates – everything in the Harper entourage revolved around image, reputation, damage-control and spin. That the truth might and should be told, openly and immediately, never occurred to any of them” — you know you’re in trouble. You’ve probably gathered by now that I won’t be voting for you, Stephen. Here’s why. You’re... anti-science anti-facts anti-debate anti-change anti-carbon tax anti-transparency anti-CBC anti-day care anti-environment anti-Watch Dogs anti-Parliament anti-vision anti-compromise anti-legacy anti-research anti-press anti-honesty (anti-ethics) anti-Budget Officer anti-Supreme Court anti-UN anti-Elections Canada. Thomas Aquinas reportedly once said, “Beware the man of a single book.” The one book that you seem to have taken to heart is Machiavelli’s The Prince – how to get power and how to keep it. The only legacy you seem concerned about is the retention of power and the destruction of the Liberal Party. Stephen, you’re a rigid, uncompromising man for whom the world is black and white with no shades …/ www.dialogue2.ca
of grey. You have no sense of irony, ambiguity, or paradox, no practice of self-doubt or self-questioning. Beneath the well-tailored suits and the forced smile is a quiet ideologue and a soft-spoken fundamentalist.
You’re just not ready to be Prime Minister anymore. John p.s. I like your hair style, the northern equivalent of “The Donald” – not a hair out of place. ♣
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Imagined vs. actual risks… Larry Kazdan, Vancouver
Comment re: Harper urges voters to avoid 'risk' of NDP or Liberals in power* Stephen Harper may campaign on fears of terrorists hiding under every Canadian rock, but his Conservative government failed to notice a 28,000 per cent increase* in train transport of flammable oil with devastating consequences to the people of Lac Megantic where 47 people died in a horrific explosion. The Harper government cut its transportation inspection budget and relied increasingly on self-regulation by railway companies who were willing to cut corners for extra profit. To ensure safety of Canadians from train, tanker and other environmental catastrophes, we need a Prime Minister who is not wedded to the oil patch and who understands the most probable risks that threaten the lives and welfare of Canadians. Footnote: Since 2009; LINK: http://tinyurl.com/TS28000pc A whopping 28,000 per cent increase in the amount of oil shipped by rail over the past five years is coming under the microscope following the deadly rail blast in Quebec. Julian said the Harper government has largely abandoned railway inspection, imposing as much as $3 million in cuts, and allowed the industry to monitor itself. * [Re article by Mark Kennedy, Ottawa Citizen, 04-07-15; LINK: http://tinyurl.com/OC-avoid-risk
On the Appropriateness of Deficits Re: Liberals charge Harper running another billion-dollar deficit* (by Larry Kazdan)
Regardless of whether one is pro or anti-Harper, the appropriateness of government deficits or surplus depends on what is happening in the real economy. Currently Canada has a large trade deficit which means more money leaves the economy than comes in, and our private corporations are hoarding money rather than investing into a stagnant economy. So right now deficit spending is required to increase domestic demand that will support business activity and put more people back to work. Harper should be criticized not because he has run deficits in the past, but because cutting government expenditures at the wrong time depresses the economy. Criticism can also be extended to other party leaders who think fiscal responsibility means balancing the budget rather than creating a fully-productive economy that does not waste the talents of 1.3 million Canadians currently seeking jobs. * [Ref, Aug. 22, 2015: http://thelinkpaper.ca/?p=48683] [See above letter online, with footnotes: www.dialogue2.ca/larry-kazdan-reappropriateness-of-deficits ] ♣
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Election thoughts… Comment from Dot Fuhrman (BC): Why didn’t Justin go for higher learning when his home environment was all political??– How come he had only two years of engineering and then ended up being an educator teaching Drama for a short time in Vancouver? Is this the background for a world leader? My 24 year old grandson with a degree in Political Science from Dalhousie has spent two months in India, two months in Australia and six months in China and he is now in Bangkok working for a German company in finding what to do for the homeless. This fall he is going for his Masters in a British university. I think my grandson is more fitted to run for a political party at 24 than Justin ‘mostly at home father of two.’ Comment from Sharon Maclise (Alberta) Yes, I know – Justin Trudeau is no Paul Martin – but we have to agree: the Conservatives are not real conservatives, either… www.dialogue2.ca
Winning an election stopped being a priority with me a long time ago... It is good leadership, fiscal stewardship and fair, just and democratic gov’t that I am looking for these days. I am not here to create a winning situation for people who are just looking for a cushy job and a big payoff. If I must do battle with my own gov’t to get these things, what do I care the colour of their stripes. … I do battle every day with the results of 44 years of “conservative” policies here in Alberta. And I am not just saying this to be dramatic. What I have been experiencing as a business woman under a so-called “conservative” gov’t for the last few decades simply can’t get any worse. We have been so screwed by our incompetent, corrupt conservatives that I have to believe it can only get better. And yet, I know it can even get worse. But nor can I endorse the abuse by voting for them. I have battles with the gov’t on three fronts right now and they are battles that were caused by the hide-bound, …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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entrenched, laziness and plain corruption of what became an increasingly lousy conservative gov’t – both provincially and federally. I don’t for one minute think this AB socialist gov’t can, or even will, fix their mistakes. And yes, I will not bet against the fact that I will be worse off under them. My only contention is this: will the pain be enough for me, or those who share my conservative convictions, to get the energy up to actually fight FOR a conservative gov’t under Harper that has resulted in nothing or almost nothing that has benefitted us and has actually added to our burdens. I don’t think that the threat of even more impending pain – which is the campaigning method the Conservatives have been using – of socialist or liberals will be enough to get us to support them. I am not advocating this: I am simply predicting it. … There is no reason whatsoever to support the existing gov’t other than that they are the least worst of the bunch. Imagine that – when our political choices come down to choosing from an entire network of scoundrels, misfits and losers. – Sharon Maclise
Comment from Kim McConnell (Ont.): Well. Sharon, the whole of the political structure is made
up of people who want to run the country and be in control, following the guidelines set by our constitution. If the constitution is flawed, like the 1982 Constitution created by the Liberal Party is, there is very little that can be done. The rules are interpreted by the Courts and the 1982 Constitution & the accompanying Charter have set the guidelines to give special consideration to people based on their group rights, not their individual rights, the stage is set for minorities to take control. The battle between the left & the right is very serious whoever controls the country controls the future of the country. If you expect some "goody-goody" to be able to fight on that battleground, such a person has NO chance against the aggressiveness of the other side. Harper has been vilified by the left for trying to work against the left-wing nature of the country (whether we want to believe it or not, Canadians are generally leftwingers who like to be looked after by the govt.). Don't ask him to fight with total transparency – he'll be destroyed in the 1st round!!! He has not done anything really illegal or corrupt – so yes, in my mind, he is the best of all the bad guys & gals out there who will bankrupt Canada (with their green energy priority + their pro-Islamist stance + their mindless support for the UN). – Kim ♣
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A long list of Harper wrongs – from Council of Canadians, NWT [ http://cocnwt.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/2014-04-23yellownifer-stop-harper-column.pdf ]
by Jim Joyce, Yellowknife, NWT [Extract from a letter in the Yellowknifer (23-4-14) after a presentation by Brigitte de Pape in Yellowknife in April 2014]
"Stop Harper" is a call to action … in response to federal attacks on the Canadian core values, particularly the federal government attacks on our society's least advantaged. The Conservatives have undermined democracy, democratic principles, and information-gathering essential to informed decision-making:
• Cancellation of the long form census • Proroguing of Parliament to avoid critical policy debates • Unprecedented use of omnibus bills to limit debate • Unprecedented control by the PMO of Parliamentary and Senate committees • The robocall scandal • The senate scandal and corruption in the prime minister's office • Secretive international trade agreement negotiations (CETA, FIPPA and TPP) • Destruction of long-standing research libraries & centres and muzzling of public servant media responses • More than $100 million in legal fees fighting 10 dialogue
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aboriginal rights cases • No national first ministers meeting in eight years • Cancellation of the court challenges program • The denial of voting rights and limiting Elections' Canada authority under the proposed new elections laws. The Conservatives have also reduced environmental protection laws and capacity:
• Gutting of federal environmental science programs and staff, especially the departments of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, and Parks Canada • Betrayal of our Kyoto climate changes promises, and runaway production of greenhouse gases, particularly from the tar sands • Attacking environmental activists as terrorists and enemies of the state • Elimination of or reduced funding to the Experimental Lakes Area, the Living Lakes Network, Climate Change Network, Global Environmental Monitoring System, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, and the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy. • The Conservatives have eliminated or reduced social justice programming: Closing or slashing funding for the Canada Health Council, National Council of …/ www.dialogue2.ca
Welfare, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada Without Poverty, Canadian Council on Social Development, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Native Women's Association of Canada, among other NGOs • Cutting core funding to First Nation governments and eliminating funding for regional support services • Enacting stricter, more complex rules for employment insurance eligibility • Implementing the Temporary Foreign Workers' program to undercut Canadian workers and wages • Eliminating $35 billion in federal health care transfers • Increasing old age pension eligibility to 67 years • Reducing the flexibility of courts in determining sentencing, while reducing rehabilitation programming in jails The Conservatives have made major economic blunders:
• Mismanaging the F-35 acquisition program, by underestimating the costs of the program by billions of dollars • Losing $3.1 billion in anti-terrorist funding • Increasing income inequality in Canada • Enacting anti-strike legislation in favour of corporate interests • Promoting a petro-state economy at the expense of regional economic diversity • Negotiating ‘free trade' agreements giving international corporations increased control over government policies
The Conservatives have transformed our international presence from diplomacy and foreign aid to militarism and corporate aid:
• Eliminating or reducing funding to the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Kairos, Rights and Democracy, and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, among others • Supporting the notion of pre-emptive military strikes on Iran • Re-focusing foreign aid through the Canadian International Development Agency to support Canadian mining company interests rather than social development programming. This is not a complete list, but it shows that Harper's Conservatives have deliberately shifted Canada's core values away from democracy, social justice and equity, environmental stewardship, economic diversity, and enlightened foreign aid to unabashed, uncritical support for multi-national corporate interests through the stifling of democracy, attacks on environmental and social justice groups and advocates, support for a resource-extraction economy based on dirty fuel, and a militaristic and uncompassionate approach to foreign affairs. That is why many Canadians from all walks of life agree with Bridgette DePape and the simple slogan, "Stop Harper." Jim Joyce is an active member of the NWT branch of the Council of Canadians. Recd. From S. McDowall ♣
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A Letter to Mr. Harper Received from Art Topham: The following is a comment by Al Romanchuk of Edmonton... Al is a 79-year-old former lawyer who appears to have a firmer grasp on the realities of Canadian politics than most people.
Al Romanchuk, Edmonton AB By calling this election some twice the length of time formerly allocated by parliamentary rules, in my humble opinion you have written your own obituary and that of your corrupt party. You have blatantly lied to us by telling us that the election will not cost the taxpayer. Elections Canada will have to spend almost TWICE as much on this election and some have speculated about $800 million. To top it all off all political parties will receive handsome rebates from Elections Canada through the national treasury. You have lied to us about ISIS declaring was on Canada when you know that it was YOU, ZIONIST ISRAEL AND ITS CANADIAN LOBBYISTS, OBAMA AND CAMERON (to name a few) that have INVADED Syria, Afghanistan and Iran and indiscriminately
dropping all kinds of bombs and other lethal weapons killing innocent men, women and children. Neither ISIS www.dialogue2.ca
nor Syria, nor Afghanistan nor Iran have invaded our shores. It is YOU that have invaded their countries without any invitation. You have lied about not granting subsidies of all kinds to business and industry: by giving Toyota $100 million of our taxpayers hard earned tax dollars. It is NOT the responsibility of government to be in business of any kind, but you have turned the tables. You have provided the Ukraine with hundreds of millions ostensibly to fight the Russians! You have also provided our tax dollars to other nations which, when totaled, has had ZERO benefit to us Canadians. And you are right when you stated that a national election is not about a popularity contest. And certainly, in my opinion and experience, you lack any popularity especially in the west. You have lied to us by telling us that you would always consult with Parliament regarding major expenditures, as indicated above, but you have governed by executive orders. By passing Bill C-51 you have unnecessarily made terrorists out of us true Canadians. The FEAR that you have instilled in many members of …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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the public was unnecessary and wasteful. You have allocated over $200 billion to drop bombs on Syria but you can’t find the money to fund our health care system. You, sir, are a hypocrite and a master of deception. You are afraid to face a questioning electorate in good old fashioned town hall meetings, but you gladly sit to be interviewed by the press. This, to me, is an outrage and shows your disrespect for us. There are many more issues which I can outline but I think the foregoing is enough.
holds true for the Liberals. If there was an Independent candidate running in my riding of Edmonton-Strathcona I would vote for him or her. If there was a SEPARATIST running, my first choice would be for him or her. You have proven over the years that you are MORE OF A SOCIALIST THAN THE NEW DEMOCRATS! You don’t deserve another term in Ottawa where you have distanced yourself and your party from the ordinary Canadian. [Letter forwarded by Art Topham, Quesnel BC] ♣
I will NEVER vote for the Conservatives again and that **************************************************************
25 reasons Stephen Harper was bad for Canada From WhyNotHarper.ca [Recd. from June Ross, Nanaimo] water as a human right. 1. Contempt for Canada. 17. Harper tried to quietly eliminate the Canadian 2. Cheated in the 2006 Election. long form census. 3. Turned Canada's Surplus into Debt. 18. Never kept promises of cutting $1.4 Billion in 4. Wants US-style bank deregulation. federal subsidies given to oil companies. 5. Opposes universal health care. 19. Sabotaging efforts to deal with climate change. 6. Harper shut down Parliament. Twice. 20. Cancelled the Kelowna accord. 7. Wants to replace the stable CPP with the un21. Tarnishing our international reputation as tested PRPP (Pooled Registered Pension Plan). Peacekeepers. 8. Shut down Women's & Minority advocacy groups. 22. Wants more power, less oversight. 9. The Economic Action plan has been to the bene23. Wasteful prison spending increases, and shutting fit of the super rich. down rehabilitation centres. 10. Fraud. 24. Breaking traditions (i.e. for self-aggrandizement). 11. Loosened regulations to allow more chemical res25. Renamed 'The Government of Canada' to 'The idues on your food (and fired whistleblower). Harper Government' […] 12. Wasteful G20 spending, and a record number of Read in full with active links to the referenced articles (in arrests. major media) at: http://www.whynotharper.ca/#printablelist 13. Report an unsafe nuclear reactor; get fired. Useful Resources 14. Stephen Harper has shut down Canadian aid to Elections Canada: Check that you're registered to vote the world's most impoverished countries. http://www.elections.ca/ 1-800-463-6868 15. The Harper Conservatives want to buy 65 stealth Project Democracy: Find out which non-conservative canfighter jets using $29 billion of taxpayer money. didate has the best chance of winning in your riding, so you can vote strategically http://www.projectdemocracy.ca ♣ 16. Refusal to sign UN declaration designating clean **************************************************************
Tax cuts… deficits… austerity Gerry Masuda, Duncan BC It seems very clear and simple to me. Tax cuts to the richest individuals and corporations create deficits; and governments respond to the deficits by imposing austerity – and cutting back government services and programs to the 99%ers. The media emphasize the impact of austerity rather than linking the ‘need for austerity’ to government deficits which result from tax cuts to the richest individuals and corporations – as reflected in the widening gap between 12 dialogue
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the 1%ers and 99%ers. The message the public needs to hear, in order to understand, is that austerity is the direct result of tax cuts to the rich. ♣
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting Formed in 1985, FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting is an independent, Canada-wide, non-partisan voluntary organization supported by 180,000 households. Its mission is to defend and enhance the quality and quantity of Canadian programming in the Canadian audio-visual system. FRIENDS is not affiliated with any broadcaster or political party. FRIENDS ran a national ad …/ www.dialogue2.ca
campaign in August – “Take Back the CBC” – and is part of the “Hands across the country for the CBC” and the “We Vote CBC” lawn-sign
campaign. Visit the website of The Friends of Public Broadcasting: www.friends.ca ♣
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“One Man’s Opinion”
What is Democracy in all truthfulness? Ken Clark, Fergus ON To begin this article I will quote a dictionary definition of the word democracy, (i.e.) “a form of government in which the people have a say in who should hold power and how it should be used.” To me the operative word in this description has to be ‘say’, which means the people have far more responsibility and input than simply casting a vote at election time. The role of the citizens of a democratic country must be mandatory, vocal and ongoing at all times. It is my opinion that, in theory, a properly administered democratic government represents the best choice for any nation; in practice, however, the exact opposite result is possible if either, or both, the government and the people fail to fulfil their part of the partnership. Over time, it seems both sides are shirking their responsibility in this arrangement: the people through low voter turnout and failure to speak up, and the government through increasingly reversing their role from servant to master of the people. To quote another old adage “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” (James Bovard) As more and more time goes by, I believe Canada’s form of government in operation suggests an elected dictatorship rather than a democracy. If I am correct in my opinion, when did this change actually begin; how did it grow to be what it is today; and, most importantly, is it too late to attempt to turn it around? I would like to invite other readers of DIALOGUE to speak out on this important issue. Let’s see just how well or how badly one sector of our population feels on this very serious situation. Let’s see, in fact, if the ‘Pen is mightier than the sword,’ particularly when so much is at stake. I think Maurice & Janet would be more than willing to make your thoughts known to many other Canadians and in so doing, perhaps even encourage more citizens to speak out.
Democracy and MP party solidarity On Mar. 24, 2015, the citizens of Canada had yet www.dialogue2.ca
another opportunity to witness the non-democratic Federal Government of Canada in action. PM Stephen Harper announced that he would be calling a vote to extend the special-forces mission in Iraq for another twelve months. In addition, he also announced that the vote would request permission to expand the mission into Syria. He then proceeded to give his reasons for the extension and expansion of the mission and strongly urged Conservative MPs to support this action. Thomas Mulcair, Leader of the Opposition, then spoke and clearly articulated why the NDP could not support the motion put forward by the Prime Minister. He concluded his remarks by stating the NDP would vote against the motion. Next, Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberal Party, rose to speak and pronounced the reasons why the Liberals also could not support the Prime Minister’s motion. He likewise announced the Liberals would similarly vote against the motion. Based on the current standing of parties in the House of Commons, if all MPs vote their party line there is no way this motion can be defeated. More importantly, the vote does not represent or take into account at all the wishes of the people. Just because citizens vote for a given Party does not mean they are 100 percent in agreement with that Party’s entire package of policies; human nature does not work this way. In my opinion, MP party solidarity and MP people representation can never co-exist in the Parliament of any democratic government; and in no way is party solidarity indicative of how our Parliament was originally intended to function. Over time our elected MPs have been coerced into misrepresenting the very people whom they have sworn to represent. Don’t you think it is time the voting citizens of Canada should tell the Federal Government, regardless of which party may be in power, that MP party solidarity in voting is neither a vote of the people, nor is it a vote indicative of a democratic government? “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.” (Ronald Reagan) …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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Why are most Canadians apparently so disinterested in Canadian politics??? The above is a question that I have asked myself, as well as numerous friends of mine – over and over again – for more years than I really care to recall. In my mind, it is not a question simply to generate idle conversation; rather it is an extremely serious and important question intended to solicit various intelligent and thoughtful opinions/comments from other people. When asked of others however, the result is invariably a shrug of the shoulders or a one word comment such as boring or a quizzical look suggesting where is this guy coming from. To my own mind, everyone of voting age and over should be very interested in how our elected MPs/MPPs are actually representing us, their constituents. We should be aware of the part they are, or are not, playing within Parliament to represent our wishes. We should make it known when we approve or disapprove of their actions or inactions on our behalf. When we consider that the government controls so many aspects that affect our daily lives so dramatically, why would we choose to be disinterested in what they do? Politicians are human and if we have learned nothing else from life surely if must be obvious to us all that humans do make mistakes. If we the citizens of this country do not monitor our politicians, who do we feel will perform this role? To me the answer is clearly no one, and this to me is unacceptable. Politicians supposedly enter the field of politics to represent their constituents but once elected the vast majority suddenly become deaf mutes in Parliament; unable to hear the voices and/or pass on the concerns of their constituents. Have you ever asked yourself why do we need as many as 300 plus* MPs at the federal level if, when the time comes, they invariably vote the party line. How can this possibly be considered as representing the people? Why
not have say just 13 (1 per each province/territory) or even go a step further and have only 5/6 (1 per each official party) since in the long run they all invariably vote the party line. I admit that this is an extremely silly comparison made to emphasize a point. But ask yourself: Is there really any significant difference at all between a democratic government that does not represent the people, and an outright dictatorship? Have you ever written a letter to your local MP or MPP to express your view on a given issue or action by the government of the day and received a) no reply at all, b) an acknowledgement only of receipt of your letter, or c) only a ‘canned’ response? If you have, do you still honestly believe your MP or MPP truly represents you? Have you ever asked yourself why voter turnout, at all levels of government in Canada, is so pathetically low? Can you possibly believe that a government elected by less than 50 percent of eligible voters is a majority government? Do most Canadians not care at all about the future of their country? How sad, how disgraceful, how meaningless! Countries can fail because of mis-management in governance; they can also fail because of citizen indifference or disinterest. Read the writing on the wall. Each of us needs to understand how irresponsible it is not to care about who governs or how we are governed. In my opinion, a responsible democratic government can never reach its peak potential without a high level of interest and contribution by the citizens of the country. Last, but by no means least, just because a citizen casts a vote for a given party at election time, does not automatically signify that the citizen supports every single item within that party’s agenda. Ken Clark, Fergus ON ♣ * 2011 federal legislation will increase the seats from 308 to 338 as of the 2015 election. ♣
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Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence Compiled The Tyee's list of 70 Harper government assaults on democracy and the law. By David Beers and Tyee Staff and Contributors, Aug. 10, 2015, TheTyee.ca [EXTRACT/LINK] Stephen Harper and his Conservatives
have racked up dozens of serious abuses of power since forming government in 2006. From scams to smears, monkey-wrenching opponents to intimidating public servants like an Orwellian gorilla, some offences are criminal, others just offend human decency. We (have 14 dialogue
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compiled) all 70 items into one omnibus of abuse by the Stephen Harper government. Thanks, once more, to friends of The Tyee who help with this list. Items gathered under three headings: 1. Abusing parliament: sabotage, scandals, corruption and contempt; 2. 'Harper Brand' abuses: lies, spies, and this pork smells really bad; and 3. Election abuses: scams, slimes, stings and crooked spending. Read at Tyee.ca: LINK: http://tinyurl.com/Tyee-100815 ♣ www.dialogue2.ca
The Sceptical Scholar
Relentlessly Assaulting Truth Itself Wilf Cude, Cape Breton NS A good friend of mine, a life-long resolutely conservative thinker, recently startled me by remarking: “this time around, I’m not voting for Harper.” I couldn’t credit my ears. This was a man who firmly supported Harper’s termination of the long gun registry, his tough on crime legislation, his tightening of immigration and his move towards militarization of our foreign policy. And yet, this time around, he just couldn’t stomach the thought of that man continuing in office for another term. After a rather long pause, I couldn’t resist asking why he was making such a radically uncharacteristic political decision.
“Simple,” he replied. “Harper is the ultimate control freak in this country. Nothing that man’s government has done in almost ten years has happened without him having his fingerprints all over it. And yet, when this whole Duffy mess broke, the only thing Harper would say is that he personally knew absolutely nothing about it. Even after it became clear his entire office was up to its collective arse in a crooked coverup story, Harper still says he knew nothing about it. That’s bullshit, since the man had to be totally in command of everything that happened. He’s an outright flat-out crook and liar, and he doesn’t deserve more time in Ottawa.” Strangely enough, my friend is not alone, even in some extremely conservative circles. John Robson, a committed conservative writer, recently published a brief article in the staunchly conservative National Post under the anguished title: “I can’t vote for the Harper Conservatives. I just can’t.” Remarking that “they should be my natural choice,” he immediately insists “their coarse, vindictive, proudly unprincipled cynicism must not be rewarded with electoral success, whatever the consequences.” Commencing with the Tory campaign’s “dozens of press releases a week touting handouts to everyone from bison farmers to door makers,” he singles out as mordantly offensive both the promised permanent home renovation tax credit and the recently enhanced Child Care Benefit. “It was bad enough for them to subsidize my children at other people’s expense through the Universal Child Care Benefit,” he laments. “But my patio?” This is an infuriating recourse to fiscal irresponsibility, as repellant as it can possibly be to any analyst like Robson www.dialogue2.ca
intent upon far better from a political party boasting financial probity as their chief priority. “It’s a bribe, plain, simple and naked,” he fumes. “Vote for us and we’ll give you money. Lots of it.” But for him, there is worse, indeed much, much worse. “I wrote nearly two years ago,” he recalls, “that Harper is unfit for office because he lied to Parliament over the Wright-Duffy affair, insolently telling incompatible tales five days apart in October 2013, and lying about having contradicted himself.” Far more tellingly, “rather than recoiling from this cynical deceit,” the entire Conservative party “enthusiastically embraced it:” consequently, “if they think him worthy of public trust, they aren’t either.” But even that, dismaying though it may be, is not the end of this unusually disillusioning story. The scandalous list of Tory malpractice simply goes on, and on, and on. While parading their support for the military and puffing themselves up as valiant in foreign affairs, “they gut defence to fund cynical handouts.” While they “rope in the rubes by feigning concern about traditional marriage, abortion and God,” as soon as Health Canada cleared the abortion drug RU-486 for use, the entire administration collectively “hid under the bed.” These people, Robson stridently maintains, “are not honourable:” on the contrary, “they cherish the low blow, the devious tactic, the unprincipled bribe, in a relentless, sneering, partisan tone.” And the malaise has spread malignantly into the general public. “People I know and like,” Robson confesses, “retweet Pierre Poilievre with vicious glee. I weep for them and my country.” And so he closes with this stern avowal. “I will not give my vote to a party that disgusts and appalls me. Neither should you.” How many others among the party faithful could presently subscribe to such heresy? Judging from the columnists of the National Post, not many. But among those few, perhaps we might include Andrew Coyne, who initially ventured the careful assessment that there is far more to the Wright-Duffy scandal than the hullabaloo over a covert payment of hush money. It was the timing of the payment that mattered, above all else. Once the Senate internal economy committee appointed the firm of Deloitte & Touche to conduct an audit of Duffy’s expenses, the central concern of the Conservative party’s top insiders was to head off the audit by pushing Duffy to repay those expenses instantly and thus preclude the necessity for the audit to go ahead. As they proceeded …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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lied about it all, or they must conclude he has been so exwith their machinations, it became apparent that they cruciatingly incompetent that his full cadre of most intiwere embarked upon “a broader effort to tamper with a mate associates could play him as a puppet, and conceivasupposedly independent audit, to rewrite a committee rebly had been doing so over other matters “all these years.” port and hoodwink the public,” all of which “takes on a So the voters will act accordingly, and vote Harper out of rather darker hue.” Rather darker indeed. “The point of office, come 19 October. this whole affair from the start” was clearly “to deceive the public,” and before the cheque was written “the cover- Don’t even begin to count on it. Go back to all the other up had already begun.” columnists of the National Post, and read what they were saying at the same time. Colby Cosh, while conceding Not satisfied with that opening shot, Coyne immediately “no doubt I am missing some nuances,” asks plaintively: thereafter veered off into satire, offering a second article “if there’s a scandal in the Duffy affair, why can’t I spot of full-length mock-abject apology to Harper for misunit?” And he goes on to dismiss, as “contrived, persnickety derstanding the man at his time of undeserved anguish. use of language,” the essential fabric of the case against “Oh, Harper, forgive us,” the headline wails: “we misthe Conservatives so competently explored by Robson judged you over the Duffy affair.” Consider the horrific and Coyne. Then there’s Father Raymond J. de Souza, impact on the man himself of what Harper has so sudwho not only is incensed that the Duffy trial continues denly and unexpectedly learned, Coyne sardonically “drenched in political showmanship,” but is also outraged dead-pans: “several of his closest advisers, including his because “the problem Senate expenses does not justify the chief of staff, his principal secretary, and his legal counsel, together with his Senate house leader, the chairman of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, hundreds of hours of the Conservative party fundraising arm and the party law- court time and the huge quantity of public attention given to it.” No reflection at all to the yer, conspired over a period of sevmanifest year-long matrix of naeral months to pay Duffy for his “…an assault, deliberate, ked lies – a curious omission in a improperly claimed living exsystematic and sustained man of the cloth supposedly cogpenses, then to pretend to the pubover almost ten years, nizant of the commandment lic that he had repaid them out of on truth itself.” “thou shalt not bear false withis own pocket, then to attempt to ness.” block, shut down or rewrite a confidential audit, then finally to rewrite a Senate committee And then again, there’s Conrad Black, quite comfortable report so as to absolve Duffy of any fault.” How betrayed with Stephen Harper’s “remarkable record.” Over almost Harper must have felt, Coyne elaborates, to discover “the ten years, “he helped bring us from a five to a three-party whole affair was a lie” and that “everyone knew.” Every- system, reduced the public sector share of spending markone, of course, “but him.” edly, has cleaned up immigration without reactionary or impudent measures, and generally provided good governThen, almost gleefully, the article goes on to twist the ment.” Dismissing “what may emerge from the Duffy knife. “Imagine the humiliation, to have been played for a patsy in this way,” Coyne in supposed solemnity intones trial” as of little or no importance, Black responds by advising Harper to – would you believe? – appoint twenty “ – him, Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada – and more senators! After his track record of appointments! what is more, for the whole world to know it.” Then, in a moment of unmasking, the real point of it all. “Would an- So there we have it. A journalist, a clergyman, and a Brityone respect him now? Could he carry on as leader, if he ish Lord of the Realm. All very reputable members of sowere not master even of his own office?” Yeah, right. ciety cheerfully advising the electorate to ignore the revelations of the Duffy trial, to disregard the majority of How can he carry on, day after day standing in front of a podium brandishing a blue sign emblazoned in white cap- pesky editorial writers (including a couple of their own colleagues) who insist those revelations are important, ital letters “LEADERSHIP,” while he tries to convince the nation he knew absolutely nothing at all about a super- and – above all else – to get out there and raise your tawdry sustained plot covering up significant fraud evolv- voices in support of the much-maligned Prime Minister of Canada. Cue Mr. Earl Cowan, the mad motormouth of ing out of his own office over the better part of an entire YouTube fame. After a campaign event in Etobicoke, year? End joke. There is no way around the ugly reality, Cowan was so infuriated with the CBC’s Hannah implied but most deliberately not stated, at this juncture. Either voters will conclude that Harper has shamelessly Thibedeau and the CTV’s Laurie Graham for pressing directed the entire scam and subsequently most brazenly Harper about issues arising from the Duffy trial that …/ 16 dialogue
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www.dialogue2.ca
Wilf Cude, Relentlessly Assaulting Truth Itself, contd.
almost ten years, on truth itself. It began under the most he confronted the two journalists in an inchoate spasm of puzzling guise almost as soon as Harper took office, with hateful rage. “Duffy is nothing!” he bellowed at the two. the apparently pointless cancellation of the mandatory “Nothing!” Then, turning on Graham, he accused her of long census form. There seemed to be absolutely no need cheating on her income taxes. Without pausing to hear to so radically reconfigure the existing system with a her spluttered protest, he rounded off with this ugly somewhat more cosmetic optional version, and yet the blast: “You are a piece of shit!” Caught on camera Harperites manufactured a crisis where none existed and and promptly going viral, it provoked John Ivison of the killed the mandatory form. The head of Statistics Canada, National Post to depict what happened as “an outburst dismayed at the potential damage to accurate reporting of that will confirm for many the impression that Stephen the nation’s social structure, resigned in protest: and now, Harper leads a nasty party, backed by a zombie army of close to ten years later, we can grasp the real motive bethe unthinking.” But quite possibly not. Indeed, quite hind the move. The optional form has only been returned probably not. by those who have time and resources to do so. That includes many comfortable folk in Harper’s base, but it exWhat is the fundamental difference – the unacceptably vile manner of the Etobicoke outburst aside – between the cludes many among the poor and working poor who have other and far more painful problems to address. Conseopinions of Earl Cowan and those of Colby Cosh, Father quently, our Canada now (fraudulently) describes itself as Raymond J. De Souza and Conrad Black? All four are completely oblivious to contrary evidence, and no amount more affluent, which bolsters Harper’s claim to economic prowess: but it does so by muting the only statistical voice of such evidence will ever cause any of of the poor and working poor, them, not one of the sophisticated jourand by subtly tearing away at the …Harper will inevitably nalists nor especially the bellowing unfabric of truth itself. sophisticate, to change his mind. “leave Canada more “We can be blind to the obvious,” Danignorant than he found it.” Never mind reality in Harperworld. These people, like the iel Kahneman wrote in his deservedly neo-con US Republicans who acclaimed psychological study Thinkcreated the prevailing North American template for them ing, Fast and Slow, “and we are also blind to our blindness.” When it comes to our fixed opinions, be it religion, to adapt, have set out to change reality – at least in the public mind. That became obvious with Harper’s singleeconomics or politics, not many of us have the flexibility to change our minds. Instead, we rally all the resources of minded economic focus on Canada’s resource industries, principally the oil sands development of his home provrationalization to bolster our fixed opinions, reducing the ince of Alberta and home to the hardest core of his base. impact of contrary evidence or eliminating it altogether. Any government research having any application to cliThat is what was so astonishing about my conservative mate change or other environmental concerns was slated friend, and John Robson, and perhaps Andrew Coyne as for dismantling, lest the public begin to question the cost well: they have allowed the contrary evidence to register, of planetary degradation underlying the fiscal direction of and to prompt them to contemplate alternatives. But they our Dear Leader. are striking exceptions to the norm, and Stephen Harper Research facilities ranging from the Arctic to northern need not worry about losing the overall support of his Ontario were closed. Fisheries and Oceans libraries were base: having them secure behind him, he knows he must shuttered. The books contained in those libraries ended reach beyond them, as he did in the last election, to swing up in dumpsters, with no accounting for what was jettienough undecided voters behind him once again. soned or why. Key programs were terminated abruptly, Can he do that? with internationally respected scientists being laid off in Yes, maybe he can. The most terrifying thing about this droves, forced to take their taxpayer funded expertise off election is the totally unacknowledged threat it poses to to other countries in pursuit of their vital studies. The our entire democracy. For the Harper government is much-thinned body of remaining civil service professionunique in our country’s history since Confederation, in als were placed under gag orders, forbidden to discuss that it is the only one – repeat, the only one – to make its any elements of their work without approval from the core priority a relentless assault on truth itself. Not just an Prime Minister’s Office. And even left-leaning think assault on other politicians, nor on other political parties, tanks like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives nor on other political or economic ideas or policies. But were subjected to expensive, disruptive and blatantly an assault, deliberate, systematic and sustained over punitive audits from the Canada Revenue, while …/ www.dialogue2.ca
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Wilf Cude, Relentlessly Assaulting Truth Itself, contd.
similar right-leaning outfits like the Fraser Institute were left undisturbed. It all has a scary hint of the Third Reich about it. That hint was driven home through the passage of the Orwellian-named Fair Elections Act, which in its conception and implementation is the ultimate reversal of fair. Shepherded through Parliament by the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, Pierre Poilievre, a man described by Dan Leger of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald as being born “without the genetic trigger that in most of us produces shame,” the act in truth does nothing more than yield (again in the words of Dan Leger) “the molar-grinding irony of a set of unfair changes to electoral laws.” At a time when voter turnout is scandalously low, this legislation actually forbids Elections Canada to promote voting: the trick here is that the Conservative base is more hardened to the taint of corruption now enveloping the Tories, and is therefore less likely to drop out on election day. And by following the US Republicans in adding onerous voter identification requirements at the polling stations, the legislation has targeted people who may not be able meet those requirements, university students, transient workers, aboriginals living off reserve among others: and all, as the available data would suggest, people who would decline to vote Conservative. And remember the robocalls fraud, misdirecting voters listed on Conservative files as opposing the Tories? Only one minor Conservative staffer was held accountable for the scam, although the available evidence very strongly implied the entire effort was far more extensive than that. But not to worry. Since the legislation now effectively prevents Elections Canada from either investigating or prosecuting anything like that again, no such difficulty will ever be noticed. So much for fair, with today’s voting in Canada. And then there’s the great Tory money fix. The Liberal government of Jean Chrétien, seeking to reduce the influence of money in politics, created a public per-vote subsidy to each registered federal political party receiving at least 2% of valid votes in the previous general election. Since that did serve its purpose, Harper schemed to eliminate it, instituting as replacement a personal tax credit that generates an enormous financial advantage for the Conservatives: in 2009 alone, the Conservatives raised $17,702,201, the Liberals far less at $9,060,916, the NDP even farther less at $4,008,521, and the Greens at a minuscule $1,123,094. Not content with that, Harper has amplified his financial advantage most wonderfully by manipulating the current election through making the campaign the longest in recent memory at eleven weeks. 18 dialogue
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It seems a small clause in (you guessed it) the Fair Elections Act allows parties to exceed the campaign spending limit of $25 million if the race lasts longer than the 37 day minimum, in the amount of $675,000 per day. Eleven weeks is seventy-seven days, leaving Mr. Harper’s minions forty full days of excessive spending: that’s tons of money more than the other parties can muster, all to hammer the voters with misinformation and attack ads right up until 19 October. The base will love it. Others might just tune the whole mess out, and neglect to vote. So fundamentally different, and so fundamentally serious, is this election that observers elsewhere are paying close attention. Stephen Marche, a novelist and columnist at Esquire Magazine, wrote a sombre appraisal for the New York Times of what is unfolding here. Entitled “The Closing of the Canadian Mind,” the piece sketches out Harper’s “slow-motion erosion” of our nation’s reputation “for open, responsible government.” Describing the Prime Minister’s “relationship to the press” as “one of outright hostility,” Mr. Marche remarks that “in the usual give-and-take between press and politicians, the hurlyburly of any healthy democracy,” Harper has “simply removed the give.” In addition to his fetish for secrecy, Harper has launched a “war against science” directed towards “protecting petrochemical companies from having their feelings hurt by any inconvenient research.” One result is outstandingly daunting. “Mentions of federal climate change research in the Canadian press have dropped 80 percent.” Then there is the trashing of the long census form, and the robocalls scandal, and of course that “law with a classically Orwellian title” the Fair Elections Act, salient features of “the politics of wilful ignorance.” Concluding that “whether or not he loses,” Mr. Marche argues Harper will inevitably “leave Canada more ignorant than he found it.” Hence, “the real question for the coming election is a simple but grand one: do Canadians like their country like that?” Great question. See you on October 19th. Sincerely, Wilfred Cude, BA (RMC), MA (Dalhousie) ********* Biographical note: Wilfred Cude is the author of A Due Sense of Differences (1981), The Ph.D. Trap (1987), The Ph.D. Trap Revisited (2001). His latest book is Weapons of Mass Disruption, An Academic Whistleblower’s Tale. (2014) He has lectured at seven different colleges and universities across the country. His next literary venture will be an account of the 1933-34 NHL Season, in which his goaltending father Wilf Cude Sr. helped bring the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup final. Wilf Jr. lives with his wife, the novelist Mary Pat Cude, in a small house they built in rural Cape Breton on the shore of the Loch Bras D'Or. WEBSITE: www.wilfredcude.com ♣ www.dialogue2.ca
The federal government’s imprudent financial record From Norm: Harper has been in power 9 years. He has
increased the debt by $131 billion since taking office 3200 days ago or so. Do the math – and if I am right, it seems our brilliant leader has been spending about $39 million bucks a day more than he had: every day since taking office. Comment by Erik Andersen: Just in case someone is in doubt about Norm's thoughts (above), the amounts taken from the Auditor General's reports for 2006 through to 2013 (year ending Mar. 31, 2014) for the Canadian Government's net financial debt (Table 12) are $514 billion in 2006 and $678 billion in 2013. That is an increase of 30% or $164 billion over 8 years or $20.5 billion in each year or $56 million each day, I think or close enough.
The Government cannot have much to brag about with this imprudent financial record. If one wishes to quarrel take it up with the AG. ♣ ***********************************
The F-35, Scam of the Century This should be an election issue but it won’t be. Too dangerous for a Canadian political leader to speak against this. – Stephanie McDowall The F-35 is the largest weapons program in history: “However, the 65 aircraft ordered by Canada would likely cost a staggering $ 1.5 billion USD per aircraft over 40 years.” (2007 estimate) [link follows…] LINK: www.voltairenet.org/article185088.html ♣
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Canadian voters should be more than micro-targets (Article by Susan Delacourt (June 19, 2015, thestar.com)
of the popular vote.”
“Rather than try to assemble a mass-market base of support when the old right-wing parties merged, the new Conservative party went looking for pockets of voters in selected regions, where a few votes here and there could shift a seat in their party’s direction. “That’s micro-targeting. It works really well in a firstpast-the-post, winner-take-all system. It would not work if governments were elected based on their proportion
LINK: www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/06/19/canadiansvoters-should-be-more-than-microtargets-delacourt.html
…/
“We are the only party that is prepared to go into a parliament that is a minority and make it work.” … “It’s well past time that political parties got out of the way of good government.” – Elizabeth May (2015 National Post interview) ♣ [Recd.
from Stephanie McDowall, Nanaimo]
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A dialogue about the big 3 political parties Derek Skinner, Victoria BC Interesting comment on Jack Etkin's Citizens Forum, Jack Etkin and Walter McGinnis segment, taped Aug. 4th, 2015. “The three major Parties all use the same PR firm to develop and broadcast their platform.” Thus one corporation can tweek each presentation to raise or lower public acceptance. It was also said that “the same PR firm that handed the NDP plurality to the Liberals in the last BC election is now in Ottawa working for the Federal NDP.” Every Party has to be asked. Which PR firm do you use? – Derek, dandjskinner@shaw.ca ♣ Comment by Bob Hansen, Ladysmith BC That's really odd, and not something I would have thought the parties would allow, if they want to be independent and run their own campaign without any possibility of interference. Very curious. – Bob ♣ Comment from Paul Stein <pstein11@mac.com> Is anyone really surprised that the corruption is this www.dialogue2.ca
deep? Could it be that our political system is a total fraud (based on historical lies) and we (the people) are the only one's supporting it by continually voting for these liars and deceivers? I’m not a supporter of the idea of voting for the "lesser of two evils" or having anyone be my "leader." And I’m not too sure where it says that my inalienable human rights are void if I don't vote. The truth hurts and doing the same thing (voting for the next-best guy) over and over and over yet continually getting the same results (corruption/deception/lies/war/ mass debt) is madness!! I support change, but voting for a different colour suit that Santa wears is also madness! That’s just my two debt-based cents... – Paul ♣ Comment from Gerry Masuda, Duncan BC Our current political system set up by and used to maintain the power of the elites. It is a top down power structure where power is retained by the elites at the top. Consider the concept introduced by the Occupy Movement. The 1%ers and We the 99%ers. Based on the …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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democratic principle of every citizen having a vote, We the 99%ers have an overwhelming voting power. We can now think of reversing the traditional top down power structure with a new revolutionary bottom up structure where the power lies and remains with We the 99%ers within a structure that extends upward to the federal level. Those at the top of this reversed power pyramid would be directed and held accountable by We the 99%ers. I sense that We the 99%ers could focus and unite a critical mass of 99%ers by using a consensus approach to define what We the People Want and Don't Want. This could be represented in the Two Lists: our Want and Don't Want lists. The Two Lists can be used to unite and educate We the 99%ers and would form the basis for the People's Party election platform. The Two Lists, in addition to its use as a vehicle to educate the public, would have an additional vital function. They would be used to impose accountability on our elected representatives who subscribe to The Two Lists. In this way, We the 99%ers continue to control our
elected representatives of The Two Lists, including the party leader, through use of these Lists. Comments? – Gerry [ gerry.masuda@gmail.com ] ♣ Further comment from Derek Skinner It’s a beautiful idea Gerry, I see three steps or levels of implementation. 1. Education via the alternate media because the public system and the MSM will not promote it. 2. Prop. Rep. by individuals, not Parties, because some candidates will support this aspect and others will support that part of the Lists. 3. Some sort of administrative control to effect whatever is the consensus
All very similar to the Third Universal Theory for a new democratic society proposed by Gaddafi (the Jamahiriya*) and which was working quite well but really annoyed the Western Powers. – Derek ♣ * Libyan Jamahiriya was a direct democracy without any political parties, governed by its populace through local popular councils and communes [See Wikipedia - http://tinyurl.com/W-Lib-Jamah ] ♣
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Canada’s current political system Maurice King, Nanaimo BC It is obvious that the electorate of democratic countries have allowed their control of the political systems in their countries to be subverted, with the help of the news media, by Corporations and Special Interest Groups. These groups accomplished their control through the establishment of political parties that not only centralized the selection of candidates in local areas but also created the perception of an all-powerful leader.
By placing the emphasis on the Leader of a party and emphasizing the idea that an election was held for the purpose of selecting one of the Party Leaders to be the government undermines the importance of a candidate’s qualifications and they are elected solely on the basis of who their Leader is. At the same time, political party conventions have been made major media events. The election of a Party Leader by a small number of partisan electors provides the Corporations and Special Interest groups with the
opportunity to exercise their influence. Meanwhile policy resolutions become simply a mirage created according to polls that suggest what would appeal to voters while their implantation is left to the discretion of the Leader following his election. What is required – to begin to have an electorate with meaningful democratic control of our political system – is the need to have candidates who are selected freely in their constituencies and if elected are not whipped into following the dictates of a Party Leader but rather allowed to represent their electorate. The elected members of the legislature should elect their Leader. This process would make the Party Leader responsible to the elected members of a Party and not to a Party elite controlled by Corporations or Special Interest Groups. Members of Parliament must also be elected by a majority of the voters. The present "First past the post" means of electing a representative is less than democratic. – Maurice, maurice.king@shaw.ca ♣
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INTERESTING COMMENT POSTED TO PETER EWART’S ARTICLE, FULL CIRCLE (See p.8) Comment posted Aug. 17, 2015, by Eagleone his powers of appointment to appoint senators to be used at 250news.com (See the link at the bottom of p.8) for electioneering and fund raising events, all the while Firstly the Duffy trial is not about Duffy and his expensing their costs to the tax payer. This was under the expenses, although that is technically what he is on trial full knowledge and direction of the PMO and gave an for. The real scandal here that the Prime Minster used unfair advantage during the last election showing …/ 20 dialogue
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not just the corruption of a governing party, but rather the corruption of the democratic process. It should not be forgot that the Duffy scandal is about using tax dollars to pervert and steal our elections for private partisan interests. And on the issue of our failing democracy. With the inclusion of international settlement tribunals in our trade agreements we no longer have a democracy... they out sourced the decision making to the City of London bankers. Our constitution has been sidelined and our democracy has a new master. When our democracy began we didn't have political parties in the legislature, and in BC we didn't get political parties for nearly a half century. The notion of political parties themselves was seen as a form of enabling corruption. The political parties themselves was an outgrowth of international forces on our democracy... first in business and then socially. If we want to take back our democracy from the shadows, then we need to dis-empower the party system and its hold on power.
I see the proportional representation system as a form of guaranteeing political party power over our system, so I strongly oppose that form of electing representatives to power. I am encouraged to see the NDP electing their local nominees via the transferable ballot as an endorsement of a truly democratic way of running an election process. I think the way to take the power out of the party system is for the first step to implement the transferable ballot process for local representation. This allows for more candidates with a viable chance at getting elected and thus running... giving choice to the voter and thus no clear winner on the first ballot, and therefore a consensus chance for any candidate to clear the 50% majority. Once we have elected representatives that owe their election victory to their local riding, rather than the party, we can use a sovereign government to empower the legislature to appoint positions based on parliamentary votes rather than party appointments. Corruption would then have no place to hide and no patron to protect them from their crimes. – “Eagleone” ♣
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Veterans declare war on Harper A National Observer article (#35 from the Special Report, Canada’s 2015 Federal Election, by Fram Dinshaw, Aug. 13, 15 [LINK follows] This article quotes Veteran Ronald Clarke, with more than 35 years in the army – and who has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – who has been advocating in Canada on behalf of returning military suffering from PTSD. [Quoting the article:] Clark is fighting another battle – to throw Stephen Harper out of office in the 2015 Election. Clarke is angered by cuts to vital services that have left some former service people struggling. The Anyone But Conservative (ABC) Canadian Veterans Campaign 2015 will be targeting swing ridings as well as areas with military bases. The campaign will be launching an Indiegogo fundraiser to garner donations. Already, the group is drawing support on Facebook through a page that now has roughly 10,000 ‘likes.' …
Anyone But Conservatives ABC - Canadian Veterans Campaign 2015 [ https://www.facebook.com/VoteABC2015 ]
July 30, 2015: “Because of the impact the Veteran ABC campaign is having online, we are coming under attack. That's to be expected because we are pointing out how the Conservative government has mistreated many Veterans. Some of their supporters don't like to hear true stories of the Harper government’s disrespect for Veterans. Some of the attacks are also likely coming from paid Conservative staff members (trolls) who are paid by tax dollars! (There was a major television exposé about this, noted elsewhere on our page). We expect more untrue attacks on The ABC Facebook group. These attacks mean we are having an impact. And showing voters the true nature of the Harper Government’s treatment of our war heroes. If you need any information, please contact me: nbveterans@bellaliant.net.” ♣
ARTICLE: http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/008/13/news/veterans-declare-war-harper ♣
From Rabble.ca
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Election 2015 Alerts This week's top election news, featuring views, reviews and dispatches from across Canada. For more on the election, visit our topic page: LINK: http://rabble.ca/issues/elections ♣
www.dialogue2.ca
NP compendium of Party platforms, records, promises:
National Post: “Everything you need to know about the
parties' platforms, from taxes and terrorism to the environment.” (sub-divided by subject, with videos of each of the four leaders) LINK: http://tinyurl.com/NP2015parties [Received from S. McDowall]
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A Woman’s Write By Marion Urquhart Charkow, Flesherton ON A federal election is looming or is that the wrong verb? Should we say, "it will soon be upon us." That sounds sinister too. Perhaps, as women, we should express our delight in once more going to the polls to cast our vote although the choice is limited. Think about our mothers and grandmothers who were considered non-persons with no right to select the leaders who would govern them and make such archaic laws. I can recall my first vote in 1956. I, and my then husband, were living at my parents’ home in Toronto as we built a home in the country. Oh yes, at eighteen I was allowed to marry, the biggest decision I would make in my life, but I wasn't allowed to vote or drink until I reached twentyone. I didn't complain, it wasn't that long ago that women were mere chattel with no rights. I hadn't a clue about politics but trusted my Dad's advice, after all he worked at the Evening Telegram and kept abreast of such things, so on his advice I voted CCF. I'm glad to say I am much better informed these days.
I was, as a young widow, a few years later, to become the tax collector and Treasurer of my small rural local government and it was then I attended my first council meeting. It was a far cry from the shenanigans shown on our evening news of large city agendas, instead I was introduced to caring, honest, dedicated civil servants with gracious decorum. I am appalled at what happens today in all level of government, the senate enquiry, sexual harassment graft, overspending, falsehoods, the list goes on. One wonders if we should bother voting at all, will we change anything? Of course, we should, especially as women, remembering our dear sisters who fought so hard to gain women the vote. We must never return to the status of chattel being no more important and maybe less so than the milk cow in the barn. So as I have been doing since my daughter reached that magical voting age, exhorting her and her friends to "Exercise your franchise". May the best woman win!! ♣
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Election Day
“The Fifth Columnist”
Michael Neilly, Dunrobin ON Election Day. I know it’s our right to vote. You should vote and vote often, recalling Rhett Butler’s line in Gone with the Wind, “You should be kissed and often and by someone who knows how.” The thing is, I know that whomever we vote for, the outcome will be roughly the same. An addiction to growth to the detriment of the environment. And the ruinous policy that the federal government should borrow from private interests and not from the Bank of Canada. Apparently we owe some 500 billion dollars and run an annual deficit of around 50 billion, depending upon the barometric pressure and how the books are juggled. I’m not even bothering to look this up, because it is whatever they say it is. You would think that something that is absolutely killing this country, sucking a full 1/3 of all government revenues just to pay interest on the debt, would be of paramount concern. You would think that something that is absolutely lethal, the pollution of air, water and earth, the very things we need to survive, would be at the top of the election agenda. 22 dialogue
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Recently a message supposedly from aliens appeared on YouTube: Do you wish that we show up? It’s a 30 minute video with a slightly distorted, female voice reading a script full of just enough errors to make you believe it was not an English speaker, interspersed with beautiful pictures, suggesting that a quiet revolution (“a world-wide referendum”) was needed to topple the corrupt, vested interests now ruling this planet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PafHJZ2Itk). But only if you want. As Gilles Duceppe once said in a federal election debate, “We’re not better. We’re just different.” And in this extraterrestrial message, we get something along the same lines: “We are your equals in the cosmic brotherhood.” I had three thoughts when I saw this video: a) It's a hoax. After all, it’s on YouTube. Wouldn’t aliens write this profound message on stone tablets or in the sky, wreathed in flames? b) The government is assessing the threat of a revolution by monitoring those who read and forward the message (you would never forward a message in which you didn’t believe). I can just see the folks at the National Security Agency (NSA) …/ www.dialogue.ca
or the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE) noting those who crave the collapse of the existing world order. c) The message is real, the aliens mean it and are just exploiting the easiest way to talk to us (without paying advertising fees). Seriously though, if Jesus Christ showed up today, how would he communicate with us? Would he appear in malls, mountain tops or talk shows? No matter what, he would be attacked. So maybe the choice of YouTube is inspired. We can say in one breath that this is a giant hoax; that some shadowy Illuminati group is seeking to impose world government on us under the guise of an offer for superior beings to show up and guide us. That what is being proposed is Communism. Paradoxically, this message resonates with us, because deep in our hearts we know that something is wrong with our civilization, which is based on a market that sells tomorrow’s garbage and doesn’t care that what we need to live, to drink and to breathe will inevitably be corrupted in the process, as long as its rapacious needs are met. You’ve all seen the election advertisements (attack ads). Everything is reduced to sound bites, slogans, and so forth. Justin just isn’t ready. Well, evidently he’s just discovered that there is a middle class. I can’t believe that suddenly the NDP, home of unions and the disaffected, knows either. One E. May, too, has drunk the middle class Kool-Aid, appearing very reasonable, dare I say it, almost presidential. Unlike the aforementioned converts though, Prime Minister Harper says that we need pipelines and oil sands, but won’t say for how long. I’d say for a while at least, to power our jet liners, heat our homes (surely
Canadians’ biggest concern during the six months with snow on the ground), at least until there are clean, viable, cost-effective alternatives! Will Justin take the Graf Zeppelin to Paris? Will Canadian seniors all pop for a $30,000 geothermal heat solution when their oil and gas furnaces expire? I think not. But these two things mysteriously buried outside of the election narrative – the federal government borrowing from private interests and our licence to grow and pollute – they are at the very heart of our problem, the world’s problem. Consuming, borrowing, burning, killing. We tell ourselves that we are free, that we are individuals, but we are enslaved to a psychopathic marketplace, a devilish machine that engages us in a vocation that in time can only poison each and every one of us. Looking at May, Mulcair, Trudeau and Harper, nobody will dare say that in 20 years, Canada will be hydrogen-based, or Canada will live within its means, or Canada will not grow at the expense of our environment. This eventually has to happen. So I wish that they would show up. You know who I mean. Because I can count on each and every one of these jokers (er, candidates) to do absolutely nothing once “Ottawashed”… I wish that they would show up. You know who I mean. The Beothuk, the Wendat, their cultures were destroyed when they engaged an “advanced” civilization some 500 years ago, when European ships first appeared on their shores. So it’s naïve to think that when superior beings show up here, now, that we will continue with the old ways. Still, on election day, I wish that they would show up. Fervently. You know who I mean. – Mike Neilly, Dunrobin ON ♣
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Wild Salmon People
BC government approves four new coastal salmon farms Alexandra Morton, Sointula, Gwayum'dzi On Friday, July 31st, before the long weekend, the BC government ignored 100,000 people, Fraser River Nations and local fishermen and granted four new salmon farms access to the BC coast.
http://www.gofundme.com/isk8bw
This is what the industry needed from BC to keep their shareholders happy, as Norway and Chile are not growing due to sea lice, bacteria and drug over-use.
It would seem that we have to be relentless in our efforts to keep this world alive in the face of government cowardice and stupidity. They cannot see what is truly valuable. I certainly wish that my news was better, but please know I will never give up, wild salmon are just too important. - Alexandra Morton, gorbuscha@gmail.com
Please consider helping me stay in this fight.
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com
LINK: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com
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“Prévoyance”
Observations from Erik Andersen, Economist (Gabriola Island BC)
Wealth transfer via the P3 model BC Hydro: sales record, financial fitness do not support building Site C dam of physical product sold to domestic users during the last July 20, 2015: The just released BC fiscal year decreased by 3.4 per cent, yet revenue from Hydro Annual Report for the year ending March 31, 2015 shows British those sales actually increased by 6.6 per cent. The paradox BC Hydro has created for itself is one of trying to Columbia sales (domestic only) were Erik Andersen sell more product at the very same time demand is 3.4 per cent less than in 2014. The shrinking because of global economic weakness and power demand volume over the same period, as meascustomer response to ever higher electricity rates. ured in gigawatt hours (GWhrs), was 51,213, or about the same as it was a decade ago. It is impossible to see this as a winning business strategy Is there a need for Site C? and of no value whatever as a support for building more For many years now, the Government of B.C. and BC generation capacity in BC. Hydro have both claimed a new dam on the Peace River As if that were not enough, we now read that the “Reguwas essential in order to meet a growing demand for latory Asset Accounts” stand at a record high of $5.714 electricity by B.C. businesses and citizens. In 2006, for billion. Starting about a decade ago the BC Hydro Board example, Hydro forecast a domestic demand of 57,201 and managers began making aggressive use of an acGWhrs by 2012 and 63,865 GWhrs by 2018 – a comcounting ruse only available to corporations reporting to bined forecasting error of about 10,000 GWhrs for the a Public Utilities Commission. 2015/16 years. Since 2006, year in arrears It is alleged that Site C will generate about 4,000 GWhrs Up to 2006, all capital investments were expensed in the per year and cost close to $9 billion to build. Therefore, current year. That process created a symmetrical relathe 10,000 GWhrs error is the same as making a borrow- tionship between needed capital investment and the rate ing/spending error of about $20 bilstructure used to recover inlion. As recently as 2011, BC Hydro vestment expenses from BC The underlying political philosophy still failed to acknowledge its own Hydro customers. practiced by both governments – evidence of declining sales and the BC and Fed. – in the last decade or Since 2006, some non-exmore general malaise of weakening two has been about wealth transfer pensed investments have acglobal economies and scale back its from the many to the few cumulated in what Hydro’s outlook for domestic demand. … facilitated by the P3 model accountants designate as, In 2011, the corporation forecast an “Regulatory Asset Acabsolute need for 67,457 GWhrs by 2017, less than two counts.” In this fashion, those amounts may – or may years hence. That is a mind-blowing forecasting error of not – become “receivables” at some unspecified future about 15,000 GWhrs or an equivalence of $30 billion. date. Revenues exaggerated & expenses minimized Former B.C. Auditor General John Doyle disapproved If the provincial government and BC Hydro wish to reof this strategy but was overruled and has since left B.C. main oblivious to the ongoing effects of the global imToday, the regulatory asset account sits at a record high plosion of 2008/09, that will not change reality. This wil- of $5.714 billion which, coincidentally, matches the total ful avoidance of reality shows up regularly in the annual annual revenue BC Hydro currently collects from rategovernment and Hydro budgets. Revenues are exaggerpayers. As Hydro customers you are currently one year ated and expenses are minimized. A near decade of eviin arrears. Yet if this so-called asset category were redence has just been an inconvenience in their political moved, Hydro would be close to if not actually in a negdetermination to build a third dam in the fertile Peace ative equity position. River Valley. Can’t borrow $9 Billion The BC Hydro way of desperately trying to stay solvent It is impossible to believe that successive BC Hydro exis to do what all monopolies do – increase rates. ecutives and managers could be so financially and ecoAs stated previously, Hydro’s data show that the amount nomically illiterate as to allow the corporation slide …/ 24 dialogue
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Prévoyance, Erik Andersen, contd. into this deplorable condition and then continue to borrow and spend another $9 billion to build a third Peace River dam for which no sound business, agricultural or environmental case can be made. [Erik’s article also appeared Aug. 3, 2015, at The ECOreport: http://theecoreport.com/bc-hydro-is-one-year-in-arrears/ ] ♣ *************
GDP, P3s & current political practices In response to a question from Bob Hansen: So why is the B.C. Government pushing for Site C if we don’t need this additional Hydro power in the near future?
Erik Andersen: I can't say I know the motives for the financial mis-management strategies of both the Federal and provincial governments, but I can offer an idea or two. The typical propaganda used by these government is to frame the financial affairs into relationships with GDP. GDP is derived two ways. First is to total all expenditures in each year in each jurisdiction. Thus the more the borrowing and spending by sectors of the economy the bigger the GDP and therefore the lower all ratios that use the GDP as the divisor. A second way of determining GDP is by adding up all annual revenues. This number is supposed to match the total of all expenditures and has been known to include exaggerations such as the estimated income from prostitution. In my opinion the calculation of GDP this way is too subjective, but that is an issue to take up with Statistics Canada. As individuals we all have had the experience of debts and ownership of assets. Debts are mostly very precise so there is usually little argument about what is to be paid and when. When it comes to assets, and more specifically their values, the numbers are highly subjective and that is why savvy lenders look for 2 or 3 times collateral coverage when considering the granting of loans and why we require the services of supposedly "INDEPENDENT" auditors. The GDP numbers have some of the same features. The Auditor General and the Credit rating agencies know the total of all obligations, including the contracts such as P3s and IPPs. The BC AG is very cute as he/she does not call IPP and P3 contracts formal debt, these are called "Contingencies and contractual obligations" in the AG's report. The Credit rating agencies do consider these contracts and guarantees because Moody's said it does. The underlying political philosophy practiced by both
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governments – BC and Fed. – in the last decade or two has been about wealth transfer from the many to the few. Whether this was deliberate or not could be debated but the reports by the Credit Swiss economists, outlying the growing global concentration of wealth, makes the development undeniable and suspect. The vehicles used by ‘the few’ are numerous. About 20 years ago a high powered New York firm set out how the P3 industry was a designed to serve this wealth transfer model. Again nobody was sent to jail or fined yet the report made it so obvious there was cause. In fact our Federal government made it a condition when seeking federal money that projects had to be P3s. In the case of the Site C project, the provincial government prohibited the BCUC involvement simply because it did not wish to have a NO. Now the project should not matter one bit to the citizens of BC –because the evidence demonstrates that, for the last 8 years or so and into the future, there is no credible case for need. That leaves us asking then who is to benefit? A (now-deceased) friend, who was an officer at the BCUC, used to say, at every occasion, conservation could deliver several Site C equivalents. Clearly the construction/engineering sectors and the banking sector all lust after more. There seems no limit to the allure for politicians when it comes to spending more money. If they ever came to the legislature as financially cautious folks, it got left at the door. It is hard to have the "Trump" swagger if you are only saying no to spending money, but no problem when it is the opposite situation. A ‘willingness to spend money’ – even if you don't have it and have to borrow – attracts a virtual host of parasites who become the politicians’ best of friends. These become the natural constituents of the politicians and this gets re-enforced by financial support from these folks, euphemistically referred to as industry lobbyists. In my opinion the Site C project is only a part of the wealth concentration/transfer process that got underway in the 80s. The obvious collateral at risk right now are the legacy dams, the fresh water collection systems in the province and the natural monopoly held by BC Hydro over 90% of the province's population and businesses. Those are big targets to lust after so they help define what the citizens of BC are up against. Hope this helps a little; sorry if it’s a little rambling. - Erik Andersen, Economist ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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The gaming of unsuspecting taxpayers: How the electricity infrastructure game is played… From Erik Andersen, FYI: Just in case there are folks who need to remember how the electricity infrastructure expansion game is played in western Canada (and elsewhere?). Building Site C (in BC) is just an extension to this gaming of the unsuspecting taxpayer and includes the removal of any independent over-sight by taking all project decisions into the cabinet where SNC Lavalin holds sway. – Erik From 2011, TheTyee.ca:
Wikileaks Shines Light on Alberta's $16-Billion Electricity Scandal [EXTRACT-LINK] Critics of Alberta's program to build a $16-billion electricity transmission system without public need studies have called for a major judicial inquiry on the massive taxpayer funded project following new revelations from U.S. embassy cables released by Wikileaks. Cables sent from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa in 2003 and 2008 show that Alberta politicians offered to export power to the United States using excess electricity generated by oil sands facilities. Shortly after the last cable the Alberta government proposed a massive upgrade to its existing $2-billion transmission system.
Yet no other jurisdiction in Canada has proposed to build eight times its existing transmission infrastructure at taxpayers' expense with no public needs assessments. Nor has any other province proposed to give away that very infrastructure to two private transmission companies (Atco and AltaLink) along with a promised rate of return of nine per cent. "The cables show that the government was going to export power all along and lied about what they were doing with transmission upgrades," says Joe Anglin, a former U.S. Marine and long-time advocate for electrical reform in Alberta. "The cables are the hammer that nails all the supporting evidence together," says Anglin. "We need a full judicial inquiry." Because many Alberta government officials repeatedly told Albertans that its unprecedented program to spend $16-billion in upgrades were all about "keeping the lights on," Anglin also suspects that many officials may also be guilty of perjury. […] Continue at: http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/05/26/WikileaksAlbertaElectricity/ ♣
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"Grist for the Mill"
Ed Goertzen, Oshawa ON
The Ruling Power – and the power (and profit) of ruling One of the biggest problems in our malfunctioning democracy is that too few voters know the reason the ruling political parties never have a debt after being elected. Much is said about the debts of the losing parties but any mention of the largess enjoyed by the winning party is left unsaid. It should be noted that political parties are corporations posing as representing the voters. It should also be noted that no political parties represent voters more than they represent corporations. It is not for naught that the collection of income taxes from individuals is farmed out, but the profit taxation of corporations is kept “in house’ by the Ruling political party. Since kept in house, it is up to the ministry of revenue to write off, or not, the taxes owed by corporations. Much of the money spent by political parties is in the form of pledges. 26 dialogue
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Those pledges are collectable by political parties with majorities, but not by the losing parties. The hidden power lies in the power of the administration to direct the invocation – or not – of the laws. The reason that businesses and corporations are so adamantly opposed to the left-of-center political parties – which traditionally represent voters more than corporations – is that they are fully aware of the laws that majority governments have available to invoke. It has been reported that for every dollar a government spends for hiring auditors of corporations, it can collect an increase of seven dollars of profit revenue. It is not for naught that the taxation of corporations is kept ‘in house’ by the Ruling party, with the additional power of ‘forgiving’ tax debts. Additionally, with the collection of taxes on profits “in house”, the public is unaware of the extent to which tax revenue is forgiven as being uncollectable. Another exceptional power the Rulers have is the
…/
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Ed Goertzen, The Power & Profit of Ruling, contd. appointment to the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) of innumerable ‘kids in short pants.’ Additionally, the Rulers have freehand to appoint to the Privy Council (PCO) those who share their ideology. Few are aware that the Privy Council is where the Prime Minister finds his experts in the laws they administer for the Cabinet Minister.
In addition to the above, the cabinet can make new regulations under existing laws. As example, if a businessman wants to import a trailer load of television sets which are liable to import taxes, a regulatory change that exempts television sets can be put in place. After the load of TV’s is imported, the mistake is discovered and the regulation re-imposed resulting in a neat profit for the businessman. The ability to change regulations and the power to invoke or not invoke the laws is a major source of revenue for the rulers. And why is it that political parties that win parliamentary majorities, and even some governing administrations that only obtain are minorities, never complain about their debt? In politics perception is reality. With political party credibility rating just a little higher than the percentage achieved by the media, voters are aware that there has to be corruption. But where is it, and why is it not prosecuted? To fathom the depth of the problem, it is important to fathom the partisan political process, which filters money to the political parties. If a person wants a government's involvement to solve a problem, a person has to first of all approach an elected person. But a person cannot just see an elected person to get an appointment; they are much too busy making laws. The first person they see is the political aide, the
gatekeeper, the "party hack." That aide determines which of the civil servants or departments is responsible to look after the problem in order to obtain an appointment. Then comes the key question; how important is it to the person to have the problem looked after, and how urgent is it? That key question introduces – and produces – the proverbial "stuffed envelope" for the servicing of the political party debt; and this is the reason opposition parties are in debt after an election, but winning parties are not. Elected persons do not even see the envelope, let alone knowing that it has been obtained. Of course not, they are all honorable men and women. Another source of political party funding is the banking system. How does that work? We know that banks routinely transfer funds, before taxes, into their reserves. Those reserves are for the purpose of offsetting bad or uncollectable loans. It is also known that political parties find their campaigns with money borrowed from the banks. Does any publicly available registry reveal the amounts chartered banks write off the loans made to political parties? Another power of administering political parties is the "invoking of laws." We have so many laws that every business person lives in dread of attracting the attention of a Ruling political party. We have all heard of the "weight of the law" but it is experienced mostly by business persons. The power to invoke the law or not is another power wielded by the Ruling power. The above information should not be used by anyone in order to obtain special privileges or to avoid necessary consequences. In fact it may not even be true. However, in politics, so they say, perception is reality. ♣
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FROM ED GOERTZEN: REPRINT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: To my knowledge, this news item does not cover the Debts were declared uncollectible because those owing amount of profit taxes the Federal government has writhad died, gone bankrupt, could not be located or lived ten off for the corporations which it administers sepaoutside Canada, according to Canada Revenue Agency rately from Canada Revenue Agency. - Ed Goertzen records obtained under the Access to Information Act In [egoert@interlinks.net] other cases, officials considered it not worth the expense to track down the money owing, or they reached a comTax Agency Writes Off Billions promise settlement with the debtor. Toronto Star, 2015-07-14: Newly released
documents declared debts 'uncollectible' By JIM BRONSKILL - THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA—The federal revenue agency has written off
at least $4 billion in debts in the last two years – including accounts worth more than $10 million, newly released records show. www.dialogue2.ca
The revenue agency says it makes every effort to collect all tax debts from those who do not pay voluntarily. Murray Rankin, the NDFs deputy revenue critic, questioned whether the government is doing enough to collect the substantial sums owed to the federal treasury. "They are not going after international tax debt the …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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way they should be," Rankin said in an interview after reviewing the documents. The outstanding balance in undisputed, unpaid taxes was $29 billion as of March 31, 2012, the federal auditor general reported in a 2013 examination of the issue. According to the latest federal public accounts, the Canada Revenue Agency wrote off $3.4 billion in debts in
2013-14, representing the lion's share of $3.7 billion in total federal writeoffs. The newly disclosed revenue agency records do not align neatly with fiscal years, but span the period from Jan. 12, 2013, through Oct. 10, 2014, when just over $4 billion was written off. ♣
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Harper gov’t appoints Kinder Morgan consultant to NEB From Jordan Ellis, Nanaimo <revjellis@shaw.ca> This is just unbelievable! How did Canada become this “Banana Republic” with Harper as the keeper of all bananas? The next government will have a big agenda changing all his crap back to something resembling sanity.
Article in the National Observer (Aug. 1, 2015) [EXTRACT-LINK] The Harper government chose the Friday afternoon of a long weekend, just before an expected federal election, to controversially appoint a paid Kinder Morgan consultant to the National Energy Board (NEB) in a timed press release that critics say was an attempt to bury the news. Conservative Minister of Natural Resources Greg Rickford issued a Friday 12:30pm EST news release announcing that Calgary-based petroleum executive Steven Kelly will become a full-time board member of the federal agency that helps cabinet decide if oil and gas pipelines go forward. Controversially, Mr. Kelly's consulting firm was hired by Kinder Morgan two years ago to prepare an economic analysis justifying the $5.4-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Mr. Kelly himself, in his capacity of vice president of IHS Global Canada, authored and submitted the 203-page Kinder Morgan report to the National Energy Board. Now, Mr. Kelly will soon sit in a position of power at the NEB, close to those who will rule if that very same Kinder Morgan oil pipeline is in Canada’s economic and environmental interest. A decision is expected in January 2016.
'Incredible conflict of interest' “It’s utterly incredible the Government of Canada would appoint such an industry consultant to a regulatory agency that presumably is interested in the public interest, and not in the interest of multinational oil corporations,” reacted former CEO of BC Hydro, Marc Eliesen on Saturday from Squamish, B.C. "The NEB have totally become a captured industry regulator,” he added. […] Green leader Elizabeth May, campaigning in North Vancouver, reacted to the NEB appointment with amazement: "Wow. Clearly there's a flurry of appointments that Stephen Harper wants to get in place before he goes down in defeat in the election. He's picked people who are of his ideological bent, and are unlikely to provide dispassionate and neutral work on behalf of the people of Canada." Marc Eliesen quit the NEB review of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline last fall in protest, calling the hearing a sham. He suggested that Mr. Kelly’s economic report, in appendix two of the company’s formal evidence, should be immediately revoked. Other high profile departees from the Kinder Morgan hearing, such as ex-public-auto-insurance CEO Robyn Allan,* have similarly criticized the NEB reviews as "rigged" to speed pipeline approvals. LINK- Continue at: http://tinyurl.com/N0-pmo-km-neb ♣
* Article in Dialogue Summer issue, V.28,No.4, p.23 ♣
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Independent Jewish Voices appalled by expanded free trade agreement with Israel OTTAWA, Ontario, July 22, 2015— Independent Jewish Voices – Canada (IJV) is deeply disturbed, yet not surprised, by the Conservative government’s expanded free trade agreement with the Israeli government. We are also disturbed by the silence of the official opposition, NDP, whose responsibility it is to hold the 28 dialogue
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government’s feet to the fire. “Israel is demolishing Palestinians’ homes and expanding its colonies on Palestinian land throughout occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank; it is continuing to dispossess its own Bedouin citizens of their lands and demolishing their homes in the Negev. While Israel also continues to …/ www.dialogue2.ca
collectively punish the Palestinians of Gaza with a crippling blockade after indiscriminately bombing crucial life-sustaining infrastructure and murdering over 2,200 people in the besieged territory last summer, our government is rewarding Netanyahu’s regime,” says Tyler Levitan, spokesperson for IJV. Canada has long identified Israel’s project of colonizing Palestinians’ land throughout East Jerusalem and the West Bank with its illegal Jewish-only settlements as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Our official policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not only identifies this behaviour as a war crime, but goes on to state that “The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.” Meanwhile, Canada is effectively rewarding Israel for its worsening policies in this area, as Israel is expanding these settlements and establishing new ones on land from which Palestinians have been expelled. “It is nothing short of hypocrisy to officially declare an
activity to be a war crime, while simultaneously bending over backwards for the regime which is continuing this behaviour unashamedly,” says Levitan. “If this is considered a war crime, the Canadian government is deeply complicit by enabling the expansion of Israel’s colonies through providing tariff-free imports of their goods in Canada. These goods are even mislabelled ‘made in Israel’ to deceive Canadian consumers.” Canada has also identified that “key opportunities exist for Canadian companies in the area of defense…”in which Canadian companies—through our government’s encouragement— would be assisting a rogue regime in maintaining its nearly 50-year military occupation over a defenceless civilian population. For more information contact: Tyler Levitan Campaigns Coordinator for Independent Jewish Voices – Canada; Email: tyler@ijvcanada.org LINK: http://ijvcanada.org/2015/ijv-appalled-by-expandedfree-trade-agreement-with-israel/ ♣
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YVES ENGLER: ISRAEL/PALESTINE HAS BECOME AN ISSUE IN THE ELECTION DESPITE ATTEMPTS TO KEEP IT OUT LINK: http://tinyurl.com/CTIP-ye1228
The Israel/Palestine issue has become an issue in the Canadian federal election, despite the wishes of the NDP, argues Yves Engler. See video (link above). Yves Engler is a Montreal-based writer and researcher. He is the author “The truth may hurt,” a critical reassessment of the peacekeeping legacy of Lester Pearson. He is also the author of “Canada/Israel: Building Apartheid,” a severe evaluation of Canada’s historical relationship with Israel. According to Engler, Harper’s Conservatives intentionally raised the Israel issue just before the election by announcing the signing of an upgrade to our free trade agreement with Israel. This is something that has very little economic significance, according to Engler, but is dear to some important elements of Harper’s base. The opposition parties would like to avoid debating foreign policy issues at all, feeling that Harper is more exposed on domestic issues. As a result, neither one commented on the trade agreement, despite the fact that
the terms of the agreement include allowing goods from what Canada OFFICIALLY calls “occupied territory” to enter tariff free into the country. For the NDP in particular, however, this is a tricky issue. A significant part of the party’s base, including many of its activist supporters, feels strongly about the issue of human rights for Palestinians. Despite its attempts to keep Israel/Palestine in the background, the NDP has seen the issue pop up unexpectedly as several candidates have been outspoken in their criticisms of Israel. Engler analyses why the Conservatives and the NDP are doing what they do. Engler has made a special effort to understand the evolution of the relationship between Harper’s Conservatives (formerly rather anti-Semitic, or at least unfriendly to Jews) to its current stand. For more on this, see Engler’s longer article in the Huffington Post, in which he explains “How Harper Won the Jewish Vote” [LINK: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/yves-engler/harper-jewish-support_b_7996158.html ] ♣
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UN Report: Israel committed unprecedented devastation and killings in 2014 Gaza War – from The Real News Network, http://therealnews.com Palestine submits thousands of pages documenting Israeli War Crimes to the International Criminal Court; if the prosecutor fails to act, legitimacy of the court will further erode, says Michael Ratner, President Emeritus www.dialogue2.ca
of the Center for Constitutional Rights (website: http://ccrjustice.org/). […]
READ IN FULL AT THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: TRNN Report, LINK: http://tinyurl.com/TRNN14108 ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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“Have Computer Will Write”~ Jeremy Arney
The ‘Perfect Storm’ is within our control as voters… Jeremy Arney - Leader of the Canadian Action Party My understanding is that only 25% of Canadians have actually already made up their unchangeable minds as to which leader they plan to vote for. That statement in itself is a condemnation of our voting process. We now are being told over and over which leader we should be electing by the process of electing a puppet MP; a puppet to be whipped into line* whenever needed and to not even bother to represent Ottawa to us anymore. That is done by the party leader with dictatorial powers. I hardly need ask if that is what you all want. So the question is: what happens to the remaining 75%?
As long as we are voting for a leader, rather than a representative, that is what we will get; and, to paraphrase T.D. from Mouseland (link below), it’s time we stopped voting for multi coloured cats with ulterior motives and elected a lot of mice instead. The mice, in this case, are independents and those from small, registered but so far unrepresented parties, such as of course CAP, Rhinoceros, Marijuana , Marxist Leninists, PACT and even the Libertarians (though, in my view, the latter are even worse than Harper and Clark combined). It really doesn't matter which party or which leader forms the next government if the balance of power resides with MPs from those small parties and independents (mice) with a smattering of Greens thrown in for good measure. 75% haven't made up their minds – and nor should they, but how to educate them into realising that the perfect storm is within their control? Legislation that is good will proceed, that which is bad will not pass the vote at second reading and will die. Our present system does not allow for real democracy unless there is a balance to leader-controlled party power. Yes, we all know this because we are wise and sensible to the needs of Canada, but where is our answer? Yes, there are varying policies among those small parties, but (again with the exception of the Libertarians) we all have the belief that the future of our prosperity lies with the BOC and that the COMER court case cannot, nor should be, simply ignored. Thus no matter who forms the next government, the priority according to the balance of power would be the BOC and reinstatement of its role to actually bring some semblance of prosperity back where now we have stagnation and depression 30 dialogue
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along an ever increasing national debt, complete with the compounding interest. What do we need? I would say 100 (mice) MPs as described should do it. Can it be done? Yes it can, but how is the real question here? How do we persuade 75% of Canadians – half of whom may still not be aware that they actually need to care – that there is a real answer there for them? There is apparently a move afoot to have a small party leaders’ debate in Toronto soon and I wonder if the main media will cover it. They just might. Meanwhile.... Harper's nose grows every day, Mulcair's beard bristles with righteous indignation, Justin is getting better at reading but not doing it very well, and Elizabeth is hiding her faults very well. But, according to the media, those are our choices. I don't care, as long as they do not have the ultimate power. None of them deserve to be given that, but it is up to us to do something about it and take the power away from the power brokers. By the way, this is dissent for which I could be summarily shot, according to Blaney, supposedly our Minister of Public Safety, who actually said after James Daniel McIntyre was shot by police in Dawson Creek: “If you choose to express dissent then you can expect to face the full force of the law.” In other words our Minster of Public Safety is quite delighted with the idea that any dissenter can be murdered by the police! The ultimate dissent in my view is to send back to Ottawa a group of MPs who will act for their constituents and their best interests and the election of many, many mice is the best bet. For those who have forgotten or never heard of Tommy Douglas’ Mouseland here is a link to a short video [6 ½ min., introduced by Kefir Sutherland, TD’s grandson]: LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqgOvzUeiAA
Jeremy Arney, Leader of the Canadian Action Party #6, 2931 Craigowan Rd, Victoria BC V9B 1N1 Email: iamjema@gmail.com / Tel. 250-216-5400 Blog: http://jeremyarneysblog.wordpress.com/
CAP website: http://www.canadianactionparty.org/ ♣ * Editor’s Note: Apparently, only the Green Party has a firm policy against ever whipping its MPs to vote the party line. From Sharon Lawrence: Ottawa Citizen Guide to smaller parties, with links to all 19 registered political parties; LINK: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/the-other-parties ♣
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Robin Mathews Uncut
Jessica Ernst Is All Of Us….
Robin Mathews, Vancouver BC, Aug. 2015 She is fighting the system – fighting the Alberta government as well as big Oil and Gas in Alberta who are closely cooperating with the dishonest federal Conservative government. She is fighting the Alberta Regulator (whose head was, formerly, a top officer in Encana Corporation and president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers). She is fighting Encana Corporation, (not to mention the conventional press and media of Canada) – about the pollution of her own property and water supply and what everyone knows is also true: the polluting fact of fracking for oil and gas wherever water sources matter and agricultural land is involved.
She is fighting them in a dubious Alberta court (and lawyer) structure which puts Jessica Ernst (scientist and long-time oil patch actor) in the position of every Canadian. That needs explaining. Around the planet, socalled democratic societies have become so corroded, so perverted, so mangled out of shape that to get “democratic” rights requires full-out, unswerving, endless combat against the forces supposed to be protecting the population and its freedoms. Any Canadian seeking justice, as Jessica Ernst is doing, will face exactly the same struggle – until we all make change happen. That is because – short of armed violence (in fact organized revolt) those fighting for democratic behaviour – for justice, for equality before the law, for rights of free expression – face police forces willing to violate their fundamental role, lawyers who will not challenge power, courts that are for sale to the richest bribers, political parties ‘bought’ by huge private corporations. One instance stands out dramatically. Jessica Ernst has been fighting her case for eight years. Almost everything about Conservative rule in those years was, in her matter, almost certainly negative, deceitful, corrupt. The NDP has swept into power in Alberta … and has done nothing to effect necessary change so that every principle Ms. Ernst stands for and every evil she faces are seen clearly in the light of fair, just, democratic behaviour insisted upon by the new government. Those who reply, quickly, that the NDP in Alberta cannot offend the oil and gas sector in that province are saying, simply, that those forces make up the government of Alberta, not the freely elected representatives of the people sitting in the Alberta legislature. Around the planet, so-called democratic societies have www.dialogue.ca
become corroded, perverted, mangled out of shape. Alberta is, at this moment, shining a bright light on that fact. Unless the new Alberta NDP government makes some significant changes in regulation, oversight, ownership, royalty payments, and protection of the population, it will be giving evidence that it serves profit-making private corporations – not the people of Alberta and Canada. In her (August 2, 2015) CBC Sunday Morning interview (shared with Toronto lawyer Murray Klippenstein) Ms. Ernst hinted at ugly truths with which some of us are familiar – and which all Canadians should know. Put simply, she will be said by many to be facing a gigantic, (almost) lawless oil and gas corporate structure working in close cooperation with a dishonest federal Conservative cabinet in league with an Alberta Regulator headed by a former high Encana Corporation executive apparently appointed to frustrate justice – and a court headed by a judge whose arrival on the case was unusual to the point of being … very strange indeed. In short, one may ask if a criminal consortium made up of senior government, provincial government, provincial regulator, the gas/oil monster in Alberta, and the judge on the case is working to destroy Jessica Ernst – to be rid of her and to provide a powerful, negative example to anyone else who is fool enough to seek remedy in Alberta for harm done to him, her, and/or the Public Good. To begin, she was not able to obtain satisfactory legal representation in Alberta because of what I believe is the essential, fundamental corruption of many lawyers in that province. Lawyers not willing to take legitimate cases against powerful corporations and/or governments are declaring, simply, that they are cowardly and corrupt. They are denying ordinary Canadians the fundamental right to seek remedy for harm done to them. And since “going to law” is the peaceful means citizens have to seek justice for injury done to them, the law profession denies Canadians what are absolutely basic rights when it refuses to act for them. In addition, in my experience, many courts of Alberta are equally disreputable. Canadians have, I believe, every reason, for instance, to doubt the probity of the judge on the Jessica Ernst case: Chief Justice Neil Wittmann of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. My own experience with him in a matter relating to the BC Rail Scandal trial (2007-2010) left me without confidence …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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Robin Mathews: Jessica Ernst Is All of Us, contd.
in his judgement. In the B.C. case, as I have written elsewhere, the “honest” judge on the case was removed by promotion to the Appeals Division of the courts. (That had to be an act participated in by senior court officers in B.C., by the Stephen Harper Conservative cabinet, and, perhaps, by the B.C. cabinet. It was not a random act.) The replacement judge refused to act on absolutely certain evidence that the Special Crown Prosecutor on the case (appointed in 2003) was named in flagrant violation of the legislation governing such appointments. The result, from the moment of his illegitimate appointment, was that the investigation, the construction of evidence, the pre-trial, and the trial were illegitimate. To seek a remedy for the judges’ refusal to act, I appealed to the highest place – the Canadian Judicial Council. Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench in Alberta, Mr. Justice Neil Wittmann acted on behalf of the CJC, of which he was a member along with the judge complained against. He denied (spuriously, I believe) any legitimacy to my complaint. He, therefore, I believe, legitimized a long court procedure that was (a) totally illegitimate and (b) very likely corrupt from start to finish. (That was after the refusal of the B.C. Attorney General’s ministry, the Chief Justice and the Associate Chief Justice and the new judge on the trial to act in any way. The judges did not deny the allegation; they simply refused to act). The assistant deputy Attorney General wrote that the matter could not be examined since it was sub judice. That was outright nonsense. The position of the Special Crown Prosecutor was in no way under court examination. (The conventional press and media refused to report the illegitimate appointment.) Without exaggeration, I think one may refer, in this matter, to a criminal consortium engaged in the repression of truth and justice and in the prevention of a fair and just remedy for the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the (now U.S. owned) CNR. Canadians might believe they are experiencing a bad Hollywood film when I tell them that the first judge dealing with Jessica Ernst’s case was peremptorily appointed to the Appeals Division of the Alberta higher courts. That was an action that could only be effected by the Conservative cabinet in Ottawa … and it was an act that mirrored the BC Rail Scandal case in British Columbia. Rather than appoint another judge to the case, Chief Justice Neil Wittmann volunteered to take over the Jessica Ernst case … a very strange development to say the least and, I regret to say, suspicious. One way of seeing his conduct in the Jessica Ernst case 32 dialogue
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is as a servant and ally of big oil/gas and the other forces seeking to defeat Ms. Ernst’s attempt to seek redress for wrong done to her. Wittmann’s ruling that the actions of the Alberta Regulator are outside the reach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is, to my mind, an outrage. If upheld, the chief defence of ordinary Canadians against abuse, mistreatment, harassment, oppression, and gross injustice at the hands of government and government appointed agencies will be erased. In forcing Ms. Ernst to seek from the Supreme Court of Canada a judgement that no action of any person or agency of government is outside the reach of the Charter, Chief Justice Wittmann has, in my opinion, deliberately delayed the trial unnecessarily and has caused Ms. Ernst anxiety, time, and costs to which she should not have been subjected. That he was upheld in his judgement by the Alberta Court of Appeal requires no comment whatever. As if to provide a mirror-image of the Alberta conflict – though on an international scale, the present government of Greece has been beaten into submission (as an intended rejection of the expressed democratic will of the people of Greece) by the international banks, European Union finance ministers, newly-inspired German imperial ambitions, and silent private corporations greedy for cheaply-acquired Greek assets. Greece is to be starved. Unemployment and taxes are to rise. Pensions are to be cut. Greek assets are to be sold at bargain-basement prices to private owners anywhere on the planet. The Greek population is to be made permanently destitute. That is to be so – reported the international spokesman for the Greek government on CBC radio in July, 2015 – not for economic reasons but for political reasons. Greece has a reform government which sought the direction of its people by referendum – and it has to be punished … brought to its knees to show every other national population that the banks and the big private corporations rule European countries – NOT the freely elected representatives of the people. In the most recent issue of le Monde diplomatique (Aug. 2015), the former Greek minister of finance, Yanis Varoufakis, (ousted, apparently, at the insistence of Germany) writes that the sole objective of the European Union “was to humiliate us”. He insists Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup, showed open contempt for “the most elementary democratic principles,” and that Wolfgang Shauble, German finance minister, cared nothing that a new government had been elected in Greece to seek new credit terms, insisting democratic change (elections) means nothing. …/ www.dialogue2.ca
Almost unbelievably, Varoufakis points out in his article that the so-called “Eurogroup” which brought Greece to its knees insisted upon meeting again (to reject all proposals by the Greek government and to punish all Greeks). AND it insisted that Varoufakis not be present. When Varoufakis protested, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Eurogroup president, replied that: “the Eurogroup does not possess any legal existence. It acts as an informal group, and, as a consequence, there is no written law that can limit the action of its president.” The punishment of Greece was intensified by a wholly irresponsible (but all-powerful) “informal group” after the Greek people in a freely held referendum rejected the unfair demands of the E.U. actors – after the democratic will of the Greek people was made known. The corrupt Conservative government of Canada, in the hands of global private corporations, has fed the power of the gas/oil giants in Alberta (and all Canada) – removing oversight, weakening environmental regulation, and selling-out Canada’s sovereign power in order to feed private and foreign corporate interests. It has prepared the ground for the corrupt fog Jessica Ernst has had to try to see her way through. It has sacrificed a stable industrial economy in order to serve gigantic (often foreign) corporations. It has hollowed out the Canadian economy in order to serve the forces that have brought Greece to its knees. Jessica Ernst, almost unconsciously – in fighting for freedom of expression, clean water, fair legal procedure and justice in the Alberta courts is a symbol of the
undeclared war being fought globally against anyone in democratic society (whether a whole government, Greece, or an individual, Ernst) insisting that democratic rights and the freedom of the population be observed, defended, and declared inalienable. Under the (false) guise of fairer trade, open markets, and higher standards of living made possible by the planetary flow of cheaply produced goods – the gigantic, obscenely wealthy corporations (big banks, big oil, big high-tech ops, “the One Per Cent”) are buying political parties, adding governments to “costs of operation”, raping the global environment, enslaving whole populations, and oppressing any and all who resist…. Greece has resisted and has become the first European nation to be a symbol of the fight back … which is only starting. Jessica Ernst has found the source of the rot in Canadian democracy right in her own back yard (literally). She is all of us. She is leading the fight against the rot. She must be an inspiration to all decent Canadians to go to work and generalize her insights … and to work on the restoration of democracy in Canada. Like the new party, Syriza, in Greece, Jessica Ernst is a bellwether, a symbol, an inspiration, a very loud wakeup call. If present political parties will not boldly take up the fight opened by Jessica Ernst, Canadians will have to create their own new party, their own Syriza, and set to work to return Canada to Canadians and to the democracy Canadians created (and are only beginning to understand is being wrested from them). - Robin Mathews ♣
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Bank of Canada: a non-issue in the mainstream press… Derek Skinner, Victoria BC RE the BOC and possibility of Canadians becoming incensed enough to adopt insurrection. The sad truth is that while Paul Hellyer, COMER and a slew of well-informed writers have preached to the informed choir, the mainstream media has imposed an international blanket of silence and lies on any public discourse regarding the use of the Bank of Canada. This might be due to paid lack of interest but is much more likely to be a deliberate imperative from the banking industry. Hence the prostitution of the MSM and consequent public ignorance. Not only is the Canadian public ignorant (sedated?) but they are the most docile in the English-speaking world... possibly because of the incredible richness of the territory and the practice of just digging up stuff and selling it... no need to think... and many years of indoctrination in the mantra of "peace, order and good government." www.dialogue.ca
Accordingly, trying to understand monetary reform is too hard, particularly as the enormity of the scam is just not believable to the honest joe on the street and the numbers are too big... too many zeros. Accordingly, insurrection is virtually unthinkable... until people begin to really feel pain. As to our politicians. The major Party Leaders are fully aware that to make the BOC an election issue would bring down the wrath of the bankers, massive MSM denigration and possible injury in extreme cases. (Presidents Jackson, Lincoln, Kennedy and Senator McFadden and Offshore President Tito of Yugoslavia and Colonel Gadhafi of Libya come to mind, among many others). Bankers take their business very seriously. – Derek Derek Skinner, djlives@shaw.ca ph. 250 381-7553 [You will find Derek on Facebook at Skinnermoney] ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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“That’s My Take On It”
From John Shadbolt, Acton ON
Following is information you need to know (from SumOfUs.org).
Nestlé sucking BC Dry SumOfUs.org, July 11, 2015: Nestlé
can draw limitless amounts of water from BC for $2.25 per million litres to sell for a huge profit -- while British Columbians are asked to not water our lawns and take shorter showers. And many of you agree that this has to stop. Four months after we launched a petition, it has grown to be the largest Canadian petition ever on our website -- over 175,000 of us have already signed the petition. And we
are making waves with dozens of press mentions including the front page of The Province, one of BC's biggest newspapers and interviews with Global News and CBC this week. And thanks to these press hits, political parties are debating the policy. Soon we’ll be delivering the petition directly to the BC government. Other SumOfUs campaigns: Starbucks (deforestation), Unilever (mercury poisoning-India), Shell drilling off Nova Scotia (3 weeks to cap a blowout), Save the CBC-scrap the TPP. Visit: http://sumofus.org/
Recd. from John Shadbolt [John Shadbolt is Vice-President of CAP – Canadian Action Party] Email: jshadbolt@primus.ca ♣
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More Global Headlines
Masters of Metal: China, the Rothschild Fix, and the “New World Currency” Recd from S. McDowall and Eva Lyman: Long but enlightening!
By Rusticus [ActivistPost.com - July 9, 2015] Lies, Damned Lies, and Forensic History [EXTRACT-LINK] As regular consumers of alternative media have likely noticed, China’s voracious appetite for gold has been reported on ad nauseam in the wake of the 2008 Depression. Endless geopolitical and economic analysts have mused about the implications of Chinese gold accumulation, with most concluding (perhaps prematurely) that some form of gold-backed Yuan is on the horizon. Some extend this scenario further, optimistically declaring that the BRICS NDB (New Development Bank) and AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), led by China, will usher in a “New Golden Era” of progress and prosperity, spelling the end of the Western model of Central Banking tyranny.
The reason for this transfer of precious metals from
West to East by the Anglo-American Establishment, these pundits prognosticate, is a simple and tragic combination of incompetence and malfeasance. The aged and corrupt West must end, and in the wake of its destruction, the Phoenix of the East must rise. Does this narrative, however, have any basis in reality when viewed within the context of history? How have institutions traditionally defined as “Globalists” participated in satiating China’s gold fever? Is the hand of the Red Shield, infamously and intimately involved in the metals market for over 200 years, at work, even in the East? And what, ultimately, do the answers to these questions spell for the “BRICS Saviour” meme? To begin answering these questions, we must analyze the history of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) and the ignominious “Precious Metals Fix” that makes it all possible. Read in full: LINK: www.activistpost.com/2015/07/masters-of-metal-china-rothschild-fix.html ♣
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Pervasive and continuing cover-up of the reality of UFOs Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info
"For the sake of that airman I spoke with, and for all the other officers and men in the Air Force who have had to keep silent about what they experienced with these objects, I, without reservation, accuse the U.S. Department of the Air Force of a blatant, pervasive and continuing cover-up of the facts, deception, distortion, and lying to 34 dialogue
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the public about the reality of the UFO phenomenon. Below is solid evidence to support my accusation." – Captain Robert L. Salas, USAF: on shut down by UFOs of nuclear missile warheads at Malmstrom AFB, Montana in March 1967. Captain Salas states he was present in March of 1967 at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana when a large, saucer-shaped craft at a …/ www.dialogue2.ca
very close distance was reported to him at the same time as numerous nuclear missile warheads were deactivated. … Why have this and many other UFO incidents reported by high-ranking officials not been given major news coverage? Read in full at: www.WantToKnow.info/ufos/ufos_nuclear_missiles_warheads_shutdown
Fred Burks, with best wishes for a brighter future, Fred Burks is a former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton [Note from Fred: We were threatened with a lawsuit by a certain individual to take this webpage down. I refused, and thankfully we did not have to deal with a lawsuit.] Editor’s Note: See also Paul Hellyer’s website: http://paulhellyerweb.com/ ♣
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US-NATO Military Deployments, Economic Warfare, Goldman Sachs and the Next Financial Meltdown: Is There a Relationship? Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Aug 8 ‘15
What is the relationship between war in a military theater and “economic warfare”? [EXTRACT/LINK] An act of war is invariably an economic undertaking which supports dominant corporate interests. The conduct of US-NATO military operations is carried out on behalf of powerful financial institutions. US led wars in the Middle East under the humanitarian mantle of the “global war on terrorism” largely serve the interests of Wall Street, the Anglo-american oil conglomerates, the so-called ‘defense contractors,” the biotech conglomerates (Monsanto et al), Big Pharma and the corporate media. But modern warfare is by no means limited to the sphere of military and intelligence operations. Washington not only imposes economic sanctions on countries which do not support its imperial agenda, it also fosters the outright destabilization of national economies. While the Pentagon and NATO coordinate military operations against sovereign countries, Wall Street carries out concurrent destabilizing actions on financial markets including the rigging of the oil, gold and foreign exchange markets directed against Russia and China. It’s called “financial warfare;” it’s part of the same global agenda; it’s implemented alongside and in coordination with the Worldwide deployment of the USNATO’s military machine. In this regard, Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” directed against China involving the deployment of US naval forces in the South China Sea, is reinforced through concurrent destabilizing actions on the Shanghai stock exchange. The ultimate intent is to undermine –through non-military means – the national economy of the People’s Republic of China. War and Financial Warfare Is financial warfare coordinated with political decision making pertaining to major military and intelligence operations? www.dialogue2.ca
Acts of financial warfare require intelligence; they often require consultation and coordination at the highest levels of government. While the decision-making process between the military-intelligence apparatus and the corporate financial system is by no means integrated, it nonetheless overlaps through a system of cross appointments and consultations. Overlapping appointments Amply documented, the mega-banking institutions on Wall Street and their related hedge funds exert their influence at the highest levels of the US government including the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House. The system of cross-appointments together with corporate lobbying is part of this process. National security advisers and former Pentagon officials are appointed to the World Bank, etc. Former prime ministers, senior government officials take on consulting positions with major banking institutions, CIA officials are involved as advisers in key trade negotiations, etc. Conversely, Wall Street bankers are appointed to key positions in government. Read in full at GlobalResearch.ca – for details of recent key players in the US Treasury Department, World Bank, Goldman Sachs, NATO, Wall St. banks, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, G20, etc.; and speculation about the next financial meltdown. LINK: http://tinyurl.com/CRG-67943 ♣ *****************
Global Research Top Stories: Towards World-wide Strategic Chaos and Financial Turmoil
Global Research, August 25, 2015 Today, Global Research brings to the attention of its readers a selection of recent GR articles dealing with major economic and political issues including the Shanghai stock market meltdown, the Migration Crisis and the broader issue of the “America’s system of “capitalist governance.” LINK: http://tinyurl.com/CRG-5471 ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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“Ideas”
Intriguing Ideas from David Foster…
david.foster2@powergate.ca
Generally Right but Specifically Wrong David Foster, Port Perry ON We have conflict among those who oversee the whole, and those who are the exceptions. The exceptions often have to fight the generality or be killed by it. The language is dispassionate math. Percentage effectiveness. So one in a thousand die from a widespread policy... that is better than 30 in 1000.
Add chlorine to the drinking water and much of the bad stuff goes away for most people. But not all. That is largely why we have the craziness of ‘bottled water’. All those people who believe plastic and the chemicals it harbours (and releases) are ‘better’ for them than traces of copper and iron from municipal drinking water sources. There is a hormone disruptor (bisphenol-A – aka BPA) in most of the plastic. And we can’t tell which is which. In Nature our bodies have dealt with traces of copper and iron since we were crawling out of the sea, but not with hormone disruptors. The rationale on bottle water may be generally right but specifically wrong. If chlorine is good for drinking water, then so should other additives be (shouldn’t they?) Like fluoride compounds? Most of us are not chemist enough to understand what actually goes on at the microbiome level in our own bodies. Annual flu shots may reduce overall deaths in flu season but they may also kill a small minority who are especially sensitive to them. Doctors hate having to fight the rationale wars each season. But for some of us it is a fight to the death. Thus the search for ‘pure’, (expensive ‘pure’, now called ‘organic’). It is about to get a lot more expensive. Do you know what the agricultural residues are doing? (from your factory-farm-produced food from far away) It is generally a good thing to use chemicals to enhance the growing and delivery of fresh foods, but then what happens to the residue when it hits your lower gut? For you it may be generally right but specifically wrong. There is an impressive list of things scientists not in the pay of the food marketers tell us are probably caused by ‘glyphosate’ in agriculture... but what do most of us know of how the food is actually grown and delivered to 36 dialogue
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us? This from Dr. Thierry Vrain, PhD, last year: ‘There is direct toxicity to animal cells because glyphosate binds to metals indiscriminately, and not just in plant cells. It binds to metals in solution and to metal cofactors at the centre of metalloproteins anywhere. For example glyphosate binds to the iron atom at the centre of a large family of protein enzymes called CYP. There are 57 different CYP enzymes in the human body, and approximately 20,000 in animals, plants, bacteria and fungi. The CYP enzymes are oxidizers, the first line of digestion and detoxification of most substrates. David Nelson writes in a review of the CYP enzymes: “The CYP enzymes of humans are essential for our normal physiology and failure of some of these enzymes results in serious illnesses. (9) Samsel and Seneff have published a review of the impact of glyphosate on the CYP enzymes and the microbiome. They suggest that glyphosate’s suppression of CYP enzymes and its antibiotic effect on the human microbiome are involved in the etiology of the many chronic degenerative and inflammatory diseases that have grown to epidemic levels since the advent of the RoundUp Ready technology. (10) Correlation statistical analyses of the US Centre for Disease Control’s statistics about the health status of America placed next to the statistics of the US Department of Agriculture about the spread of RoundUp Ready soy and corn have been published. The analyses show very high correlation coefficient values suggesting a strong link between glyphosate residues in RoundUp Ready food and chronic illnesses. (11) Did you get all that? Do you know what your microbiome is doing? It knows what you are doing. Being gulled by advertising. Advertising may be generally good but specifically bad. If you are one of the unusually sensitive ones... close your eyes and ears... and think... Your doctor may well be wrong. He works with averages. You work with your one life. Don’t screw it up... (And then there is the messy business of ‘prions’ wrecking the ranching industry and meat. And you have probably never ‘herd’ of a prion... Look it up: Wikipedia!) David Foster, Port Perry ON ♣
www.dialogue2.ca
The secret ingredient in engineered food Dr. Thierry Vrain, Courtenay BC The last poll I saw a few weeks ago was from MNBC surveying people in the USA asking if they wanted to know what is in their food, i.e. would they support some legislated mandatory food labelling policy. Ninety three out of 100 people (93%) voted their concern and distrust of the food supply by voting yes. I have seen many surveys like this over the last 10 years and the people have consistently expressed their concern and anxiety about GMOs. And the Industry and its governmental regulatory agencies in Canada and the USA laugh it up, because they have science on their side. They know very well that science has demonstrated time and again that GMOs are safe, that there is absolutely nothing to fear or be concerned about.
I must admit I share as much of that belief as I find it hard to imagine how the engineering of bacterial genes in plants should make them systematically toxic. That is a probable impossibility, although absolute safety is hard to demonstrate. You would need long term feeding studies with rats for every transformation event that was commercialized as a food or feed crop. That is so impractical, it would be extremely costly, unthinkable. But there is more to this story than what you are concerned about. The secret – what is not being discussed in the open – is that practically all engineered crops and a good number of non engineered crops that end up as your food have been sprayed with a toxic antibiotic that doubles up as a very popular herbicide. There is so much of it in bread and all processed foods that contain cereals, soy and corn, canola oil and sugar, that the EPA had to raise the legal residue levels in all food and feed crops in 2013 – and Health Canada of course follows their guidelines for MRL (Maximum Residue Limits). For example, soy can now contain 20 parts per million (ppm) and cereals (wheat, oat, and barley) can contain 30 ppm. Think if you were a bread eater, someone who gulfs half a loaf every day, what your intake of glyphosate would be. With animal feed that can legally contain up to 100 ppm, imagine the residues in dairy and meat products. There are lots of areas in the USA and Canada where RoundUp Ready crops are grown, where 75% of samples of the water or the air contain traces of glyphosate. The EPA MRL for glyphosate in drinking water is below 0.7 ppm. Beyond that the EPA warns you that you will get severely ill quickly. The MRL in Europe is considerably less, in case you are interested to know what you www.dialogue2.ca
are drinking. All this doesn’t tell you much until you learn that one part per million (1 ppm) is antibiotic to most bacteria – glyphosate is actually a powerful antibiotic that has been masquerading as a herbicide for over 40 years. Then you learn that you and everybody around you, have a hugely diverse community of bacteria in your lower intestine, that is now commonly referred to as the Microbiome. When I was a kid my mother used to call it the intestinal flora, and somehow it was part of good health, but we did not know how important it actually is. We all have 100 trillion bacteria inside – with the same weight as our brain, that basically direct the show of our body. All those autonomic functions we have, guess what… or rather guess ‘who’ ? The heart, the lungs, the digestive system, all this seems to work well without us having much to do about it. It is becoming obvious that the biochemical language of the Microbiome to each of our major organs is required for proper function. The diversity of the Microbiome is essential to the health of many organs; particularly sensitive are the brain, the immune system, and of course the digestive tract. So when you eat every day foods containing more than 1 ppm of glyphosate – the level where it kills all bacteria in the lab, you should logically expect antibiotic damage to the Microbiome with consequences of celiac, Crohn’s, allergies and asthma and many other immune deficiency symptoms, Alzheimer and dementia and autism, and eventually all manners of cancer. And that’s just for humans. We know that fish and frogs and rats and pigs become ill and die promptly. You can easily google the published and peer reviewed studies that support every word of this statement. You can also watch my lecture on YouTube “Engineered Food and your Health: the Nutritional status of GMOs.” [LINK: http://tinyurl.com/ytTVrain-gly ] It appears that we are back in the 1970s when the tobacco industry was spewing safety statements with the studies to prove it every few days. In this millennium the strategy about the safety of GMOs is slightly different. The Industry – read essentially the chemical company Monsanto – is keeping the public and the media focused on the engineering technology and GMOs. And they have all the studies to prove their safety. I also suspect that the Industry actually generates much of the anti-GMO rhetoric we see in the major media and on the Internet. I call it controlled opposition. Their job is …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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safety and sing the wonders of the genetic engineering to remind you that there is an intense debate about technology. I would also keep your attention on the GMOs, with lots of public opposition. This Industry debate about the engineering technology – i.e. are GMOs regularly fuels the debate about the safety of GMOs. Apparently anything goes, as long as it is keeping the fo- good or bad for you. I would spare no trick of the trade cus away from the antibiotic in to keep your attention away the food system. from the toxicity of the herbicide “Glyphosate is actually an that is sprayed on your food. I Only very few people bother to antibiotic that has been would create a small army of question the huge increase in this masquerading as a herbicide graduate students (and scientists antibiotic – masquerading as a of course – only the size of the for over 40 years.” herbicide, in our environment, bursary differs) and other merceand particularly in our food naries, to engage with the anti GMO “activists” and conwhere it reached toxic levels many years ago. The levstantly remind you of the insanity of your fear. Most of els are probably so scary that Agriculture Canada or the pro and anti GMO rhetoric is just that, a lot of hot air Health Canada or the USDA or the FDA, dare not even and a lot of fear. Anything goes as long as it keeps your go there. attention away from the secret. I would even have Practically all agricultural chemicals of concern are books published on the topic, some with all the available measured every year and kept in check, except for evidence of corporate malfeasance exposed in plain glyphosate. It is regarded as completely innocuous since view, as long as the emphasis stayed away from the its first registration as a herbicide 40 years ago. Theresecret. fore there is no need to monitor its use and residue levels But I am not a vice president – although I was, more in food and water. The recent classification by the than once in my science days, but that was another milWorld Health Organization that glyphosate is a “probalennium. Aside from being a concerned consumer, I ble carcinogen” should definitely be the trigger in Cannow find myself in some leading role to alert you of this ada – as it is in many other countries. If not triggering an outright ban, at the very least the chemical residues of sordid story of corporate greed that causes so much illness. All I can do is to speak and write publicly about glyphosate in the food will be documented and made this issue and hope that you will do your part. public so that the right debate can take place. Dr. Thierry Vrain, Courtenay, BC If I was the vice president for promotion at Monsanto I EMAIL: thierryv@telus.net ♣ would do a number of things to keep this secret from SEE ALSO P.60 – RE THE PUBLIC LECTURE GIVEN going public. BY DR. VRAIN IN PETERBOROUGH, Ont, NOV. 2014, I would do all the standard things of course, like hiring AS PART OF HIS CROSS-COUNTRY TOUR TO the best advertising brains in the business, emphasize RAISE AWARENESS OF GLYPHOSATE. ♣ **************************************************************
BRAIN MAKER – The Power of Gut
GUT & PSYCHOLOGY SYNDROME
Microbes to Heal and Protect Your Brain – for Life: book by David Perlmutter, M.D. “Rates of neurological disorders are skyrocketing – from ADHD and debilitating anxiety to depression and even dementia. But a medical revolution is under way that will forever change how we understand and treat not only behavioral and mood disorders, but also chronic headaches, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, autism, Alzheimer’s, and many more conditions. Astonishing new research is revealing that the health of your brain is, to an extraordinary degree, dictated by the state of your microbiome – the vast population of organisms that live in your body and outnumber your cells ten to one. [From the book jacket]. ISBN: 978-0-316-39010-2; April 2015 ♣
– Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia: book by Natasha Campbell-McBride, M.D. As a parent of a child diagnosed with learning difficulties, Dr. Campbell-McBride was acutely aware of the difficulties facing other parents like her, and she has devoted much of her time to helping these families. She realised that nutrition played a critical role in helping children and adults to overcome their disabilities, and has pioneered the use of probiotics in this field. … Her book "Gut and Psychology Syndrome" captures her experience and knowledge, incorporating her most recent work. [Publisher material]
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ISBN-10: 0954852028, Nov. 2010
♣
www.dialogue2.ca
ENDOMETRIOSIS
“Your Health Matters”
Derrick Lonsdale, M.D., Strongsville OH
Endometriosis is a painful, chronic disease that affects at least 6.3 million women and girls in the U.S., one million in Canada, and millions more worldwide. It occurs when tissue like that which lines the uterus (endometrium) is found outside the uterus, usually in the abdomen on the ovaries, fallopian tubes and ligaments that support the uterus, the area between the vagina and rectum, the outer surface of the uterus and the lining of the pelvic cavity. Other sites may include the bladder, bowel, vagina, cervix, vulva, all part of the female anatomy, and in abdominal surgical scars. This misplaced tissue develops into growths or lesions that respond to the menstrual cycle in the same way as the tissue in the uterus, resulting in internal bleeding. The traditional approach to this is surgical excision but there is much information now in the medical literature that makes a surgical approach unnecessary. It is yet another disease that is related to the nature of our diet. Although there are many fatty acids in existence, two of them are required for human metabolism. Because they are “required”, they are called essential, meaning that we cannot do without them for normal health and it is the metabolism of these essential fatty acids that has to be considered in how we treat endometriosis. For this I must digress. The two essential fatty acids are known as linoleic acid (LA) and linolenic acid (LeA), both being obtained from naturally occurring foods. For this reason they are sometimes known as vitamin F, meaning that they are essential to life like all vitamins. Each one is at the head of a series of chemical reactions that yield substances known as eicosanoids or prostaglandins. The cellular actions of these substances is extremely complicated and without going into details, they have fundamental importance in dealing with inflammatory reactions in the body that affect the endometrium. Because of the chemical construction of these fatty acids, LA heads a cascade of reactions known as omega-6, while LeA heads a cascade known as omega-3. Some readers may be aware of evening primrose oil. This contains an important member of the omega-6 series with the abbreviated name of GLA, while the omega-3 series yields an equally important fatty acid with the abbreviated name of EPA. Because EPA is found in fish, it is also sometimes called www.dialogue.ca
fish oil. I must emphasize that both GLA and EPA are formed as the result of dietary intake of LA and LeA and both of them have to be treated by an enzyme common to them. If this enzyme is dysfunctional, the omega-6 and omega-3 cascades cannot go into action. The enzyme itself requires a series of vitamins to make it function, emphasizing yet again the vital importance of what I call “God made” food. That being said, I must digress again. The late Dr. David Horrobin, a Canadian whose biography can be found on line, edited a book that was written for physicians in which a number of diseases that responded to the use of GLA and EPA were discussed. Every chapter in this book emphasized that GLA and EPA should always be given together, never alone. It is unfortunate that some commercials advertise one or the other on its own, thus demonstrating ignorance of the science that surrounds the medical use of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAS). This is because of the fact that the two cascades must work together and in concert. The only bone of contention in Dr. Horrobin’s book was the ratio of GLA to EPA to be given as medication. I used this information in my own medical practice and found to my delight that if I gave a child with atopic dermatitis one part GLA to 4 parts EPA, the dermatitis cleared up completely. The skin is the largest organ in the body and its cells require nutrients as much as any other cell. Some skin diseases are related to brain function because both organs originate from the same primitive cell in the embryo. If I used one part GLA to eight parts EPA for a patient with endometriosis, all the symptoms disappeared. I must emphasize however that this kind of information requires thorough biochemical and medical knowledge about the use of nutritional substances in the treatment of disease and this has certainly not yet reached the collective medical psyche. The only physicians who practice this way at the moment are known as Holistic or Alternative Complementary, although modern research articles are rapidly appearing in peer reviewed medical literature that are clearly authenticating this approach. For example, it has been found that periodontal disease and endometriosis sometimes occur together (1),. It was discovered some years ago that Co-enzyme Q 10, a conditional nutrient, given as a supplement, cleared up periodontitis. You can be sure that it applies to endometriosis because Co Q 10 is as vital to the body as GLA and EPA. Our 70 to 100 …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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trillion cells all work together and each essential nutrient deficiency represents loss of function in the cells that require it. For readers that may want to follow through or interest their physicians, I have included a brief bibliography. ~ Derrick Lonsdale, M.D. Kavoussi S K et al. Periodontal disease and endometriosis: analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Fertil Steril 2009;91(2): p.335-42. Hopeman M M et al. Serum polyunsaturated fatty acids and endometriosis. Reprod Sci 2014 Dec 23: p.ii: 1933719114565030
“Everything is connected to everything else.” Derrick Lonsdale is a retired Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and a Certified Nutrition Specialist. Website: www.prevmed.com/ Blog: http://o2thesparkoflife.blogspot.com/
BOOK: A Nutritional Approach to a Revised Model for Medicine: Is Modern Medicine Helping You? by Derrick Lonsdale M.D. - “Are We Poisoning Ourselves With the Foods We Eat?” ISBN: 978-1-61897-092-3 For information, visit: http://sbpra.com/DerrickLonsdale ♣
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Aspartame facts ... in memory of Dr. John Olney [Received from S. McDowall]
Dr. John Olney passed away on 14 April, 2015. He was 83. He was a professor of psychiatry, pathology and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine and was known for his work on brain damage. He coined the term excitotoxicity in his 1969 paper published in Science. Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D, wrote the book, "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills." Olney's lesions are named after him. In 1996 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He has campaigned for greater regulation of monosodium glutamate (MSG), aspartame and other excitotoxins for over 20 years. It was Dr. Olney and attorney James Turner who tried to prevent the approval of aspartame. In his 49 page document to the Board of Inquiry of the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) he said birth defects were a given. The document shows the additive effect of MSG and aspartame to be disastrous. [Read the paper at: http://www.wnho.net/dr_olney1.doc]
Documentary – Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World Aspartame is an artificial sweetener, an additive. And it's a chemical. It's not a natural product, it's a chemical. The molecule is made up of three components. Two are amino acids, the so-called building blocks of protein. One is called Phenylalanine, which is about 50% of the molecule and the other is Aspartic Acid, which is like 40%. And the other 10% is so-called Methyl Ester, which as soon as it’s swallowed becomes free methyl alcohol. Methanol. Wood alcohol, which is a poison. A real poison. Excellent documentary showing how dangerous artificial sweetner Aspartame is. From its history, to its effects this video is enough to shock anyone into really looking at the food labels next time they shop. 40 dialogue
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Aspartame is a toxic food that came into the world as an investment by Donald Rumsfeld, while ignoring the deadly effects the tests showed. “Dr. Olney's prophecy of what aspartame would do to the brains of children has now been fulfilled. Even when it first got on the market and FDA was still on the side of the people and had tried to prevent approval, they told Dr. Olney no child would ever get aspartame. Yet it remains in pediatric drugs and over-the-counter pediatric products. To make matters worse aspartame interacts with drugs and vaccines. It triggers all kinds of psychiatric and behavioural problems and interacts with all antidepressants. Today the FDA with all the facts in front of them lie to the public and tell them aspartame is safe. They had full knowledge that aspartame caused neural tube defects and would cause an epidemic of autism, spina bifida and cleft palate throughout the world and didn't even have the decency to add a warning for pregnant women. Dr. James Bowen told them aspartame is mass poisoning of the US and over 70 countries of the world - now over 100.” Take a good look at this video, it could save lives. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/sweet-misery-a-poisonedworld/ ♣ ***********************************************
Effortless Healing By Dr. Mercola: One of the simplest health directives you could ever come across is to just EAT REAL FOOD, as this automatically eliminates a number of healthharming ingredients from your diet. In this video, originally aired on public television earlier this year, I highlight some of the foundational basics of effortless healing… The simple truth is, most disease is rooted in poor nutrition and lack of physical activity. Read & watch at Mercola.com: http://tinyurl.com/Mer-87992 ♣
www.dialogue2.ca
Intimate Details
a chapbook, a micro press, a poem By J.S. Porter, Hamilton, Ontario – www.spiritbookword.net if a friend sent you a letter on what was on her mind and Former American poet in her heart. Susan’s signature, a coloured sketch of a laureate, Billy Collins, is mountain, a spacious text. I look forward to holding the on record for saying that quality paper of series fifteen in my hands as well, with when you write a poem my own mind and heart on display along with the minds you shouldn’t mention your friends and family in it. and hearts of two fellow poets. Balderdash to Billy! I can’t imagine writing anything that My little chapbook celebrates the reading life, which, in is not inspired by, dedicated to, or content-laden with, my Alberto Manguel’s affirmation, “allows you a sort of family and friends. What’s the point of writing if you’re joyful immortality, and the illusion of limitless space and not allowed to speak to loved ones, or about them? time as nothing else does on this Earth.” The chapbook My chapbook Of Wine and Poetry (soon to be pubconsists of notes on reading Clarice Lispector, Heminglished by the Alfred Gustav Press under the direction way, Coleridge, Raymond Carver, Louis Zukofsky, and, of David Zieroth) is addressed to particular friends yes, Billy Collins. It’s not everybody’s cup of wine, but and family members. I frequently break Billy Collins’ maybe it’s yours. rule and always feel good about breaking it. I’m Here’s a sample poem from the chapbook to remind you happy to report that David Zieroth on occasion breaks of how much fun it is to break rules. It’s a memory snapBilly’s rule as well. shot of my son and I exchanging ideas when he was a My contact with David Zieroth—winner of the Goveryoung boy. It goes like this: nor General’s Literary Award for poetry in 2009 for The
Fly in Autumn, his latest being Albrecht Dϋrer and Me)—began with a beautiful gesture by my friend Susan McCaslin, who writes a column for the magazine you’re reading. She said something like, “John, why don’t you write to David Zieroth to see if he’d be interested in seeing some of your poems.” I took her suggestion to heart and ended up sending David about 30 unpublished poems. He took the ten or so that worked best for him and organized the poems under the theme of reading. David started the Alfred Gustav Press as a micro press for poetry to honour his father and because, in his words, “I wanted to work with my hands and heart in a new way or, rather, in an old way, that is, I wanted to make objects that were lovely to hold, that were made by my hand using the technology available in my home (stalwart PC, laser jet, stapler, steel edge, blade, pen and colouring pencil). I wanted to touch each piece of paper in each chapbook. And I wanted the poems to touch others.” David Zieroth is a man who cares deeply about poetry – the writing of it, the reading of it and the encouraging of others to read it and write it as well. Very much like Dialogue Magazine, David’s press is a homemade, handmade, heartmade production. I’ve had the pleasure of holding Susan’s effortful/effortless: after Cézanne in my hands from series fourteen, one of the fruits of David’s labour. It feels personal and intimate as www.dialogue2.ca
WHAT A DAY IS for Daniel The bartender, depending on mood, dispenses a pinched or generous measure of wine. Too much and the day feels like Bruegel; too little, like Rothko. These days my son bookends my day. I drive him to school in the morning and pick him up in the evening. Between drop-off and pick-up, I read and think and dream and write, and take the dog for a walk. During the drive, my son tells me about Chinese chess, how there’s a row of figures, and then a row of no-figures. I tell him about Paul Horn’s flute, how he blows and refrains from blowing. A day needs a measure of emptiness, times when the dog, after a run, lies in the corner and pants.
If the poem made you smile or nod in recognition, maybe you’d like to live dangerously and order a copy. It’s cheaper than a good bottle of Cabernet Franc. …/ Subscriptions for Series Fifteen, forthcoming May 2016, are available for $13 ($18 outside Canada) in total for three issues. The poets are: Ben Meyerson, In a Past Life J.S. Porter, Of Wine and Reading Lisa Rawn, Ahead of Winter VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
…/
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If interested, please send your cheque to: David Zieroth, The Alfred Gustav Press
429B Alder Street, North Vancouver, BC V7L 1A9 J.S. Porter - www.spiritbookword.net ♣
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“Resonance”
Susan McCaslin, Fort Langley BC Selections from Susan McCaslin’s The Altering Eye (Ottawa: Borealis, 2000) are being reprised by Dialogue for this special issue on the theme of Imagination.
The Altering Eye The eye altering, alters all. – William Blake (“The Mental Traveller”) The Altering Eye begins as a heralding of the poet’s literary mentors, William Blake, poet, visionary and artist (“Letters to William Blake”) and Teresa of Avila, the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic (“The Teresa Poems”). Yet quickly it becomes apparent that the import of the conversation with her spiritual companions is an engagement in the mystical tradition as a living stream. In the last section, “Oracular Heart,” the poet mixes everyday work, play and her own daring dream work into a synthesis capable of overcoming some of the dualities of contemporary life. [From the back cover] Letters to William Blake “Awake, awake, O sleeper of the land of shadow, wake, expand!” – William Blake (Jerusalem)
within the sandgrain, harsh, unrefractive, and build what I can, something new, that is with your kind assistance Mr. B., please. Otherwise the grains fly back in my face. Yrs, *******
Dear William So if your Dad beat you for seeing your treeful of angels what of us who got TV instead of Vision and no beatings? What happens to the reconstructive Imagination after a hundred replays of “I Love Lucy” or driving down the Information Highway or thousands of hours in front of Nintendo? Not part of your cosmology? You wouldn’t rant? Go ahead and blast the stations of the nerves alive with jumping words. Look, I just require an hour away from the mechanical ratio of laundry and driving my child to lessons, a tall decaf latte at Starbucks. But then I’m back in it and it’s all monotony again. Please pass me down a sunflower rooted in its orbit round the sun.
“He [Blake] was fond of the works of St. Theresa, and often quoted them with other writers on the interior life.” – Samuel Palmer
Ah, Sunflower! I cling to your roots while dangling over the abyss.
William Blake, Esquire, Eternity
Yrs, *******
Dear Sir, Mr. Blake,
From “The Teresa Poems”
Yo Blake! (erase.) Look, there’s no one around here like you to talk to and having admired (scratch) “relished” your verve so long and being long past graduate school I just want to say from this shoulder of North America out of the nine-month Vancouver rainy season, fatigue, and Ulro that I am ready to look 42 dialogue
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"The silkworms feed on the mulberry leaves until they are full-grown, when people put down twigs upon which, with their tiny mouths, they start spinning silk, making themselves very tight little cocoons, in which they bury themselves. Then, finally, the worm, which was large and ugly, comes right out of the cocoon a beautiful white butterfly....So now if no one had ever seen this, and we were only told about it as a story of past ages, who would believe it?" (Teresa, Interior Castle) www.dialogue2.ca
SUSAN McCASLIN, FROM THE ALTERING EYE, contd.
Here on Vancouver Island, Teresa the little blue and white larvae have spun themselves asleep and awakened, already fluttering against the lapping shore. Your world so dry, and mine so wet. If a pod of orcas should pass the point, who would believe it? For these things move as in a dream turned slowly inside out. I am here on retreat: triathlon of eating, sleeping, reading. Not a reformed life really, not escape, but a kind of yearly yearning for something approaching contemplation. I wonder why you chose for your daughters such a strictly cloistered life? More rigour? Self-discipline? No. A way free from the everyday noise that distracts psyche's paradise ear.
The spurt and shock of visions are easy, Teresa, so how does one distinguish a transcendent moment with a tulip or a sixty's LSD trip from your kind of rapture? You say a true locution brings tranquillity, certainty, is unexpected as egret at dawn, uninduced, feels more like listening than composing. One has no choice but to attend. And it issues finally in good fruits (palmito, pear or plum). I nestle into dream, hear the glide of your golden pen await the unimaginable wings that will carry me back into the world.
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"Do then, whatever arouses you to love." (Teresa, Interior Castle)
after silence; a witness
Susan McCaslin is a Canadian poet who has published thirteen volumes of poetry, including The Disarmed Heart (The St. Thomas Poetry Series, 2014), and Demeter Goes Skydiving (University of Alberta Press, 2011), a volume short-listed for the BC Book Prize and first-place winner of the Alberta Book Publishing Award. She has recently published an autobiography, Into the Mystic: My Years with Olga (Inanna Publications, 2014) about her relationship with the Canadian mystic Olga Park (1891-1985). In 2012, she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to save a local rainforest outside Fort Langley in the Fraser Valley. Susan, who completed her Ph.D. in English at UBC in 1984, is Faculty Emerita of Douglas College in New Westminster, B.C.
free-floating, risking all
For a selected list of Susan McCaslin’s publications, visit her website, www.susanmccaslin.ca (publications)
Marginal, but Not Irrelevant I come as a witness. Mystics are poets and poets mystics always for the unspeakable will be spoken will enter language which pants and sweats
*******
Oracular Heart And the moment I have written I see the words fly about the room in all directions. – William Blake, as quoted by Crabb Robinson www.dialogue2.ca
NOTE: There is info about The Altering Eye, on Susan’s website, under publications, poetry. Though the book is out of print, Susan has some copies on hand; if you would like a copy of this book, it can be purchased from the author by sending the email listed under “Contact” on her website, www.susanmccaslin.ca ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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Magical Moon Lake
Stories from Karl’s 2005 book “Magical Moon Lake”* Moon Lake is located in the forest of Owen Sound near Toronto. It used to be a waste land. In the past 30 years, Karl Backhaus has planted more than 50,000 trees and dug an artificial lake fed by natural spring water. Many animals found home there. Karl communicates with all the animals, plants and rocks. People call him St. Francis of modern days. He wrote down the stories about communicating with all the creatures, in his book "Magical Moon Lake." The stories published here are for awakening our love and care for all creation.
Communicating with Animals Karl Backhaus, Holland Centre ON
To those of you who would like a closer contact with the animal kingdom, I will give a few simple hints. You may want to communicate verbally or mentally. From my own experience, I feel that mental or telepathic communication works better. When children are at their favourite activities and parents call them, they like to finish their play on their own terms. Many parents may insist on an instant reaction without considering the children's needs. This approach is never appreciated in children. Wise parents know this. Similarly, in nature, it takes time to see the effects of watering a thirsty plant. Even mechanical instruments, like barometers, do not show instant changes in atmospheric pressure. Any change in direction takes time. And so it is with animals. If and when we want to communicate with them, we have to be very patient and tune-in to their world. If an animal does not respond immediately to our thoughts or words, this does not necessarily mean that the message is not received. Animals like to work on their own terms; the same way children prefer to respond. Understanding animals is like understanding people who speak different languages. We need to live in their world and their culture for a while before anything will make sense to us. With people as well as with animals we have to have the desire to understand them. We need love, respect and patience to get to know a world that is different from ours. A lack of these virtues 44 dialogue
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will create a world of fear that closes doors between people, and between people and animals. Perhaps once we have a better understanding of animals we may also have a better understanding of different cultures. Is it possible that it is not only animals that are patiently waiting to be heard and understood in their uniqueness and beauty, but perhaps many people may be waiting as well? For me, all of life is created for joy, beauty and diversity. Most TV programs on the animal kingdom present a human perspective and are shown without human interactions; it is still amazing to watch these remarkable programs. However, I especially remember one where a gorilla in the wild reached out to touch a human hand. As we progress in our understanding, one day we may be more aware of the interconnectedness of all of creation. We may then realize that animals have always talked to us, something we have long forgotten and have a chance to relearn. A basic innate trait in people and animals alike is the survival instinct. This instinct leads us to want to have dominance and power over others. In the animal world, this makes it possible to survive and pass-on the genes of the strongest to the next generation. For humans this desire for power has a disastrous effect on all of nature and could destroy the whole planet. If this survival instinct runs rampant through large corporations or the stock market, the ones that are most successful may recognize too late that survival can become selfdestruction. The need to have power over others in the form of the excessive accumulation of wealth is often a substitute for a lack of love received and a lack of emotional security, and has destructive consequences. These emotionallydeprived individuals who are often in high positions need help; we need to love them without fear and through giving them positive examples let them see a wiser path for the human journey. We as humans have wonderful brains with a great potential for accomplishing paradise on Earth. The journey towards this elusive paradise starts with each individual, rich or poor. We may learn something from the ancient Egyptians. They had a symbolic ritual shown in many papyrus renderings. It was about the weighing of the heart and …/ www.dialogue2.ca
Karl Backhaus, Communicating with Animals, contd.
the soul at the end of each physical human life. If the heart did not tip the scale in its favour, a soul was devoured by a waiting crocodile. I can see that for those who do open their hearts, their minds, their eyes and ears – beyond fear to the full spectrum of Creation – something wonderful and gratifying
may be in store, an enrichment of great value for them and all the lives they touch. * This story is from inset 4, p.35, of Karl’s book, “Magical Moon Lake” (2005) ISBN 0-9739979-0-7. The original book 'Magical Moon Lake' can be ordered from Karl Backhaus by Tel: 519 794 3140, $13 plus shipping. For more beautiful photos of Magical Moon Lake, visit the website: www.prosperityamma.com/magical-moon-lake.html ♣
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The role of imagination and cooperation in human life… A TED talk recommended by John McCullough Mr. Harari lays out what is real, and what is imaginary in human perception in our everyday lives and how we come to believe and accept the latter every day. This is fundamentally how we differ from the animal world.
You will find the talk extremely interesting and it may even change your thinking about a lot of things. – John McC . (Never too old to learn)
LINK: www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans
Editor’s Note: Very interesting ideas about the role of imagination and cooperation in our understanding and acceptance of social conventions and ‘stories’ – such as money, religious beliefs, laws, etc. However, (in my humble opinion) Mr. Harari’s conclusions in this TED talk are very limited in their imaginative scope! ♣ [Also from John McCullough – see p.59
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Imagination…
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” ― Albert Einstein
The imagination exercises a powerful influence over every act of sense, thought, reason, -- over every idea. ― Latin Proverb
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“Hannah’s Hobbies”
Birthdays… and our son Jeff
Dorothy Hannah, Lacolle QC Our son, Jeff, is ‘special’. He doesn’t think like most people and he certainly doesn’t reason like most people. The last weekend in May we celebrated his birthday and at times like that his ‘special’ really shows up. If we put the full number of candles on his birthday cake, you would notice right away that he is a senior citizen. But, when it comes to birthdays, he is just a big kid and wants lots of presents. He even starts telling us what he wants for his birthday just after we have finished with Xmas. We did very well this year with his celebration. His brother, Pat, and his wife JoAnne and their two children live next door and they invited us there for a birthday supper. We had a lovely meal and had managed to find www.dialogue2.ca
some gifts that were exciting enough. Pat really came up with a winner. He bought a sweat shirt with a hood and printed the name of Jeff’s high school on it along with his date of graduation. Jeff was thrilled. When the meal and the gifts were done, we had the cake. In our house we have developed a rather unusual tradition when it comes to blowing out the candles on birthday cakes. One time, years ago, when the boys were young and Jeff blew out his candles, he was very enthusiastic and things sounded a bit damp and grossed everyone out. Since then, whenever someone winds up to blow out the candles on his or her cake, somebody, usually Pat, yells, “Don’t spit on the cake.” Naturally, any guests we have are shocked at this performance, but family traditions must be upheld. I am happy to report that this year’s cake was lovely and dry. ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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DON’T EVER CHANGE
Ramblings
Randy Vancourt, Toronto ON
I take pride in the belief that I am a modern dad. Other than things for which I’m not physically designed, I share most baby chores with my wife. I can even push my little boy along the sidewalk in his stroller, sans wife, and not be met with bewildered stares by the neighbours – a feat that would have been foreign to my own dad when I was young. I frequently take our kid to the grocery store on my own and usually remember to bring him home again; and most importantly, I change his diapers. Of course this last task is most men’s kryptonite. The mere mention of diapers turns the average male into a second grader again, complete with mature reactions like gagging and holding their nose. However in spite of the social, medical and psychological leaps that society has made in many areas of childrearing, there remains one item still woefully stuck in the pre-Spock (that’s Doctor, not Mister) era – the baby change table. It’s shocking how few public washrooms of the male variety are outfitted with these contraptions, particularly in our day of equal parenting and stay-at-home dads. Sure, the occasional mall has a Family washroom, but mark my words: if you see a sign for a baby change table, the vast majority of the time it seems to be located in the Women’s washroom. Awhile back I took our little guy to the mall for the afternoon. Prior to departure I carefully inspected his diaper bag and made sure we had all the necessary bits and pieces. Let me tell you, I am one prepared Pop. From past experience, I now even carry a change of clothes (for him AND me) and a biohazard bag in there. I’m never getting caught off guard like THAT again. Of course as any mechanic can tell you, all the tools in the world are of no use if you don’t have a garage. Within an hour of being at the mall it became evident by what was emanating from the baby stroller that a change was imminent. All I needed now was the elusive change table. As I stood outside the washrooms I realized that 46 dialogue
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once again the only one was located in the Women’s. And not just inside the door - I could see that it was deep inside enemy territory, way at the back inside its own stall. I cautiously looked around, waited for the last person to leave then raced my stroller through the washroom and into the stall. I felt a glow of smugness at my own ingenuity, for now that I was behind a locked door no one could possibly know that there was a man in their midst. Of course it soon dawned on me that I would also have to race back through the entire washroom in order to exit. As though somehow aware of my dilemma, more women seemed to enter by the minute. Memories of the time I accidentally went into the Women’s washroom at Disney World came flooding back. Was this a convention? Had a bus just arrived? I’ve always wondered why women go to the washroom in packs and dreaded to consider what would happen if they found a spy in their midst. I waited for what felt like hours until almost everyone had left the room. The only people still there were a young mother in one stall and her two little girls washing their hands. I seized the opportunity to fling open my stall door and, heart beating a mile a minute, make a break for freedom. It must have been quite a shock to see a strange man running wildly through the women’s washroom pushing a baby carriage, but I figured if these sisters told their mom about it she would just chalk it up to youthful imagination. So kids, I apologize if your mom didn’t believe you and made you feel like liars. But it was either you or me. Randy Vancourt www.randyvancourt.com
♣
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Victor Frankl, 1905-1997, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, founder of logotherapy www.dialogue2.ca
Tales from My Travels
JAKARTA JOLLIES
The story of my travels around the world on the working cargo ship, MV Rickmers Jakarta By Don Parker, Georgetown ON
The Adventure continues! In November 2005, at the young age of 77, I embarked on the trip of a lifetime, lasting in all about six months ~ as a passenger on the working freighter, MV Rickmers Jakarta, under Captain Henryk Nowicki, with a crew of 23 and four fellow travellers. [Began in Vol. 28, No.1-Autumn 2014].
CHAPTER SIX Nov. 29, 05 [Contd.] During these walking sessions (in Philadephia), I came across several interesting things. For example, a café named “Rotten Ralph’s” (One of my brothers was named Ralph.) a drug store called “Young’s Pharmacy”. (I met my wife, Margaret in Mr. Robb’s drug store which eventually became ‘Young’s Pharmacy.’), Mexican workers mixing concrete by hand on the sidewalk then carrying it in pails on their shoulders where it was to poured in a backyard somewhere. I also walked along Elfreth’s Alley and saw a British flag of that period. To get to the Whole Earth Store, I asked a couple of chaps where this alley was. One of them gave me directions and, because of his non-American accent, I asked where he was from. “Britain,” he replied. He continued with, “When you need to know which way to go, ask a Brit!” A good laugh for all of us. The owner of one store that I went into has a daughter who joined the U. S. army. When re-enlistment time came, the Army called her to say that her daughter wanted to re-enlist but she needed someone to look after HER daughter. Would Mrs. Store Owner undertake to raise her granddaughter to allow her daughter to re-enlist? “No!” replied Mrs. Store Owner, “she had her so she can raise her. I’m not raising anybody’s youngster.” There is more of interest to this story but I will leave that until I get home. Back on the street again, I spotted a newspaper headline that interested me so I bought a copy. The feature story was about “Merck’s Bitter Pill! and all the layoffs they were planning. On an inside page, I learned of the fall of Canada’s government and that Canada would soon be going to the polls to elect a new “premier”! The word, ‘corrupt was used with reference to the sponsorship scandal. At this time of writing, I have heard nothing more about our federal problems. www.dialogue2.ca
At breakfast on Wed., the 30th, the Captain announced, “Everybody on board by 11:00!” There went the tentative plans that S, C and I were kicking about re taking an overland bus trip to see more of New Jersey. Instead, we went our separate ways with me venturing up Broadway Street still in search of items I had so far been unable to find. This time I had a little more luck in that I finally found a paper punch, and pocket combs, two to a blister. Back on board, Captain N showed me computer charts that indicated we are to have good weather, with seas no higher than 2 metres, all the way to Hamburg. (At this time of writing, 17:50, Dec. 6, the forecasts have proven to be correct.) Just how the next topic came about, I can’t recall. At any rate, Captain N began telling me about his crew, how they worked very hard but after five or six month (estimated) they began to tire and couldn’t work as effectively at the start of their contracts. All crewmen do not start a new contract at the same time of the year. I took this as an excellent opportunity to raise the question of the diet on board which features, in my opinion, far too much fried food. Captain N agreed with me and went on to say that during his career, he has experienced both good and bad cooks. “I have had good Polish cooks and I have had bad Polish cooks, so it is not a matter of nationality. It is a matter of whether the man knows his trade or not.” The Captain went on to say something I felt was very discerning. “It isn’t long before I know what his father and mother were like; it shows up in his approach to cooking.” Much earlier, Freddy told me about an incident that had occurred between the two original passengers – Stephan and Jean Paul. One of them decided to light up a cigarillo in the mess hall. The other one came in shortly after; the air was well polluted, and he went bananas! Freddy never did say which of the two was the culprit, but the idea of any one smoking in the mess hall sat in the back of my mind like a stalking cobra for several days. Later, I was on the Bridge chatting with the Captain during the 1st Officer’s shift. This man smokes, but I noticed that he went out on to the Bridge-wing when he wanted to light up. With the thought of our arrival in Hamburg, and the possibility of new passengers coming on board, and any one of whom may be smokers, I raised the subject of …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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Don Parker, Tales from My Travels, contd.
smoking in the Officers’ Mess with Captain Nowicki. Captain N. assured me that there would be no smoking in the Mess Hall or on the Bridge. He went on to tell me about the incident between “the Swiss guy and the Belgian”. “I didn’t put up a sign because I would rather not,” he said. “There is a sign in the Crew’s Mess hall and I felt that was enough. I spoke to the Belgian guy and there has been no more problem.” Talk about music to my ears; I sure got an orchestra-full that day! That pretty much ends the smoking story. Stevedores appear to be like most other types of workers; there are good ones and there are bad ones. I certainly do not consider myself an expert on stevedores, but one day I ventured the opinion to the C. that I thought the stevedores in Houston were a well-organized and hardworking lot. The C. agreed with my observation and went on to opine that the stevedores in Houston were the best in the world while the ones in Camden were the worst. His point of view was soon to be confirmed. Earlier, I mentioned that at breakfast on our last day in Camden, Captain N. had said, “Everybody on board by 11:00.” We didn’t sail until 17:15! This apparently was sue to the morning shift of stevedores taking a break so their afternoon confreres would be able to start a shift and stretch it out long enough so they would be able to qualify for a full shift’s pay. Another small side story: Before we left Camden, the C. came to my cabin to ask me for my passport. I unlocked the drawer in which I keep it and it wasn’t there. Now what Have I done with that thing? The C. needed all passengers’ passport so he could clear customs and immigration before he would be allowed to sail. The C. put his hand on a precise spot on my desk and said, “Don’t you remember? I gave it back to you. I put it right here. I remember doing so.” I remember him doing that, too, but remembering that bit of history wasn’t producing my passport at the moment. While I was looking for it in different places, the C. left my cabin - probably to check with some of the other passengers for theirs, when I began to remember something else. Then I heard from somewhere in the corridor, “Is alright, Don, 3rd Officer has it!” That’s what I was just beginning to remember; the 3rd Officer had asked me for it as we approached Camden, and I had assumed he was gathering them all up at the Captain’s request. Captain N. came back to my cabin to explain further and to add, “... I didn’t know.” I thought, “Hmmm. This sort of downer I don’t need!” Ah, me. There’s the operant phrase again: Be flexible. Yes, and there is the old saw about in the best of regulated families ... and vessels. 48 dialogue
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We were docked about 50 miles up the Delaware River, and except for the trip back down again, which was at sunset, and later with all the lights on both shores, which were very pretty to say the least, our voyage from Camden along the east coast of the States and Canada and on into the English Channel, has been pretty much ho-hum in that we have had overcast skies, hence no glorious sunrises or sunsets, calm seas, no sea-life sightings, no nothing to get really excited about. My days have been spent up on the foc’sle, on the Bridge, or in the sunroom reading, or watch DVDs, listening to CDs (pretty well the same one of The Fischer Choir) or tippy-tapping here in my cabin. I have taken only 3 photos on this stretch of our journey. Although I am not photo-destitute, Cam asked me to download one of his chips to a CD, which I gladly did, and he encouraged me to make a copy for myself, which I also did. So, unless something crops up noteworthy enough to record in “JJ”, I will leave things be as they are and go and do something else for a while. But, before I do, I should share with you another conversation I had with Captain N. on the Bridge last night. “I have good news and I have bad news for you. Which do you want first, the good or the bad?” I replied, “Let’s start with the bad so we can end up with something more palatable.” “The bad news is we sail from Hamburg on Saturday morning,” the C. said. “The good news is we have two new ports to add to our itinerary: Dubais and Juddah.” This means only one day in Hamburg so I’d better make the best of it. More about all of this later. 16:00, Dec. 7th: Earlier, I went forward to the foc’sle, and found one of the crew busy painting one of the bollards. It was pleasant up there so I paused long enough to take two pictures of him, but I soon learned it was pleasant enough if you were walking, but not if you were standing around. The breeze had a definite nip to it. In past travels, I have always made a point of getting to know the crew as best I could. I would take photos of them as they worked, ask them their names, and then use their names while I talked with them and generally kibitzed around with them. I have always been sincere about this and t has been picked up by the various seamen and appreciated. I this attitude stems from the kids I worked with at school. And so it has been to-day when I photographed Andrew, the bollard painter, Raymond, the extra watch on the Bridge, Jonathan, the 2nd Officer, and so on. One idea I am considering is to download these photos on to a floppy disc and then give it to whomever so the guys can get prints for themselves. Quite a few of the crew have laptops of their own …/ www.dialogue2.ca
Don Parker, Tales from My Travels, contd.
so they will be able to make copies to take ashore to a photo lab for prints. Some more Polish humour: When I returned to the Bridge after my hike to the bow, I something black and of an odd shape, well ahead of the starboard bow. My first thought was that it must be some type of navigational marker, but it certainly didn’t resemble anything I had run across in any of the Power Squadron courses I have taken. I asked the C. and he replied, “That is an optimist.” I didn’t understand him so I asked him again. He replied, “That is someone who hopes to catch a fish.” It was a small fishing trawler of some sort, and it appeared black in that particular light, but as we closed on it, I could see it was painted bright red and green, and it began to take on an almost Japanese pagoda shape. Th C. continued with, “When I go fishing, I
first go to the fish market, buy one fish, step outside the market, turn to the man inside and say, ‘Throw me the fish and I will catch it!’ then when I get home I can truly say I went fishing and caught a fish.” Perhaps it’s time I introduced some of the people I have been talking about. At last, you get to meet Freddy. [PHOTO LEFT]. You can find Freddy and his family on Facebook. You will read a lot more about Freddy as we progress through this saga. [PHOTO RIGHT] This is a photo from an earlier trip I took aboard the Bank Line’s MV “Foylebank.” I don’t have a similar pic from the Jakarta trip. The Bank Line is owned by the Andrew Weir Shipping Company in London, England. The Captain on this trip was Captain Peter Stapleton, the most passenger friendly captain of the six I sailed with.
Don Parker, Georgetown ON [To be continued with JJ Chapter 7 in the next issue]
♣
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“The Vagabond Writer”
THE GOOD WEEDS, contd.
By Wayne Allen Russell, Clearwater BC
I hope the readers enjoy these stories; they will bring laughter and a few tears to you. Taken from truth, but the “Family Weed” is fictitious. Please enjoy my stories.
THE JOINING Mom met Pop shortly after she was brought back to my Uncle John. Pop worked across the road from their place, at his brother Cecil’s auto repair shop. After a short courtship, Mom and Pop got married on August 17, 1923. One thing led to another, and here I am along with four brothers and two sisters. June was born on May 19, 1925, and we kids kept coming like rabbits. Here is an interesting thing Mom told me. She and my Aunt Ida were walking down a gravel road when Mom was six months pregnant with June. Mom had to have a bowel movement and asked Aunt www.dialogue2.ca
Ida to wait while she went into the bushes. When they continued down the road, Mom said, “You know Ida, if having a baby is no worse than that, I’ll have no problem with it!” Aunt Ida looked at her and kind of hesitantly said, “Mary, you do know where babies come from, don’t you?” Mom answered, “Well sure, the same place.” So Aunt Ida took time and explained to Mom just how a baby was born, including the pain involved. When Mom finished telling me this story, and knowing she wouldn’t kid about something like this, I asked, “Mom! How can this be? You were raised on a farm with all those animals being born.” Mom replied, “Adam, girls were not allowed to watch babies being born, that job belonged to the men and boys.” My wife, who was born in 1942, came out of the kitchen and said, “Girls were not allowed to see this even when I was young. It was almost a sacrilege to even ask. We were not even allowed outside when the bull was there.” Wow! How we’ve changed! THE DREAM HOME After Mom and Pop were married, my two uncles, Mom’s two brothers, talked Pop into applying for a …/ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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homesteader grant for 160 acres. In order to own it, all they had to do was clear a few acres a year. They said if he got it, they would help him and Mom clear the land in order to get a good start with their lives. Pop applied and received the grant. His farm was way up north, in no man’s land. I call this ‘no man’s land’ as it was fit for no man, let alone a woman. There were no roads to get there, just wagon tracks through the trees. The odd car went through, but always with great difficulty. The saying was, if you got your car tires in a rut during the spring thaw, you stayed in that rut until you reached your destination, praying you would not meet a car coming out. In really bad spots, the men would cut logs about six feet long, and then split them down the middle. These would be placed flat side down in the mud, side by side, making what they called a corduroy road. These makeshift roads could stretch for miles or for just a few yards, according to the terrain. If you had false teeth, you put them in your pocket so not to lose them while bouncing down these roads. There were no schools or stores. The sawmill owners would bring in goods and sell them to the mill workers and farmers, charging much too much for them. It was a very lonely place for the women. Many a child died at birth because of the conditions, and without doctors. Pop went ahead with my uncles, and found a job close to the farm. He didn’t work even one day, but with permission, returned to get Mom and bring her to their dream. My uncles stayed behind to get things started on the land. Mom and Pop arrived at the sawmill camp when Mom was almost ready to have her first baby. She was well into her ninth month, and showed it. She was climbing into a wagon to head to her new home in the woods when one of the camp ladies stopped the horses and told Pop, “Are you crazy man? This sweet little girl is not going out there in this condition. “You! Young girl, get yourself off that wagon and into my home until that child is born.” No argument on earth would change this woman’s mind, so Mom and Pop reluctantly went to her home. Pop stayed in camp and started work at the mill, and June was born in this lady’s log house. I believe this was very fortunate for Mom. After nine days of rest to get her strength back, she was raring to get to her new house. Even with the objections of her new friend and mentor, she and Pop were determined. Neither had seen the land, all they knew was that 50 dialogue
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a good, solid, two-storey log house was waiting. On this Saturday morning, one of the mill drivers took Mom, Pop, and a brand new bouncing baby girl to the creek opposite the path leading to their new place. Pop carried their suitcases and bags of bedding, while Mom, all of four-foot-eight in height, and less than a hundred pounds carried her new baby. Pop said it was a good two-and-half mile walk along a narrow path through the woods. They crossed the creek on a log boom pushed up into it. Mom had no problem getting down the steep bank and crossing the logs, but when she started up the far bank, she slipped backwards, and started to haemorrhage. She tore up a bed sheet, and used the strips to stem the flow of blood. They didn’t turn back as they should have, but kept on going. On the way, Mom used two whole bed sheets trying to stop the haemorrhaging. The mosquitoes and especially the little black flies were eating her, Pop, and the baby to pieces. Pop was helpless to assist Mom as he already had his hands full. He offered to leave the clothing, and carry the baby for her, but she refused his help. What a wonderful sight they witnessed as this big two-story log house loomed up in a clearing ahead. The homesteader before them also must have had big dreams, and they wondered how he could have ever left this place. Walking into their new kitchen, sitting on the only chairs were Mom’s two brothers, feet on the windowsill. They were drinking beer and eating some carrots they had found in a neglected garden. They didn’t even offer Mom a seat, and soon it was discovered that they had done absolutely nothing from the time Pop had left. The house had been used to store hay, and my uncles had left it that way for Mom to clean. Pop rested one day, then went to his job. Mom was so weak from loss of blood that she had to rest for three days. There were no beds, so Mom, the baby, and Pop cuddled the nights away under a blanket on a pile of hay. On the fourth day, Mom started cleaning the house. Pop carried in a bed, one piece at a time, and also brought in food. Luckily, the kitchen cook stove had been left. While Mom cooked, my uncles sat around shooting the bull, waiting for their meals. Pop worked at the mill, and Mom spent two solid weeks cleaning to get the house to her satisfaction. After three months of her brothers sitting around drinking, Mom said to Pop, “Archie, if I could, I’d leave here tomorrow and go home.” …/ www.dialogue2.ca
“Well! Little Mother,” Pop replied, “I’ve saved enough to do just that. The wagon will be waiting at the creek for us tomorrow at eight a.m.” The next morning John and Jack watched them packing up their luggage, refusing to help, trying to persuade them to stay. A French boy, whom Pop had befriended and given a place to stay, helped them carry their stuff to
the wagon. They would never see this lost dream again. They moved to the city, and when June was four they bought a twenty-acre farm. This farm was our home, where all seven of us were raised to adults. -- Wayne Russell, The Vagabond Writer TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE ♣
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“More Tales from Granddad”
Tales of Amelie, Mum and Granddad Paul Bowles, Fruitvale BC I had been talking to old Bill on the phone about an email I had received, I said that I wished I could send it to him and that it is a pity he does not have a computer. Bill replied that he did have a computer but that he didn’t use it.
up on that, except of course Amelie who doesn’t use words yet and who is being reared mainly in French. Her little brain was no doubt switching to English behind that penetrating gaze and possibly recognising the ‘banana’ word. She might be pre conversational but she knows at least a dozen words in English and when asked, recognises all the major parts of her body from head to toe. I said that I was a bit of a Luddite myself, but just this morning I was glad I had one. My wife and I were SkypI am also singing to her ‘Twinkle Little Star’ and that ing with our daughter Shannon and her daughter Amelie, Harry Bellafonte song ‘Island in the Sun,’ the one verse who is just eighteen months old. They live in Montreal, that I can remember. Maybe one day she will sing it on the other side of the country, so visits are few, conseback to us. quently Skype is ideal and rather technologically magical. Later in the year… Amelie and her mum Shannon visTo sit on the couch at home and watch them interact with ited us in Fruitvale and transformed this retired life to a each other as they play in a tent… well, it is quite surreal. playtime of innovation. Crates of toys appeared from the Bill, I said, I have to tell you what hapbasement into each room for discovpened today while Skyping with Shanery by the roaming little person. non and Amelie… After leaving a cudHooded capes, wands and masks, dle with mum, Amelie turned away and dolls, trucks and a jar of little headed for the walk-in closet. She slid wooden animals were withdrawn open the sliding door, entered the closet from the treasure account. The jar and pulled out a drawer. She picked up was a challenge, to unscrew the lid a little suitcase which had a handle, I but time spent together upon this think it was a puzzle designed as a suittask to release the animals was a case, she brought it out, closed the slidgame of surprising engagement. One ing door, gave the case to mum and by one, the tiny animals were lined Amelie made a sign, lightly punching her fists up with her little dextrous fingers together and apart. This sign means OPEN, or something, and patient demeanor. it is a language they have learned together. Puzzles were tackled by both of us until she got the idea Shannon said, “Amelie, this is not yours, it is a gift for and accomplished it with wide smile and clapping of your cousin Corbin, this is for Corbin.” Amelie looked at hands. The old dolly pram was a source of joyfully indeher mum then at the case and seemed to understand. She pendent strolling around the house, while negotiating the took back the suitcase from mum, headed for the closet, unsuspecting levels of floor in order to proceed. opened the sliding door, put the case in the drawer, Little challenges – and the mood to explore, or to stop closed it and walked back to Skype with us. and play in a timeless way – became the measure for We all then proceeded to make noises with our tongues, both of us to enjoy this occasion, not that I, as granddad all four of us flipping our lips, all reduced to the same was the only one involved. Mum and grandmother level of play. At some point I broke into the “Hey Mr. stepped into the picture, as we all found our way to keep Tally Man, Tally Me Banana” song, then we all piped the playtime moving with interest and learning. …/ www.dialogue2.ca
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Stairs alone provide not only irresistible challenge for a toddling adventurer but some trepidation for the watching adults anxious to position themselves in a rescue mode. But then, as the climb is accomplished and entry to bedrooms above has been gained, the drum and xylophone and big cymbals to crash are sought out. Granddad is intrigued with the double handed technique, ably and powerfully employed by this smart young enchantress who converses with her eyes and hand gestures. Back downstairs in the dining room there sits a wooden stove with oven and drawers to pull open and which reveal contents of pots and pans, wooden plates and play dough possibilities. The play dough is chosen and rolling pin is found and tested to roll out flat shapes to play bake in a small dish. All of the varieties of modeling which arise from this dough, (challenging if you are not a sculptor,) are tested to varying degrees of satisfaction: faces that defy description, trees which flop over, a sun with rays resembling clubs, a banana moon which provides some satisfaction and a Stone Henge which heralded an approving cheer from Amelie’s anthropologically educated grandmother. It does no good to hoard ones accomplishments for too long since they are all short lived, they depend entirely upon the approval of the young aspiring modeller, who is quick to adapt one’s
Fran’s Kitchen
efforts to some other form or non-form. However one may extend the interest to some extent by employing a mold which only requires a pressing of the dough into the cavity of the frog shape or whatever it is, and vocalising the appropriate sounds to elicit some reaction before being destroyed, which is after all, not such a great loss. Outdoor activities are also part of the agenda of keeping Amelie happy here in Fruitvale: like wagon rides up and around, past the library that her cousin Malachi loves to visit. It is a shame that the Mother Goose circle of kids, enthusiastic for story and singing will not be happening at this time. But we return to a small pool to play in and find shovel’s to dig with, a little watering can to sprinkle the flowers and different places to sit in the yard to watch the birds and butterflies flitting about. There are blueberries to pick and carrots to pull up and grapes, though not yet ready, thriving bunches are something fine to see. We hope for more memories to capture and share but in the living appreciation of a beautiful young being, the more aged among us are transformed for the time into a new person. Paul Bowles, Fruitvale, B.C. [ scribepoet@hotmail.com ] ♣
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- Fran Masseau Tyler, franskitchen74@gmail.com
SIow-cooker Roast Beef – and Cake with St. Hubert Sauce Hello folks, this month giving you a recipe for slow cooker. Whether it’s too warm to put the oven on – or just a nice cool Fall day, I take out my slow cooker. So here is a recipe for a Sunday dinner. – Fran BEST SLOW-COOKER ROAST BEEF 1 packet onion soup mix 2 cans condensed mushroom soup 1-1/4 cups water 4 lbs beef roast DIRECTIONS
Prepare the night before or in the morning in a slow cooker (crockpot): 1. Mix together the onion soup mix, mushroom soup and water (in the slow-cooker). 2. Brown beef on all sides; then place in the slow cooker: on low for 7 to 8 hours. 3. Just serve with mashed potatoes and a vegetable, and you are ready to serve up a meal fit for a king. WHITE CAKE (WITH ST. HUBERT SAUCE) l cup sugar 2 eggs 52 dialogue
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1/4 cup butter or margarine 2 cups flour 2 tsp. baking powder 1 cup milk 1 tsp. vanilla DIRECTIONS: Mix sugar, eggs & butter; add the milk, vanilla, and mix in the flour. Grease an 8x8 inch or 9x9 inch pan. Pour into pan and bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Not long ago I took this recipe and made a double recipe of cake and added a basket (about 2 cups) of blueberries and made 42 blueberry muffins with it. I like to make enough to be able to freeze some at the same time, I also always furnish my granddaughter with some for my great grandchildren at the same time.
ST. HUBERT SAUCE 2 cups brown sugar 4 Tbsp flour 3 Tbsp cornstarch 3 Tbsp butter 1-1/2 cups milk 1/2 cups 15% cream 1 tsp. vanilla In a small saucepan mix the first 3 ingredients, Add the next 3 ingredients. Mix well with a spatula. Cook until thickened. When cool, put in fridge to conserve. ♣ www.dialogue2.ca
“Observations from Lithuania”
Ken Slade, Vilnius
A Sense of Nonsense – Part IV by KR Slade
[editor’s note: this is a continuation of ‘A Sense of Nonsense’, which was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of ‘Dialogue’; which may be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/issuu-27-4 , at Ken Slade page 55; Part II was published in the Spring 2015 issue of ‘Dialogue’, which may be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/issuu-28-3, at page 57; Part III was published in the Summer 2015 issue of ‘Dialogue’, which may be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/issuu-28-4, at page 53.]
***** The old man had been converted to become an advocate for the concept of global warming. He offered his personal observation. “I can remember that when I was a very-young child, in winter there was snow so-high that it was well-past my waist. As time went on, there must have been less snow; because these days, I realize that the snow never reaches even my knees.” ***** In certain cities of the world, there are some distinct social-differences with smoking a cigarette while standing on a sidewalk. In Boston (Massachusetts, USA), someone walking on the opposite side of the street will cross the street, tell the smoker that the smoke is bothering her/him, then re-cross the street, and continue on her/his way. In New York City, someone walking on the opposite side of the street will cross the street, tell the smoker that smoking is illegal, and that she/he will call the police, then re-cross the street, and continue on her/his way. In Quebec (city), someone walking on the opposite side of the street will cross the street, offer some money for a cigarette, then re-cross the street, and continue on her/his way. In Vilnius (Lithuania), someone walking on the opposite side of the street will cross the street, ask for a cigarette, repeat the request in two or three other languages, then re-cross the street, and continue on her/his way. And, upon observing another smoker, repeat the cigarette-solicitation process. ***** www.dialogue2.ca
A 1987 Soviet moment -- post-perestroika, but preindependence -- a conversation between two schoolboys: “What are you doing ?” “Chewing gum.” “Can I try it?” “Sure, my jaw is tired anyway. Here.” “It doesn’t taste of anything.” “No. Yes.” “It is capitalist ?” “Of course. It tastes for only the first few hours, my sister says.” “Where did she get it ?” “From her boyfriend, he’s in the Soviet Navy.” “Where did he get it ?” “Somewhere in the Mediterranean, but he’s not allowed to say where.” “I like it. Can I keep it?” “Sure. But just until tomorrow. My sister wants it back.” ***** Lithuanian daily-weather reports: showers ... periods of rain ... light rain ... rain ... more rain ... rain heavy at times ... heavy rain ... thunder storms ... rain, somewhat clearing ... cloudy ... mostly cloudy ... partially clear ... possibly partly sunny ... occasional intervals of sun ... some periods of sunshine ... some sun likely ... patchy clouds ... turning cloudy ... mostly cloudy ... cloudy ... showers ... a brief shower or two ... a couple of showers ... clouds with a shower ... fog … cloudy with rain … mainly cloudy … rather cloudy … considerable cloudiness … low clouds … overcast … ***** I looked out the window, and said, “I am bored. There is nothing to do.” “Go for a walk.” “But it looks like it is going to rain.” “Ah, but in Lithuania it always looks like that that. It is not going to rain.” Five minutes later it was raining. It was raining so hard that it could be the first time in 2000 years that all Christians and Jews were thinking exactly the same thing at exactly the same time: Noah’s Ark. I couldn’t resist the opportunity: “So, in Lithuania, this is not rain?” “In Lithuania it can rain at any time. Just because it VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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looks like it is going to rain does not mean that it is going to rain. And, just because it looks like it is going to rain does not mean that it is not going to rain. But, if it rains, it will stop; then, there will be no rain.”
PHOTOS – Ken’s “Sense of Nonsense”
*****
Above: Street Grafitti. Photo: KR Slade
Above: On the outside Teachers’ House: Located in Old Town (Vilnius), the Teachers’ House is a major cultural centre in Vilnius. Photo: KR Slade Photo Left: Below: Entryway sign to Vilnius psychologist office; apparently, some psychology professionals do not know that the word ‘psycho’ is a highly-derogatory term for persons with mental illness and/or emotional problems. Photo: KR Slade
Graffiti on wall of a Vilnius prestigious prep-school; same message as found worldwide. Photo: KR Slade
Postscript: “Any resemblance of anything contained herein to any person, place, event, or thing is purely coincidental, and/or entirely imagined -- by the writer and/or the reader. This writing only fiction; therefore, nothing that is written here should be construed as true . . . including of course, this statement.” To be continued, in next issue. All Rights Reserved: 2015, kenmunications@gmail.com ♣
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Feedback from Readers DRINKING THE KOOLAID From Bob Harper, Windsor, ON As a long-time reader of Dialogue I am finding less and less articles that warrant discussion and more that are of so little common sense they are laughable. Larger and larger amount of articles writing on the alarms of climate change – as the two biggest promoters Gore and Suzuki become multi- millionaires with the scam. As more and more scientists and even former leaders of groups like Greenpeace come to the truth that there is no man made global warming or climate change.
I will comment on two articles in the summer (2015) issue of Dialogue. First, re Susanne Lawson’s article (p.25) re deforestation and climate change. A quick google search would discover that in North America we now have more trees than at any time since the Ice Age. For decades in Canada we have followed a policy of five trees planted for every one removed. For many years, my children and grandchildren in Ontario go out every year with Conservation Authorities and plant thousands of trees in the Scouting movement. Second, re Ed Goertzen’s article re the NDP victory in Alberta. He states what saved Canada from collapse in 2008 was our Social Safety Net. The cause of the collapse was the Social Safety Net in the US. Government made a decision that everyone should have a house, whether they had any money or were even working. As banks questioned that policy, the leaders said give them mortgages and if they default you are protected by Freddy & Fanny the government mortgage insurance – so everyone went out, bought a house and immediately put it up for sale and made no payments. It worked for a while, as many sold quickly and made money. Then as housing prices tanked, banks went under and so did Freddy & Fanny: driving the world economy to the ditch. Canada was one of the only countries that survived with no bank failures, for two reasons: We had an economist as Prime Minister; and banks, run and insured by the private sector, not giving mortgages to those who cannot pay. Thanks to Stephen Harper, we have survived and balanced our budget as many countries are still in terrible economic shape. Bob Harper, Windsor Ontario (rharper13@cogeco.ca)
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Re: Ghosts of Past and Future English (p.36, Summer Issue) From Kim McConnell, ON: The Dialogue Magazine has been very supportive on the language issue and more of CLF readers should subscribe to it. It does have a lot of left-wing views though. – Kim McConnell <kimlian@bellnet.ca> Canadians for Language Fairness ♣
Thanks for sending the digital forms of Dialogue... From Christina Stafford, BC Re: pdf file sent to subscribers, and the “issuu” link to the magazine (available from the website, www.dialogue2.ca)
I actually found the pdf version the easiest to read and manipulate with links. Does this mean that you're going to discontinue the paper version? * It is quite a feature to be able to connect to the entire article or specific links on the internet.... while reading.... I used to highlight interesting links while I went through the various articles in my paper edition..... intending to look them up on the computer later... but I discovered that I rarely got around to it because there were always so many emails to go through - and quite a few were news websites with a lot more reading and videos. I appreciate the impressive work you've done to digitalize these journals.... it's amazing what's possible in this new age of technology.... ! Best wishes, Christina Stafford ♣
* About the digital edition Note from Editor: The print edition will continue as always, for as long as there are people who want to read it!
A digital copy of the magazine is now available as part of your subscription to Dialogue. Subscribers can now receive, by email, a PDF file of each issue. If you did not receive the file of the Summer edition (emailed on July 22, 2015), please email me (Janet): dialogue@dialogue.ca – if you would like to receive the digital copy (with clickable web links). You can also access a readable (issuu) copy of the current and recent issues at: www.dialogue2.ca ♣ VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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More Comments on the Summer 2015 issue… From Robin Mathews, Vancouver: The magazine looks splendid! Whoever does your covers is very gifted! Lots of good things for which many thank yous. I think Mel Hurtig’s book is doing well – and it needs to, meaning we have to GROW the anti-Con members. You must have armfuls of work with the electronic site and the magazine. Very best to you both. From Marianne Else, Hawkestone, ON: Many blessings to all four of you. You are a gift to our world. ♣ From Dr. Stephen Faulkner, Silverfern Clinic, Duncan BC: Love your magazine. ♣ From Mr. Roy Lyall, Portage La Prairie, MB: I have worked for over 20 years to get monetary reform. The parties are deaf to honesty. I still work with Paul Hellyer. We may still win, but debt is massive everywhere. ♣ From Russell Vinden, Errington, BC: The magazine is one of the very few sources of calm, wild, wacky, eminently sensible views and opinions still available in print. The fact that it is graced with art, humour, and respect makes it unique. Thank you both for your commitment and vision. As Churchill said, “Never surrender!” ♣
From Bruce Powe (in Spain): I just received Dialogue this morning here... (here being Barcelona... or more exactly, Castelldefells, just outside of Barcelona... where IN3* is now located.) and read it and wanted to say thank you and congratulations. Terrific pieces in it. I took pleasure in Wilf´s polemic (Mr Harper, your days are numbered). And of course deeply appreciated John´s review of my book – Where Seas and Fables Meet (p.41)... The whole issue very inspiring. It’s scorching hot here. The warmest summer in 50 years. Which is saying something because it´s normally very sticky in Barcelona this time of the year. It was plus 50 in Seville when we were there. Yes. I wilted. Auxi handles it better. Now things are balanced for us. She experienced minus 30 in Toronto. I experience plus 40 here. Did some presentations here on the Opening Time project this week. Working on editing new book, too. Back to Cordoba on the weekend. Separatism once again heating up in Catalunya... could be because of the sun… ~ with great affection and appreciation to all of you, BW * The Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) is a research centre of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) specializing in the study of the Internet and the effects of the interaction of digital technologies with human activity. ♣
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Further to my contribution to the Summer issue… From Ernest Semple, QC As in my latest entry in Dialogue (Summer 2015), together with Kim Lian McConnell I have repeated again in a publicized journal, the declaration that the terms "Minority and Majority" would be unconstitutional under the British Magna Carta and succeeding British law. Magna Carta was a protest against fascism by the nobles with respect to the common people. The 1982 Charter exalted the rights of groups above the rights of individuals. It has left the Supreme Court in a state of permanent confusion until the Charter is thrown out. The result is what the British might ridicule as a "canard".
You are permitted to ridicule these two words in Canadian law and contrast with British Common Law that protects the rights of individuals instead of the supposed rights of groups. Not many of our Law Makers are bright enough to see this. Maybe someone can wise them up with cartoons. Yours truly, Ernest Semple ♣ 56 dialogue
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Thank you for the copy of Dialogue From Robyn Allan, BC: Hello Maurice and Janet, Thank-you for the copy of your summer 2015 issue and kind note on the address label. I appreciate the reference to and quotes from my withdrawal letter as an Intervenor in the Kinder Morgan hearing. Thank-you for helping spread the word regarding the need to overhaul the NEB. Regards, Robyn Allan ♣ *****************************
From Katherine L. Knight, Kingston, ON: A friend told me about your excellent magazine and because, as he said, that as he knows I am’ interested in all things Canadian, I would probably enjoy it as he does...
I look forward to receiving your publication and I shall be mailing a copy of my book. ♣ *****************************
Thank you for all your comments! We very much appreciate hearing your feedback about Dialogue. – Janet & Maurice ♣ www.dialogue2.ca
Laughter & ‘Lightenment From Ken Palmer:
Anagram Genius…… THE MORSE CODE: When you rearrange the letters: HERE COME DOTS. SLOT MACHINES: When you rearrange the letters: CASH LOST IN ME. ELECTION RESULTS: When you rearrange the letters: LIES - LET'S RECOUNT. SNOOZE ALARMS: When you rearrange the letters: ALAS! NO MORE Z'S. A DECIMAL POINT: When you rearrange the letters: I'M A DOT IN PLACE. THE EARTHQUAKES: When you rearrange the letters: THAT QUEER SHAKE. ELEVEN PLUS TWO: When you rearrange the letters: TWELVE PLUS ONE. ♣
From David Foster: Fun with aphorisms And the truth shall make you flee. A rolling stone gathers no moths. (Dr Martin Luther King) ‘I have a teen...’ If the shoe fits, hold it down so it won’t swallow its tongue. Think outside the balks. Many hands make it hard to tell the right time. A watched pot never went anywhere. What goes around gets dizzy. Have fun with some yourself! ♣
Witty Quotes…
If you don't control your mind, someone else will – John Allston When you have nothing to say, say nothing. – Charles Caleb Colto Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. – Hector Berlioz
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From Don Parker
A sampling of British humour: A government survey has shown that 91% of illegal immigrants come to Britain so that they can see their own doctor. ~~~~~~~ Due to the current economic crisis, Greece is canceling all production of Humus and Taramasalata. It's a double dip recession. ~~~~~~~ A dwarf goes to a very busy doctor and asks "I know you are busy but do you treat dwarves?" The doctor replies "Yes, but you will have to be a little patient." ~~~~~~~ 63 Pakistanis died in Bradford this morning. It was not a terrorist attack, a bunk bed collapsed. The police are blaming AL IKEA. ~~~~~~~ Jonathan Ross has been accused of shoplifting a kitchen utensil from Tesco. Ross says it was a whisk he was prepared to take. ~~~~~~~ Police stop a Pakistani in his transit van on the motorway. Policeman says "Do you know the limit is 70?" The driver leans into the back and says:"Hear that..... 3 of you have got to get out!"
Paddy and Mick stagger out of the zoo with blood pouring from them. "To hell with that" said Paddy, "That's the last time I go lion dancing" ~~~~~~~ Paddy says to Mick, "Christmas is on Friday this year." Mick said, "Let's hope it's not the 13th then." ~~~~~~~ My mate just hired an Eastern European cleaner; it took her 15 hours to Hoover the house. Turns out she was a Slovak. ~~~~~~~ Since the snow came, all the wife has done is look through the window. If it gets any worse, I'll have to let her in. ~~~~~~~ I've been charged with murder for killing a man with sandpaper. But I only intended to rough him up a bit. ~~~~~~~ A mummy covered in chocolate and nuts has been discovered in Egypt. Archaeologists believe it may be Pharaoh Rocher.... ~~~~~~~ Just a reminder to those who stole electrical goods in last year's riots.... Your one-year manufacturer's warranty runs out soon. ♣
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old when you stop laughing!!! www.dialogue2.ca
VOL. 29 NO. 1, AUTUMN 2015
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Contributors in Ahmed, Nafeez (link)…………06 Allan, Robyn, BC (re NEB) …...56 Andersen, Erik, BC….4,19,24,26 Arney, Jeremy, BC ………..4,30 Backhaus, Karl, ON ……........44 Bowles, Paul, BC …...….........51 Bronskill, Jim (Cdn. Press)….27 Burks, Fred, PEERS………...34 Canadian Action Party….....4,33 Cdns. for Language Fairness 10 Clark, Ken, ON……………….13 Council of Canadians…….….10 Cude, Wilfred, NS.……….15-18 Eagleone (at 250news.com) 20 Economist, The (link)….……..06 Ellis, Jordan, BC (from)….…...28 Else, Marianne, ON………….56 Engler, Yves (extract/link)……..29 Ewart, Peter, BC……………..07 Faulkner, Stephen, BC………56 Foster, David, ON ……….36, 57 Friends of Public Broadcasting12 Fuhrman, Dot, BC…………...09
dialogue, Vol. 29 No. 1
GlobalResearch.ca, QC…….35 Goertzen, Ed, ON...………….26 Guardian, The (link)…………..06 Hannah, Dorothy, QC…….....45 Hansen, Bob, BC………........19 Harper, Bob, ON……………..55 Independent Jewish Voices…28 Joyce, Jim, NWT…………….10 Kazdan, Larry, BC…………...09 King, Maurice, BC…………...20 Knight, Katherine, ON...……..56 Lawrence, Sharon (from)….…30 Lonsdale, Derrick, US……….39 Lyall, Roy, MB………………..56 Maclise, Sharon, AB…………09 Masseau Tyler, Fran, QC…...52 Masuda, Gerry, BC……....12,19 Mathews, Robin, BC……..31,56 May, Elizabeth (quote)……..19,28 McCaslin, Susan, BC…......42-43 McConnell, Kim, ON...........10,55 McCullough, John, ON 4,45,59 McDowall, S. (from)6,11,19,34,40
Mercola.com (link)….………..40 Monbiot, George (link)……....06 Moore, R.K., Ireland………...06 Morton, Alexandra, BC……..23 NationalObserver.com ….21,28 NationalPost.com (link)……...21 Neilly, Michael, ON…….……22 Nickerson, Mike, ON………..05 Ostermann, Gunther, BC….05 Palmer, Ken, AB……………57 Parker, Don, ON…….47-49,57 Porter, J. S., ON………......8,41 Powe, B. W., Spain………….56 Rabble.ca (link)………...…….21 Romanchuk, Al, AB…………11 Ross, June, BC (from)………12 Russell, Wayne, BC….....49-51 Rusticus (Activist Post)……..34 Semple, Ernest, QC………...56 Shadbolt, John, ON…………34 Skinner, Derek, BC…..19,20,33 Slade, Ken, Lithuania…...53-54 Stafford, Christine, BC……...55
Please Subscribe to dialogue!
Stein, Paul…………………...19 Sustainability Project………..05 TheStar.com (quote/link)….....19 TheTyee.ca (links)………...14,26 Topham, Art, BC…………….11 TorontoStar (reprint)………...27 TRNN-TheRealNews.com…29 Urquhart, Marion, ON……….22 Vancourt, Randy, ON…….....46 Vinden, Russell, BC………...56 VoteABC2015 (link)……….…21 Vrain, Thierry, BC…….....36,37 WhyNotHarper.ca …………..12
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