Monthly Archives: October 2019

Canadian Election of October 2019

The day before Voting Day

What a boring, nasty election full of innuendos, accusations and falsehoods, and very little in the way of substantive ideas.  This was not about MPs so much as about the leader of the country. CBC, instead of promoting democracy, furthered the concept of a leader being elected in all 338 ridings. Only in Canada eh? pity.

The spectre of a coalition government has not appeared in Canadian political history until now and has been blown out of all proportion.

Yes the Liberals, NDP and Bloq foolishly announced that they would vote together to defeat Harper’s minority government in a non-confidence vote and form an alliance, not a coalition, to run government which resulted in Harper proroguing government to avoid that situation. An alliance is not a coalition. Remember what he said in the house, prior to proroguing, about what any alliance with a separatist party would do for constitutionality? Typically, he raised the idea again that a party interested almost entirely in what was/is good for Quebec had to be separatist, and that is typical of all western blockheads’ thinking.

Now we have his minion Andrew Sheer (another western blockhead) raising the spectre of a Liberal- NDP coalition because the NDP have flatly ruled out any chance of working with a conservative minority and even though the Liberals have not agreed to the Scheer proposed coalition accusation.  The NDP raised the possibility of a coalition with the Liberals and of course, Scheer jumped all over that as fact in another form of smear tactic against Trudeau.   Typical.

What we have here are two young males still in political short pants (so to speak), one of whom has made some serious mistakes in the last 4 years, and the other who was perhaps the worst Speaker in our History.   One tries to tell us what he has done well, and how he wants to do more, and the other ignores the climate and our aboriginal people, but pours scorn and hate on his rival.  Between them there is obviously no love and perhaps no respect.  One warns of the other and the usual conservative tactics of less tax for the wealthy corporations and more for the people along with service cuts, while the other slams, curses and personally attacks the other.   Children! Grow up damn it!

I listened to one speech, how typical I don’t know as I try to avoid most of them lately, in which Scheer raised the spectacle of Diefenbaker and Mulroney as two shining examples of Conservative PMs.  Wow.   Yes, the Deief gave us the Bill of Rights, but he also cancelled the Avro Arrow once the impossible was accomplished and how much money did we spend on that wonderful plane?   Not sure what the symbolism was meant to be here, maybe that our success is not acceptable south of the border and their discontent must be appeased; so, is that a clue about Scheer?  With Mulroney everything is much clearer.  He gave what was left of our sovereignty to the USA through FTA and blew the national debt up from approx. $93 billion to approx. $440 billion before he gave over power to Campbell.  Another shining example of a true Canadian?   Harper raised it again to just nudging under $1 trillion from approx. $515 billion to give himself a balanced operating budget. Hah!  So, the references Scheer was suggesting in relation to himself was?  

Does it appear that I have no time for Scheer? Well, that is correct. His action as Speaker over the Brad Butt affair still rankles with me and act as a guide to the man he really is as opposed to what he projects.

Does that mean that I support Trudeau? Only if that was the only alternative. His election promise being broken may well have come back to haunt him, and his actions re the first peoples are still seriously lacking.

Neither of these men has any clue what democracy might have been and will not practice it given the chance with a majority. So, the best outcome and the one that seems most likely now is a minority government with the balance of power split between three parties – if the Greens reach party status and I hope they do – and that could actually lead to better governance; that is if the lust for power can lower its ugly head for a while and if our elected representatives can actually work for both Canada and us for a change.

Oh, to be free of the corporate chains Canada.

 

Jeremy

Doctors who are needed and available but can’t practice medicine in BC

Everyone in my area, and probably all of BC, is well aware of the difficulty in obtaining a family doctor, and even the frustration of attending clinics for hours with no certainty of getting seen.  This, of course, stems from the chronic shortage of doctors here in BC.

Actually, let me amend that; there isn’t really such a shortage as there are doctors who have come to Canada to practice medicine only to find themselves waiters, cooks, warehousemen or assistants in care facilities. Why is this? Because here in BC anyway The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC doesn’t want them to practice without paying vast sums of money to the college.

It is interesting to me that Canadian doctors are welcomed abroad without having to pay to help treat people in Africa for instance, yet an African doctor coming here is not welcomed as a doctor.  Sounds like a typical semi-political body flexing it bigoted muscles to me, and not doing the people or doctors of BC any favours at all. 

I went to the website and looked for the mandate and mission statement and this in part is what I found.

Our mission

Serving the public by regulating physicians and surgeons.

Our mandate

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia regulates the practice of medicine under the authority of provincial law. All physicians who practise medicine in the province must be registrants of the College.

The College’s overriding interest is the protection and safety of patients. The role of the College is to ensure physicians meet expected standards of practice and conduct.

Regulation of the medical profession is based on the foundation that the College must act first and foremost in the interest of the public. The primary function of the College is to ensure that physicians are qualified, competent and fit to practise medicine. The College administers processes for responding to complaints from patients and for taking action if a physician is practising in a manner that is incompetent, unethical or illegal. The College also administers a number of quality assurance activities to ensure physicians remain competent throughout their professional lives.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Yet it is pure BS.

This is the same college that stepped way outside its mandate and closed down the Marigold Natural Compounding Pharmacy in Courtney.   There were no reports of death or injury that I could find.  But in Creston, where a Pharmasave worker issued conflicting pharmaceutical prescriptions that lead to the death of a woman only a 30-day suspension of the pharmacist was given. The College has no clue about natural products or their effect upon the human body and yet they took it upon themselves to raid and then close the Marigold.   Is that not stepping outside their mission by attacking naturopathic doctors and practitioners because they do not pay their dues?  Perhaps more time spent on finding ways to allow immigrant medical doctors to set up shop and look after the people of BC without having to give $15,000 (which most of them do not have) to the College would be a better way to serve the public.   Remember here that most semi-political bodies want to bully rather than help (see the BC Health and 53 vaccinations from birth to age 18) and that is what is happening here.  Perhaps they should also realise that the more doctors there are writing prescriptions for toxic drugs the more money comes from the pharmaceutical companies, so the members of the college can buy that second Mercedes for their wives(husbands).

I am one of those without a western medical doctor and am unable to find one for small cuts, bone breaks etc., and have instead to rely upon the emergency at the SanPen Hospital or whatever clinic I can find that is either open or doesn’t have a mile-long queue.  Fortunately, I am in good health and so it is not soo important and I do have my medical history on a CD should it be needed.

But back to the mandate:

The College’s overriding interest is the protection and safety of patients. The role of the College is to ensure physicians meet expected standards of practice and conduct.

Regulation of the medical profession is based on the foundation that the College must act first and foremost in the interest of the public……….

OK in theory but what about ensuring that there are enough doctors to treat the people of BC? Would that not be in the interest of the public? 

The college is totally against our using naturopathic medicine to actually determine the cause of a problem, and yet it restricts the availability of western pill pushers to treat the symptoms.  I say that somewhat tongue in cheek as I was lucky to have an excellent family doctor for some 30 years who was very understanding of my reluctance to take pharmaceutical pills.

Meanwhile, here in a nearby village, there is an African doctor who is an assistant at a care facility because he doesn’t have the money to jump through the college hoops, and the longer he and his family pay exorbitant rents and high food prices the less chance there is he will ever practice medicine here in BC.

How is that serving the interests of the public?

 I have yet to see a statement from the College about the 5G networks coming to a neighbourhood near you very soon, and I suppose that is because for a while it is going to give the western medicine practitioners a lot of business and chance to prescribe pills which will do nothing. The trouble with something like this is that it affects us all, members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC included.

Find a way to allow doctors with real credentials from another country to practice their medicine, because that is looking after the interests of the people here in BC.

But how does that make money and create power for The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC is the question.

 

Jeremy

The last week of CBC’s non-stop promotion of corpocracy in Canada.

Thanksgiving is over, fall is definitely here on Vancouver Island with colourful shrubs and trees, and the temps are falling like the more frequent rains.  In short, winter is around the corner.

More pressing is the action of our national broadcasting corporation – the CBC – when it comes to the current election for our federal parliament.

For some reason, the CBC has been promoting what the pollical parties are constantly selling. Party politics here in Canada is alive, well and ruining democracy at an ever-increasing rate. In spite of their incessant ads to promote their ability to be an impartial informer of events of interest to Canadians, CBC’s entire reporting on this election has been about the party leaders and which one we want which one we should avoid and so on ad nauseum.

Somehow in all of this the basic reason for voting has disappeared.  Elect a member of parliament to represent the needs of we, their constituents, to Ottawa. How simple is that and how stupidly ignorant of that have we become?   It has been changed now to elect a leader whose representative from the people will do just exactly what they are told, not by we the people but indirectly through the party caucus to do the will of the corporate lobbyists. This is modern politics, and it stinks.   It also costs us a lot of money to have 338 people in Ottawa pretending to do the nation’s business.

Do the candidates in the ridings across the country listen to us or are they too busy spouting their party line?  I only attended one town hall this time (my work schedule only allowed one) and though there was only the occasional referral to the party leaders – usually about economic matters – the flat, polite, closely timed remarks were scripted, canned responses handed down from the election war rooms.  There was no time for passion, no time for humour, no time for actual debate, no time for audience participation and questions, indeed I felt cheated of democratic conversation as I left the Hall.  That sums up the whole nonevent which has been directed by the CBC with no reality in democracy, but perfectly in line with the current regard to the truth of corpocracy.

How many times have I been asked in the last week which leader to vote for, and when I say that  I only vote for a leader because she happens to be in my riding I get a barrage of facts about why they hate so and so, can’t stand so and so, etc., and seem genuinely puzzled when I ask if their names are to be on the ballot they will use to vote.  As long as this misconception of democracy is promoted by such as the CBC ignorance will abound.

So my question is the same for the hypocritical CBC:  

Since the party leaders are not on 337 ballots, how can a vote for their puppet on a ballot rather than for a real representative be a democratic election?

Democracy means we the taxpaying people of Canada should have a say in what happens in our country, and yet you are encouraging us to vote for a dictatorship. Is this how you spend the money that we give you to undermine democracy?  The answer is a resounding yes.  

A vote for an independent or small party candidate may not elect the Prime Minister but it might elect someone to keep him/her accountable to the people. Remarkably even the Communist and Marxist Leninists parties want to re-introduce the use of the Bank of Canada, whilst the current crop wants to bury us in further international high-interest debt.  Now, who do you imagine is really for Canada and Canadians?

 

Shame on you CBC, and maybe you will get a party which will slash your subsidies again.

 

Jeremy

Canadian Election party leaders debate 7th October 2019

As a result of the CBC discussions about this debate and their continuous nauseous talks about winners or loosers I felt obliged to communicate this to them:

Leaders’ “Debate” Debacle.

You have been asking viewers what they thought of the event on Monday 7th October 2019 and after watching you devote soo much time to trying to make it much more than it was I decided to give you my thoughts.

The Format was designed to be a failure; after all, do you know any politician or religious guider who can be really succinct? You invited confrontation but did not give enough time for it to develop from either protagonist so why bother? You also had a leader of a party with no elected members in the last parliament and very little chance of even obtaining party status this time around.

I would classify this as a discussion of the climate as it was introduced into every topic and the real problem of pollution was hardly mentioned.  The largest carbon-sequestering agents are either very sick in the case of the oceans, or diminished by massive cutting or burning of forests.   Yet the bigger threat to mankind – and all other species – is the rollout of the 5G networks the damage from which will make environmental problems immaterial and will perhaps give the earth a chance to recover from the most invasive species it has ever known. Not even mentioned either through ignorance or fear of the communication corporations and their monies.

It was also painfully obvious that not one of those so-called leaders was even aware that the trillion-plus national debt was caused by failing to use the bank of Canada to finance our needs.  In 1974 when the Bank of Canada was turned into an inflation watchdog instead of a source of finance our national debt – owed to ourselves by the way – was a mere $22 billion, and today it is very nearly $1.3 trillion owed to international banks and investors.  There was not a leader on the stage who even considered that, in their efforts to explain how they would pay for anything, they would restart the use for which the Bank of Canada was created. When you consider what we created, built and paid for with the Bank of Canada then today’s problems are very small potatoes.   Today’s money-raising is through increased taxes or cuts…very innovative.

In your follow up programming you have asked some people, many pundits etc., to explain who was the winner and if they had changed their minds about which leader they would vote for thereby taking us further away from the concept of democracy.   The purpose of an election may I remind you, as you seem to have forgotten, is to elect a representative to our parliament, not to elect a dictator. How many times did you ask people which leader they would vote for when that name is not even on the ballot in 337 ridings? What are you promoting here?  Clearly you are in favour of the waring party system which has got us into this mess and gives us one dictatorship after another instead of the democracy so often falsely claimed to exist in this country.

As for the winners – there were none, yet the losers were very definitely the people of Canada who were promised a momentous event and got a dud squib.

 

Jeremy

 

Unasked question

Last Wednesday, 2nd October 2019, I attended an all-candidates town hall meeting at Stelly’s School in my riding of Saanich and the Gulf Islands.

I wanted to ask a very particular question about the rolling out of the 5G networks here in Canada with the apparent full approval of Health Canada and all of our so-called representatives in the last parliament in spite of serious questions being asked by scientists.

It seemed a very logical question in light of the massive publicizing of “climate change”, but to my dismay, this was not a meeting at which my question could be asked as it appeared that the questions had been already presented by the pupils of the school.   Good questions too, one or two even had the possibility of humour in the answers but that possibility was largely ignored.

What is referred to as climate change is, I believe partially due to the earth having tilted slightly on its axis, caused maybe by massive earthquakes, underground explosions by nuclear powers (read the USA in particular), and whatever else.  This tilting is evidenced by the fact that the magnetic north of the earth has moved, if that is the right word, and now all old compasses are slightly off when compared to paper maps. Perhaps with Google Earth, GPS etc., paper maps will soon become just like the Dodo bird but until that happens – beware.  There is indeed a clear case for climate change but the reasons presented are perhaps more hysterical and political than real.  The change occurs at the local level, not to planetary one.

In my view, the problem, beside the tilting of the planet, is one of pollution.

Water:           Our already sick seas have been turned into a monstrous plastic garbage heap with the resultant damage to fish, birds, plankton and corral. Without those living things to feed it the sea has warmed and is now a very sick patient. The same applies to our rivers, lakes and aquifers which have been made toxic by cheap corporate dumping.   Read “Sea Sick” by Alanna Mitchell or the example of the Mount Polley Mine tailings pond dam collapsed causing massive damage to Hazeltine Creek and the toxification of the once pristine Quesnel Lake in BC.

Land:             Giant holes have been dug way down into the earth all across the globe and the earth removed has been washed with toxic chemicals and the toxic wash then dumped into manmade lakes only to have them poison the nearby waters when man-made earth dams break.

Air:                 Once there were blue skies with various shades of cloud, white fluffy things or dark storm things and various shades between.  Now there are long strings or plumes of greyish white that are deliberately sprayed into the blue skies. How many times have I been told they are contrails from passing jetliners? Can’t even begin to count. I have seen contrails and they disappear almost as fast as they appear.   That to which I am referring though do not disappear; instead, they grow in size, feather-like spikes come off them and it seems clear that something is dropping from them to the ground. Various claims have been made that they are sprayed from aeroplanes to reduce the heat of the sun and its effect upon the earth. Good lord, how gullible do we have to be to swallow that?  The problem with carbon dioxide is manmade as we continually destroy the earth’s ability to get rid of excess CO2.  The sea and the trees are the lungs of the earth and they need CO2 to grow, or stay healthy – non-acidic and cool in the case of the oceans.  Regretfully we are following the footsteps of previous civilizations such as the Sumerian or Mayan and destroying what is necessary to feed and house a constantly increasing population. There should have been a better way and maybe the next generation will figure it out if we leave them anything with which to work

Back to my question for the candidates which I never got to ask:

“Soo much talk about climate change, and no talk of the 5G networks which, thanks to Health Canada  (a totally compromised organization), are coming very soon to all Canada’s neighbourhoods which will make climate change immaterial as we will not be around to see it.  Do you support this 5G network?”

It would have been interesting to know which, if any of the candidates, were even aware of 5G as none of them mentioned it even obliquely.

If we allow 5G networks to go ahead and put receiver-transmitters on ever second telephone pole so that cars, phones, smart meters, toasters, TVs and washing machines etc., can not only talk to each other but report back to corporate and  government data banks; then the resulting damage to the electrical makeup of man, combined with the death of all bird, insect and other wildlife necessary for the promotion of growth of our foods, will inadvertently make climate change reversible as the most damaging invasive species know to earth will become extinct as well as all the other species we have destroyed.  The earth will recover when we have gone! We cannot eat money or plastic and we cannot drink oil!

19th Century Cree saying

“Only when the last tree has died, and the last fish has been

caught, and the last river has been poisoned, will they realize that

money cannot be eaten”.

 

The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson was in response to very harmful pesticides, and 5G is much, much worse.  Without insects and birds, how will we get our plants – especially food plants – to pollinate and grow to feed us?

Perhaps it would be best for the planet if indeed the human species died out, but I have children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren who I hope will step up and solve the giant mess my generation and those immediately before and after have produced.

Meanwhile, I can become an increasingly grumpy old man I suppose.

Jeremy

Silly Season 2019

What a crazy world we now inhabit, but for how long.

Summer gets hotter, winds get stronger, water falls, pulses, gushes and destroys, and fires rage and burn homes but not trees.  We are being given a message and the leaders are ignoring it.   The children and young adults are not and we still do nothing. The constant need for power combined with political and corporate greed control us and will until its too late as long as we continue to buy useless “stuff” pushed on us by non-stop advertising. Do you really need a 50 cycle washing machine? A cell phone which is going to make you sick and maybe even give you cancer? A car which thinks for you and is controlled by your cell phone? A veggie or vegan burger called plant-based or beyond meat? A drug which has side effects worse than the supposed condition and can include death?  On the other hand, you do need to know which communication companies are in a rush to alter your electrical makeup with 5G, but will you pay attention to the side effects which you cannot avoid whether you have a cell phone or not?

Here in Canada, we are into an election cycle or totally stupid season.  Promises are made that have no real chance of success and costings are well hidden making them more attractive simply to get your gullible votes.

Take taxes for instance:  Promises are made that the very wealthy will be taxed more which is overdue and fair, but only if overseas dummy corporation tax havens are outlawed. I have, and even promoted, the concept that all businesses operating in Canada must use a Canadian incorporated and based bank and pay taxes on any profits prior to any money being sent overseas.   Of course, if investments must be made overseas, and why not, then there must be employees operating that business not simply a dummy account somewhere numbered or not.   Then there are so-called tax credits. What a joke that is.   Tax credits are listed under the section which includes personal allowances etc. and are discounted down to 17%.    That is, of course, a sleight of hand by anyone’s measure and if one doesn’t have an income sufficient to have that credit take effect then of what use is the credit anyway, discounted or not?

Taxes, of course, are a huge part of the economy of any country, especially here in Canada, and are used to pay for services which we have been promised.  Naturally, we do not have enough income from taxes to pay for everything so costs are passed off to the provincial and municipal governments, which have even more financial responsibilities.   Classic “pass the buck” down the line instead of up the line.

Another factor to take into consideration here in Canada is the interest on the national debt which must be paid out of taxes and is, in fact, the largest single yearly cost to our federal government.

How many of our current crop of deceitful political parties even understand the economic reasons for using the Bank of Canada instead of international banks and investors?  The answer is all the small parties except the Libertarians, and yes that includes the Communists, Rhinoceros and the Marxist Leninists, which makes them more Canadian people-orientated that the big 4 (5 if you include the Bloq).  Of course, the big 4(5) are corporately funded and lobbied to the extent that their hands are tied, or so they claim.    However, since income to the federal government is so important, they conveniently forget that the Bank of Canada, designed and created to fulfil Canada’s financial needs, charges a minimum interest to cover their operating costs and any money left over is returned to the Minister of Finance to help with government expenses.  You would think that it is a no brainer and indeed it is.  Excuses given by Ministers is that the Basil 1,11 and 111 agreements do not allow us to do this.  But those Basil agreements are between privately owned central banks, to which our publicly-owned bank should not have been signed on without a referendum or plebiscite from the people of Canada.  Did we agree? Were we even asked?  The answers to those questions are no we were not.   It wasn’t even a government agreement.  So why is our publicly-owned bank or government bound by it?

The inhabitants of this land for thousands of years are treated like vermin by the descendants of immigrants in much the same way those early immigrants treated them.  Maybe there is some movement to treat them as humans but it is very slow, grudging and inefficient.  Plots of land to which they have been herded give them little or no access to hunting, clean water or even air.  Mines, drilling and other extraction on their unceded lands are carried out with the full permission of governments which do not have the right to allow it, and most often there is no benefit to the rightful owners of that land, and I do not mean the crown.   Actually, our aboriginal people think of it as land that was given to them by their creator to look after, and we are stopping them for doing so.

Which political  parties today are talking about the Mount Polley damn disaster, or the unholy mess in northern Alberta where Bitumen is being mined, or the erection of Cite C damn in Northern BC, not to mention the Unis’tot’en peoples’ burial grounds and trapping lines being assaulted for corporate profit for which they have been offered no share, and to which they do not agree?  One major party has absolutely no interest in anything to do with First Nation, Inuit or Metis rights and another promises top priority and neither they or the third party have any intention of crossing their extraction buddies and their offshoot corporations.

Where exactly do personal attacks tell the people of Canada anything except that it is OK to be prejudiced against an opponent because that opponent stands in the way of their power? Is that what we want our children to be taught?

The fact is that Canada is rife with hatred, prejudice and discrimination of all sorts. Is this being addressed even obliquely?  Hardly.  In fact, it is being promoted by some parties, the members of which seem to have forgotten that their ancestors, or even immediate parents were/are immigrants seeking a better life here in Canada.  I know that is why I came here, to raise a family of Canadians in a beautiful, welcoming country full of possibilities for those who are willing to work for it.   Boy, am I disillusioned now!

The young people today are interested in having futures for themselves and their children on this planet now being destroyed at a greater rate for a few dollars and are any of the parties really listening to them? or are they making empty promises they have no intention of keeping simply to get their votes?  

Once upon a time Canada meant something in the world, now we are just a pawn to corporate power game. We do not lead by example any more. We do not do something because it is right to do it, but simply do what we are told.  Our sovereignty like our diplomatic value are both at zero, because of political allegiances owed to states such as Israel or The US with their totally terroristic approach to the world.

But:

This time we just might have enough disillusioned people here in Canada to have a widely differing set of politicians and parties in our House of Commons, and a  minority government to be supported on good legislation for the people, and bad legislation either amended or thrown out, again for the benefit of the people of Canada rather than corporations whose bottom line and CEO bonuses far exceed the benefits to humanity.

It’s up to us, so let’s get out and vote for the real candidates who will represent you to Ottawa not Ottawa to you, who will swear an oath of allegiance to the people of Canada, not a foreign Queen…. And that excludes Liberal, Conservative and NDP….maybe even the Greens…if only they could adopt the Bank of Canada instead of international banks and investors and become real Canada supporters…Ah well.

We live in a world of internet information false or not; cell phone computers rule our lives and control our thoughts and actions and we allow consumer products designed to spy on us and to shorten our lives (smart meters, 5G networks etc.,) to change our electrical bodies and weaken our ability to think for ourselves, even to communicate with our fellow humans, and this is progress?

Rock on Greta Thunberg, Autumn Peltier, Malala Yousafzai and all you young people, take control please because you are showing more sense and courage than all our politicians combined.