Tag Archives: Carolyn Bennet

Wet’suwet’en

February 2020

We now have our own version of Standing Rock here in Canada, involving real people who live as they have for millennia on unceded territory in British Columbia.

Under the Indian Act, it was decreed that there would be elections on reservations etc., to run those reserves and those who won the brass goose would be called elected chiefs.  Problem is that like almost every politician in North America, they are subject to the bribes or threats of the corporate powers whose only interest is money.  These elected chiefs in Wet’suwet’en,  for whichever of the above reasons, fell in line with the power structure (read corporate right and profit versus peoples’ rights) and here is where the whole problem arises. 

The elected chiefs are there to run their reserves as businesses and in accordance to the scraps given them by federal and provincial money, and even smaller scraps by corporate powers plundering their lands.

The Hereditary Chiefs are there to ensure that the way of life, the land, the waters and the air are not irreparably damaged for those yet to come. They too are the keepers of history and tradition and that includes sacred lands where their ancestors are buried.

The Hereditary Chiefs are not bound by threats of less money or the promise of more money as that is not their way.  Their way is the way of the land as it has been for thousands of years.  Because of their stewardship of the land, air and water it is all still there for their people and they are trying to make sure that it will be next year, next decade and next century.  Don’t try and tell them they can’t get by without money, for money is only a new imposition upon them since the foreigners attacked and stole some of this land a few centuries ago and introduced them to European ways of treachery.

Under the leadership of the Hereditary Chiefs, there are still animals to trap, water to drink and clean air to breathe and life experiences to be taught to the young people; that is all under attack by corporate greed with elected people from Canada and BC in full agreement.  

 Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned
and the last fish has been caught
will we realize that we can’t eat money  (Native American Proverb)

So what is happening in the unceded territory of the Wet’suwet’en is an affront to all those who agree with and have signed on to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Can you imagine the outcry if the Algonquin territory upon which our capital is built, was to be taken back and turned into a massive amusement park? Oh, actually I suppose it has already if you have a twisted sense of humour, for it is becoming more and more difficult to differentiate between politicians and willful children pretending to have fun.

 If this is what it means when the PM reiterates over and over again that the most important relationship the government has is with our First Nations, Inuit and Metis, then we are in a period of time travelling with Alice through her looking glass.

 What have we become Canada?

Propaganda? Well yes

23rd March 2018

Just by chance today I happened to watch part of a panel session on CPAC called: INVESTING IN CANADIAN INNOVATION.

 One of the members of the panel (an American scientist) asked Justin Trudeau to explain the Kinder Morgan Pipe Line and what emerged was the usual total bullshit about carbon taxes and the meeting of mythical targets set in Paris.

 Once again there was the spectacle of our PM stating that we had to find new markets around the Pacific for our Alberta Bitumen.   In theory that may be fine but in practice that is simply not possible.

 As I have pointed out to Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Trade, Fisheries and Oceans, Natural Resources, Justice and the Environment as well as Trudeau himself, we are controlled by NAFTA in particular Article 605 which states:

“Article 605: Other Export Measures

Subject to Annex 605, a Party may adopt or maintain a restriction otherwise justified under Articles XI:2(a) or XX(g), (i) or (j) of the GATT with respect to the export of an energy or basic petrochemical good to the territory of another Party, only if:

  1. the restriction does not reduce the proportion of the total export shipments of the specific energy or basic petrochemical good made available to that other Party relative to the total supply of that good of the Party maintaining the restriction as compared to the proportion prevailing in the most recent 36month period for which data are available prior to the imposition of the measure, or in such other representative period on which the Parties may agree;

Clearly, we have no room to send any bitumen anywhere except to the USA.   Rachel Notley told the Economic Club of Canada in November of last year that the USA was a monopoly buyer of Alberta’s bitumen, and she should know.  This being the case how can we bypass the above article?   Even sending one thimble of bitumen anywhere except to our southern neighbour will trigger a NAFTA tribunal claim.  What this means is that we would construct a pipeline to Burnaby, ship that thimble, to say Malaysia, for the benefit of Alberta and then all of Canada will have to pay a NAFTA tribunal claim by the US based on Article 605.

 None of the above Ministers have offered any explanation of how they will avoid this issue, and I do not expect to hear from them until 2019, based on the timing of the occasional and eventual previous answers.

At the same time, Trudeau expounded again in vague terms about the money to be invested in ocean, fish and whale protection against a spill.   Once again, I am amazed and annoyed at his total ignorance of the fact that we are talking bitumen here, not oil, and any attempts at a cleanup in the event of a supertanker mishap such as recently happened in the south China Seas is doomed to failure.   Bitumen is heavier than water and will sink in clumps to the ocean floor, and the gases that make up the dilutant will escape into the atmosphere and depending on the site of the mishap will cause harm to all living things that breathe downwind.

I live on the southern tip of Vancouver Island and know that the winds in the Georgia Strait and the Strait of Juan da Fuca blow in all directions.  Thus, again depending on the site of the collision, Vancouver, Richmond, White Rock, Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, Port Angeles and Sequim not to mention Victoria and the San Juan Islands could all be devasted.  Whales, sea lions, seals, gulls, eagles and many more flying birds and bees etc., will all suffer or perish as well.

I was refused permission to attend and address the so-called public hearings on the basis that I would not be affected.  This was to be expected from the Harper regime, but we were promised sunny days and sunny ways and what it appears we are now being promised is the possibility of mass poisoning.  From one who came to Canada to raise a family and now have 4 generations established here on Vancouver Island I thank you for your complete indifference to our health and wellbeing Prime Minister.

Is it worth it?  Are we willing to sacrifice all this and those living creatures simply to donate some extra money to the USA through a NAFTA tribunal claim, and a couple of bucks to Alberta?

Today two MPs from the area were arrested at Burnaby doing what they believe is right and supporting their constituents and first nations of the area in their refusal to grant permission to have this pipeline do irreparable damage to this beautiful land and coast which we are here to protect for our children and grandchildren and generations to come.

There are many things Canada has done which shame us such as the residential schools and the complete destruction of Libya; our undying support of The State of Israel no matter who they kill and our incompetence in managing our own financial affairs since 1974 and now this wanton act of submission to corporate greed is another example of where we could have done soo much better.

Sunny days – my aunt fanny!

Jeremy

On Open letter to PM TRudeau

Open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau

 

Well Prime Minister I watched your presentation of your summer cabinet changes and I must say I was disappointed.

 

Obviously, there is lots of talk and no action with your Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women Inquiry and so your previous Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs needs help.    She needs money, real mental health doctors and some action by the RCMP, none of which she is getting.  To give her the help of Jane Philpott, who was unable to get Health Canada to abandon their ties with big pharma’s profits and help Canadian people will only muddy the waters so to speak.   Action not words PM.  Does the new relationship with our First Nations, Inuit and Metis mean nothing to you?  Perhaps they are just empty words just like 2015 will be the last FPTP election.

 

Do you really imagine that the new Minister of Health will be able to handle Health Canada?  No minister has yet, so to throw another woman under that particular bus is rather a waste of talent.

 

The veterans need more than a sympathetic ear, they also need action.   Re-opening a few offices has achieved nothing as the suicides continue because there are no professionals who understand what these men and women have gone through to supposedly protect our/their country from perceived harm.   They have been indoctrinated by the forces and now need a means of recovering and a way to lead a life with meaning instead of having nightmares over what they have been asked to endure.   We are well aware that Stephen Harper wanted to shirk any responsibility towards them and we do not see any change with your administration.

 

These changes you have made are superficial at best and the real culprits are still practicing complete disregard toward Canadians and their needs.

 

Your Minister of Finance is determined to sacrifice Canada’s commons and sovereignty by giving them away through an asinine Canadian Infrastructure Bank owned and operated by international banks, corporations and investors, while the Bank of Canada already owned by Canadians and mandated to do this work anyway remains as a simple inflation watchdog.  Crazy?  Yes.

 

Your Minster of Fisheries and Oceans, along with the Minister of Resources and Minister of Environment  continue to approve LNG plans such as the one that has been abandoned by Petronas as a bad business case, and what about the hundreds of illegally built dams in BC? or the mad dream of the Howe Sound Woodfibre LNG project when the tankers are too big for the Sound and will interfere with ferry traffic vital to the Island and coastal communities; a dam (Cite C) which is now even less needed than when Petronas was a possibility, and which was condemned by the BC Utilities Commission as unnecessary and unsafe before being silenced and made impotent  by Christy Clark; fish farms continue to poison our wild salmon, and the KM pipe line twinning project is facing opposition from First Nations and the new BC government; yet all is well in your mind and the minds of those Ministers.   Most people in BC simply laugh at your suggestion that dilbit spills in the ocean will be cleaned up in a world class fashion as we are aware that is impossible. 

 

Let us not forget the Minister of Foreign Affairs and her hatred of Russia combined with her love for investment agreements disguised as free trade agreements, which have and will continue to cost the Canadian taxpayer dearly.   She has yet to explain to me how we can export a raw material to Asia when both FTA and NAFTA clearly state that we can increase our supply but not decrease our percentage of that supply to the USA.   Is that in her mandate with the NAFTA negotiations?  Of course not!

 

What Canada desperately needs is a government that listens to the Canadian people and not solely to big corporate interests and as each day goes by it is more and more obvious that we do not have such a government.  What we have instead is a totally dysfunctional Parliament in which lies are more common than the truth and the people of Canada are treated with arrogance and contempt. 

 

Clearly “Sunny days and sunny ways” was never intended for us as Canadians but was intended for the profit seekers among your friends.

 

In this year, when 4 provinces celebrate their creation of Canada 150 years ago, the rest of us are feeling more and more ignored and abandoned.

 

Is it too late to realise that you are more and more like the emperor with no clothes every day Prime Minister?

 

Jeremy Arney

What kind of a crock are we being sold now?

19th October 2015,    

The New Prime Minster of Canada, Justin Trudeau:

Welcome back Canada!   Sunny days and sunny ways! We will enter a new partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Metis, we will consult with and listen to the Canadian people. No more first past the post elections.

 

                                                                          BUT

 2017:

The next election will be first past the post.  

Our First Nations, Inuit and Metis are still waiting, mostly in third world conditions or worse with youth suicide increasing, and education and health issues such as clean drinking water almost nonexistent.  The one sitting I watched on CPAC of the new Commission into the murdered, missing aboriginal women seems to be stuck in repeating what has already been said, and what is needed is action not talk.

The Prime Minister holds town hall meetings around the country and answers questions the way he thinks is meaningful and valuable, but are all total BS.  If he or his Ministers actually listened to Canadians, there would already be preparations for the next election to be some sort of PR; there would not be an absolutely unnecessary and destructive Infrastructure Bank of Canada; BC would not be planned to be the cesspool of Canada where environmental protection is abandoned for corporate profit; there would be real efforts made to merge into new energy and keep oil and bitumen in the ground.

The Foreign Minister would actually try and get on with other countries not support US war efforts, we are Canadian not Americans and we can and should stand by our own standards.  It is time to give love and peace a go, and leave other countries to decide their own ways, hopefully more sunny than ours.

Fisheries and Oceans would actually protect all our shores and seas, lakes and rivers instead of simply bowing to corporate pressure to allow such things as the Quesnell Lake being now a direct tailings pond for the Mount Polley Mine, drilling off the Maritimes for a product we should be getting away from not endangering our east coast, and the fish farms in the Salish Sea which are killing the wild salmon. Worse yet approving a LNG project in BC which has now been abandoned as inpractical because their daming all moving water has been found out, and a Cite C dam being built for that project!

Preparations should already be under way to make the now privately owned wheat board prepare rail cars for the summer crop, good luck with that one !   We no longer have a national railroad which if history serves me well was a prime reason BC joined with Canada! 

We have nothing left to sell now as international corporations have been given the right to everything so we have to mortgage our children’s futures to the needs of international corporate profit, and of course the obvious eventual benefit of those giving the country away.

And yet here we were being sold the idea that 2017 is the glorious 150th year since confederation.  What are we celebrating again?  Oh yes 4  provinces Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Bruswick, got together to create Canada as a confederation (or seperate tax base) and eventually other provinces or territories were created and added to that.   As far as I am concerned BC didn’t join until 1871 so it’s a bit premature for us, and I am more convinced every day that we should be looking at 2021 as the year we separate BC from a country which plainly does not value us as a partner in our own environment..

I did not come to Canada with the idea of starting and raising a Canadian family only to hand them over into the clutches of those corporate buzzards which were destroying the UK when I left it.   Granted that under the reign of the BC Liberal Party (Teaparty/Libertarians) almost all our many commons were given away to corporate profit and our crown jewel (BC Hydro) had been made bankrupt, but we can rescue that situation here in BC, as long as big brother is no longer big brother but a trading partner.

Canada has already shown the way to prosperity and then abandoned it by using the Bank of Canada, and we can and should, when we separate, create our own Bank of BC – not the one previously created as a regular bank which was sold to HSBC –  but one owned by and designed to serve the people of BC in funding their municipal and provincial needs with a BC currency named by our longest time residents, and still return a dividend to BC.  As it is we have a monopoly called the BC Municipal Finance Authority which of course obtains funds through corporate banks and lenders at high interest rates.  We do not need to join the rest of Canada in the never-ending spiral of debt with compounding interest owed to international investors, banks etc., without any chance of ever paying it all off.   Sheer madness!

The more I think about it a sovereign country called British Columbia sounds pretty good to me right now.

Peace,

Jeremy