Torture in Afghanistan: the liberals knew
The old liberal government had been prevented by Canadian diplomats in station in Kabul, in 2003, 2004 and 2005, that torture was a current practice in the Afghan prisons.
Storied Afghan's hatred of Taliban boon for Canadians
- Lumbering through camp in combat fatigues, a Toronto Blue Jays hat and battered sandals, the giant of a man known as Saddiq can be described as only one thing: A legend.
Liberals ponder forcing election
-"The cracks are beginning to show and our job is to show Canadians just how vulnerable they are both on the environment and on the Afghan (mission)," Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told reporters.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Governments At All Levels Need to Set Priorities
If you ARE homeless on the streets of Toronto the city sets aside something like $35K/year to look after you. If you have been convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison the feds set aside approximately $140K/year to look after you. If you were a hard working honest tax paying individual who made a contribution to society during a 45 year period the government gives you approximately $12K/year. IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
For a more effective prison system
Canada's 54 federal penitentiaries hold about 12,700 inmates serving sentences longer than two years. They are guarded and served by about 14,500 staff at a cost of nearly $1.8 billion a year.
- The Gazette
For a more effective prison system
Canada's 54 federal penitentiaries hold about 12,700 inmates serving sentences longer than two years. They are guarded and served by about 14,500 staff at a cost of nearly $1.8 billion a year.
- The Gazette
Paying Homage To Gore/Suzuki
Cuddly Polar Bears, falling ice sheets and flooded cities!
- Craig Read
April 30, 2007— Like all totalitarians there is no debate and endless propaganda. As with other pagan cults the Eco-fascist gang is well versed in media and educational manipulation. No debate, just listen, be appalled, and go forward in subservience to save the Earth goddess. Today disappearing polar bears. Tomorrow the extinction of mankind – unless caring, motherly, and ever larger Marxist government can rescue us.
Cute, suffering, dying and soon to be extinct ursus maritimus are now the poster bears for the eco-fascist movement’s unscientific and economically mad theory of Globaloney warming. Rapidly due to mankind’s obsession with Co2, all the cuddly white teddy’s will no longer paw the ice floes or sink their pretty teeth into an unsuspecting layer of seal fat. Ice is melting! Seas are warming! Fish are dying!
How can we the selfish human, continue to build up a modern world society, when right in front of our eyes, the Earth goddess in her fever and moment of discontent will swat away those big-eyed lovable teddy bears? Shame on mankind.
And this is just the beginning. Soon we will have Al Gore and the Eco-fascist elite presenting power point slides on the inevitability of widespread disease; annihilation of all species leading to famine and of course ineluctably, parents eating their lovely babies since they are the only available food source. Act now! Act now!
More
Conservatives Critical Of Conservatives
I will give a pass to those whose roots were nurtured by the Reform/Alliance groups but while Harper's feet can be held to the fire for the past year we can't lose sight of the fact that Harper is leading a MINORITY GOVERNMENT and whether he likes it or not he has to "cater" to the pathetic voter base of disenchanted liberals/ndp/bloc voters and I think you will see him return and meet our expectations when he wins a majority.
I got letters (OK really emails)Gerry Nichols
My column in yesterday's National Post on the Conservative Party selling out its principles triggered quite a response
Here's a sampling of some comments I received:
"I couldn't agree more. They (the Conservatives) have really gone off the rails in recent weeks, to the point that I am considering sitting out the next election ( and I am someone who used to take a very active part in the political process to the point of being on a riding executive board ). I hope a lot more people speak up about this. Maybe Mr. Harper and company will get the message before it's too late."
***
"The Conservative Party of Canada appears to have become just a bunch of socialists without the corruption."
***
"I am greatly appreciating your efforts!"
***
"The Liberals are now far more pro-business than Harper is.I voted and contributed to the CONservatives [emphasis on CON].NEVER AGAIN!!!! I'M DEDICATED TO THROWING THEM OUT."
***
"I don't get it and feel, as you do, that there is little to no difference between the crooks we had out last time, and the new generation of crooks we're breeding at the moment."
***
"Your column is right on the money. I have been a supporter of the Reform, Alliance and Conservative parties, financially and otherwise. But I can't support a party that wants to tell me what kind of light bulbs to use in my home."
***
"I enjoyed your article 'Selling out true conservatism'. All I can say is it’s about time somebody comes out and says it. This conservative government seems no different to me then the liberal governments I have known my whole life."
***
"I too am one of those who wonder how far the party will wander from principles in an efort to hold on to/gain power.. I keep hoping that it will shift back if it has a majority.. but grow less confident of that every day.."
***
"Thanks for putting into words what I have been feeling lately. I must also be one of the principled conservatives because I am thinking Harper and the crew are starting to turn into Chretien and the crew."
***
"Excellent commentary in today’s NP. It contained the same message I gave to my MP after the last budget. He seemed surprised that I wasn’t pleased with all the government announcements and even more surprised when I said 'please, don’t do me any favours'. The fiscally conservative (small c) has no representation and no alternative."
***
"Bang on, Gerry! Very well said."
***
"Thank you for confirming that I am not alone in my disappointment with the new Conservatives. . . We need more writers like you to wake up the boys in policy that there is a great hunger to redress the imbalance that has our country close to total nannyism. Good on you."
***
"Although I understand your conservative principles, I don't think you're being realistic . . .I think that most Conservative Canadians are very happy with Mr. Harper at the helm and want it to stay that way. I'm one of them and I don't think I'm deluded. I'm a realist."
***
"Excellent..... Your division of a conservative party has an universal appeal."
***
"AMEN! Once again, just like 15 years ago, I have a feeling I have no political home. Where do we go this time? Do we have to start another “reform” movement?"
***
"For someone like yourself to be writing negatively about Harper is just what the Libranos love to read and quote and it really hurts to give them any comfort. You have to undersatand that NOTHING Harper could do would be worse than another run of Liberal rule."
***
"Just don't start another Reform wing! Harper needs to get rid of Flaherty and replace him with a visionary, but he also needs that elusive majority. He's walking a tightrope fairly successfully, but there's something about him that causes Canadians to pull back (or am I just listening to the CBC too much?)"
***
"Terrific piece that hit the bull's-eye on why Harper's government will end up failing . . .if you ever launch the 'Principled Conservative Party of Canada' you can count on my support."
***
"How did this happen? It's almost like Stephen was kidnapped by Chretien and has been brainwashed. He now appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome."
***
It's great to get all this feedback.
Hope the Tory "braintrust" is listening.
Labels: conservatism, letters
posted by Gerry Nicholls @ 10:02 AM
I got letters (OK really emails)Gerry Nichols
My column in yesterday's National Post on the Conservative Party selling out its principles triggered quite a response
Here's a sampling of some comments I received:
"I couldn't agree more. They (the Conservatives) have really gone off the rails in recent weeks, to the point that I am considering sitting out the next election ( and I am someone who used to take a very active part in the political process to the point of being on a riding executive board ). I hope a lot more people speak up about this. Maybe Mr. Harper and company will get the message before it's too late."
***
"The Conservative Party of Canada appears to have become just a bunch of socialists without the corruption."
***
"I am greatly appreciating your efforts!"
***
"The Liberals are now far more pro-business than Harper is.I voted and contributed to the CONservatives [emphasis on CON].NEVER AGAIN!!!! I'M DEDICATED TO THROWING THEM OUT."
***
"I don't get it and feel, as you do, that there is little to no difference between the crooks we had out last time, and the new generation of crooks we're breeding at the moment."
***
"Your column is right on the money. I have been a supporter of the Reform, Alliance and Conservative parties, financially and otherwise. But I can't support a party that wants to tell me what kind of light bulbs to use in my home."
***
"I enjoyed your article 'Selling out true conservatism'. All I can say is it’s about time somebody comes out and says it. This conservative government seems no different to me then the liberal governments I have known my whole life."
***
"I too am one of those who wonder how far the party will wander from principles in an efort to hold on to/gain power.. I keep hoping that it will shift back if it has a majority.. but grow less confident of that every day.."
***
"Thanks for putting into words what I have been feeling lately. I must also be one of the principled conservatives because I am thinking Harper and the crew are starting to turn into Chretien and the crew."
***
"Excellent commentary in today’s NP. It contained the same message I gave to my MP after the last budget. He seemed surprised that I wasn’t pleased with all the government announcements and even more surprised when I said 'please, don’t do me any favours'. The fiscally conservative (small c) has no representation and no alternative."
***
"Bang on, Gerry! Very well said."
***
"Thank you for confirming that I am not alone in my disappointment with the new Conservatives. . . We need more writers like you to wake up the boys in policy that there is a great hunger to redress the imbalance that has our country close to total nannyism. Good on you."
***
"Although I understand your conservative principles, I don't think you're being realistic . . .I think that most Conservative Canadians are very happy with Mr. Harper at the helm and want it to stay that way. I'm one of them and I don't think I'm deluded. I'm a realist."
***
"Excellent..... Your division of a conservative party has an universal appeal."
***
"AMEN! Once again, just like 15 years ago, I have a feeling I have no political home. Where do we go this time? Do we have to start another “reform” movement?"
***
"For someone like yourself to be writing negatively about Harper is just what the Libranos love to read and quote and it really hurts to give them any comfort. You have to undersatand that NOTHING Harper could do would be worse than another run of Liberal rule."
***
"Just don't start another Reform wing! Harper needs to get rid of Flaherty and replace him with a visionary, but he also needs that elusive majority. He's walking a tightrope fairly successfully, but there's something about him that causes Canadians to pull back (or am I just listening to the CBC too much?)"
***
"Terrific piece that hit the bull's-eye on why Harper's government will end up failing . . .if you ever launch the 'Principled Conservative Party of Canada' you can count on my support."
***
"How did this happen? It's almost like Stephen was kidnapped by Chretien and has been brainwashed. He now appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome."
***
It's great to get all this feedback.
Hope the Tory "braintrust" is listening.
Labels: conservatism, letters
posted by Gerry Nicholls @ 10:02 AM
An Attack On Free Speech & Blogging
I think I am safe in saying that much of what appears in blogs is not original but rather comments on events that are reported in the mainstream media and our personal comments walk a fine line........
Lawsuits put online free speech at risk
April 30, 2007
Michael Geist
Despite garnering only limited media attention, two recently filed defamation lawsuits in British Columbia have the potential to reshape free speech on the Internet in Canada. The suits pit Wayne Crookes, a B.C.-based businessman, against a who's who of the Internet, including Yahoo!, MySpace and Wikipedia. Those companies are accused of defaming Crookes not by virtue of anything they have said, but rather by permitting their users to post or link to articles that are allegedly defamatory.
Crookes, who was involved with the Green Party of Canada, was unhappy with a series of Internet postings that he argues paint him as disreputable and as a bully. In response, he filed lawsuits against the posters. (Personal disclosure: Crookes previously demanded that I remove two comments posted on my personal blog by visitors to the site.)
The lawsuits target a handful of individuals who are said to have written the postings, including a Toronto-based librarian, a Cambridge-based engineer and several anonymous posters whose identities are unknown.
Had the lawsuits stopped there, they would not be particularly significant. Lawsuits alleging defamation are not unusual and the cases would likely have resulted in settlement discussions or full trials examining the merits of the claims.
The lawsuits could prove to be critically important to the Internet in Canada, however, because they cast the net of liability far wider than just the initial posters. Indeed, the lawsuits seek to hold accountable sites and services that host the articles, feature comments about the articles, include hyperlinks to the articles, fail to actively monitor their content to ensure that allegedly defamatory articles are not reposted after being removed, and even those that implement the domain name registrations of sites that host the articles.
The common link with all of these targets is that none are directly responsible for alleged defamation. Rather, the Crookes lawsuits maintain that Internet intermediaries should be held equally responsible for such content.
For example, one lawsuit argues that Yahoo! refused to shut down an offending site – a Green Party of Canada chat board – and therefore libelled Crookes. Similarly, MySpace is targeted both for its failure to shut down a personal page that contained allegedly defamatory content as well as for its refusal to remove a link to OpenPolitics.ca, a site that the suit claims hosted defamatory content (Crookes has also sued OpenPolitics.ca).
The inclusion of Wikipedia in the lawsuit extends the circle of liability even further. According to the statement of claim, an article about Crookes appeared on three occasions in Wikipedia. In each instance, Crookes asked Wikimedia, the company that maintains the popular online encyclopedia, to remove the article. In each instance, it complied with the request.
Despite taking down the content, Wikimedia has now been sued for failing to "monitor its website to ensure that the libels of [Crookes] did not reappear on its website." Moreover, the suit also seeks to hold it liable for refusing to remove an article on online journalism that contains a hyperlink to an article about Crookes.
The broadest extension of liability in the lawsuit involves the inclusion of a U.S.-based service called Domains By Proxy. The company, which allows individuals to protect their privacy by anonymously registering domain names, is being sued for refusing to divulge the identity of the registrant of a website that contained an article about Crookes. The lawsuit argues that the domain name registration service has "accepted responsibility for the actions of the owner of the website."
While it will fall to a judge to determine whether the articles and postings are indeed defamatory, the inclusion of such a broad range of Internet intermediaries could have a significant chilling effect on free speech in Canada.
If successful, the suits would effectively require websites – including anyone who permits comments on a blog or includes links to other sites – to proactively monitor and remove content that may raise liability concerns. They will also call into question the ability of domain name registrants to guard their privacy by refusing to publicly disclose their identities.
In response, it is likely that many sites will simply drop the ability to post comments, since the challenge of monitoring and verifying every comment will be too onerous.
Alternatively, many sites may abandon Canada altogether by establishing their online presence in the United States. Courts in the U.S. have repeatedly denied attempts to hold intermediaries liable for content posted by third parties on the grounds that a 1996 statute provided them with immunity for such postings.
Canada would do well to introduce a similar provision, since the consequences for defamatory speech should rest with those directly responsible, not mere bystanders with deep pockets.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
Lawsuits put online free speech at risk
April 30, 2007
Michael Geist
Despite garnering only limited media attention, two recently filed defamation lawsuits in British Columbia have the potential to reshape free speech on the Internet in Canada. The suits pit Wayne Crookes, a B.C.-based businessman, against a who's who of the Internet, including Yahoo!, MySpace and Wikipedia. Those companies are accused of defaming Crookes not by virtue of anything they have said, but rather by permitting their users to post or link to articles that are allegedly defamatory.
Crookes, who was involved with the Green Party of Canada, was unhappy with a series of Internet postings that he argues paint him as disreputable and as a bully. In response, he filed lawsuits against the posters. (Personal disclosure: Crookes previously demanded that I remove two comments posted on my personal blog by visitors to the site.)
The lawsuits target a handful of individuals who are said to have written the postings, including a Toronto-based librarian, a Cambridge-based engineer and several anonymous posters whose identities are unknown.
Had the lawsuits stopped there, they would not be particularly significant. Lawsuits alleging defamation are not unusual and the cases would likely have resulted in settlement discussions or full trials examining the merits of the claims.
The lawsuits could prove to be critically important to the Internet in Canada, however, because they cast the net of liability far wider than just the initial posters. Indeed, the lawsuits seek to hold accountable sites and services that host the articles, feature comments about the articles, include hyperlinks to the articles, fail to actively monitor their content to ensure that allegedly defamatory articles are not reposted after being removed, and even those that implement the domain name registrations of sites that host the articles.
The common link with all of these targets is that none are directly responsible for alleged defamation. Rather, the Crookes lawsuits maintain that Internet intermediaries should be held equally responsible for such content.
For example, one lawsuit argues that Yahoo! refused to shut down an offending site – a Green Party of Canada chat board – and therefore libelled Crookes. Similarly, MySpace is targeted both for its failure to shut down a personal page that contained allegedly defamatory content as well as for its refusal to remove a link to OpenPolitics.ca, a site that the suit claims hosted defamatory content (Crookes has also sued OpenPolitics.ca).
The inclusion of Wikipedia in the lawsuit extends the circle of liability even further. According to the statement of claim, an article about Crookes appeared on three occasions in Wikipedia. In each instance, Crookes asked Wikimedia, the company that maintains the popular online encyclopedia, to remove the article. In each instance, it complied with the request.
Despite taking down the content, Wikimedia has now been sued for failing to "monitor its website to ensure that the libels of [Crookes] did not reappear on its website." Moreover, the suit also seeks to hold it liable for refusing to remove an article on online journalism that contains a hyperlink to an article about Crookes.
The broadest extension of liability in the lawsuit involves the inclusion of a U.S.-based service called Domains By Proxy. The company, which allows individuals to protect their privacy by anonymously registering domain names, is being sued for refusing to divulge the identity of the registrant of a website that contained an article about Crookes. The lawsuit argues that the domain name registration service has "accepted responsibility for the actions of the owner of the website."
While it will fall to a judge to determine whether the articles and postings are indeed defamatory, the inclusion of such a broad range of Internet intermediaries could have a significant chilling effect on free speech in Canada.
If successful, the suits would effectively require websites – including anyone who permits comments on a blog or includes links to other sites – to proactively monitor and remove content that may raise liability concerns. They will also call into question the ability of domain name registrants to guard their privacy by refusing to publicly disclose their identities.
In response, it is likely that many sites will simply drop the ability to post comments, since the challenge of monitoring and verifying every comment will be too onerous.
Alternatively, many sites may abandon Canada altogether by establishing their online presence in the United States. Courts in the U.S. have repeatedly denied attempts to hold intermediaries liable for content posted by third parties on the grounds that a 1996 statute provided them with immunity for such postings.
Canada would do well to introduce a similar provision, since the consequences for defamatory speech should rest with those directly responsible, not mere bystanders with deep pockets.
Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
Environmental Problems Is A Racial Problem
And the blame can be put on the heads of non-whites. At least that is the way some people might construe the remarks of a Toronto City Councilor or is just a way of dredging up more funding for the social in-activist cottage industry.
City must address 'eco-apartheid' reality
April 30, 2007
Peter Gorrie Environment writer
Yesterday's public forum on Toronto's climate change plan illustrated a major challenge facing the city as it attempts to become the greenest in North America.
The 225 or so people seated at round tables for eight in a cavernous room at Exhibition Place were mainly familiar faces in the environment movement or students of the issue. And they were almost all white-skinned.
In a city where half the residents are visible minorities, the monochromatic participation shows how far Toronto must go to get all of its 2.3 million people involved in climate change, smog and other environmental issues.
The problem isn't unique to this area.
Last weekend, Chicago held a Green Festival, similar to the three-day Green Living trade show that closed here yesterday, next door to the forum in the Direct Energy Centre.
In Chicago, black and Hispanic people are a clear majority. Yet, only a handful from those communities were among the thousands who wandered the crowded aisles, among booths promoting energy efficiency, non-toxic household products and health aids.
The gap has spawned two new terms: "eco-apartheid" and "environmental justice."
The first concerns how the white middle class dominates the environment movement and, in some cases, shuts out others. The second recognizes pollution and other environmental ills tend to hit hardest at the poor, who – particularly in the United States, but also here – are more likely to be non-white.
The problem didn't escape the notice of Councillor Paula Fletcher. She chairs the parks and recreation committee which, on June 18, is to receive and consider the next version of the climate-change plan, incorporating ideas from the forum. "We need to go deeper into the community," she said in an interview after the forum.
The people at the event "are those who have generally thought a lot about the issue already," she said.
Some members of ethnic minorities are involved in city programs, and university environmental studies classes are "very diverse."
But it's not enough, she said. "If we're going to be successful, we can't just be a white, middle-class movement. We need to include all of Toronto.
"The mayor has made it clear that we have to have an outreach to people (who) might not be coming down to the Direct Energy Centre."
Fletcher said she'll try to include the minorities in consultations before the June 18 meeting, both in terms of what would help them to get involved and to solicit their ideas.
But six or seven weeks clearly won't be enough time to "bridge the gap," she said.
City must address 'eco-apartheid' reality
April 30, 2007
Peter Gorrie Environment writer
Yesterday's public forum on Toronto's climate change plan illustrated a major challenge facing the city as it attempts to become the greenest in North America.
The 225 or so people seated at round tables for eight in a cavernous room at Exhibition Place were mainly familiar faces in the environment movement or students of the issue. And they were almost all white-skinned.
In a city where half the residents are visible minorities, the monochromatic participation shows how far Toronto must go to get all of its 2.3 million people involved in climate change, smog and other environmental issues.
The problem isn't unique to this area.
Last weekend, Chicago held a Green Festival, similar to the three-day Green Living trade show that closed here yesterday, next door to the forum in the Direct Energy Centre.
In Chicago, black and Hispanic people are a clear majority. Yet, only a handful from those communities were among the thousands who wandered the crowded aisles, among booths promoting energy efficiency, non-toxic household products and health aids.
The gap has spawned two new terms: "eco-apartheid" and "environmental justice."
The first concerns how the white middle class dominates the environment movement and, in some cases, shuts out others. The second recognizes pollution and other environmental ills tend to hit hardest at the poor, who – particularly in the United States, but also here – are more likely to be non-white.
The problem didn't escape the notice of Councillor Paula Fletcher. She chairs the parks and recreation committee which, on June 18, is to receive and consider the next version of the climate-change plan, incorporating ideas from the forum. "We need to go deeper into the community," she said in an interview after the forum.
The people at the event "are those who have generally thought a lot about the issue already," she said.
Some members of ethnic minorities are involved in city programs, and university environmental studies classes are "very diverse."
But it's not enough, she said. "If we're going to be successful, we can't just be a white, middle-class movement. We need to include all of Toronto.
"The mayor has made it clear that we have to have an outreach to people (who) might not be coming down to the Direct Energy Centre."
Fletcher said she'll try to include the minorities in consultations before the June 18 meeting, both in terms of what would help them to get involved and to solicit their ideas.
But six or seven weeks clearly won't be enough time to "bridge the gap," she said.
Et Tu Greg.....Along With 80% Of Canadians
I'm a walking smokestack
Environment Canada sees this scribbler as a 'filthy-Earth-warming-gas-belching eco-terrorist'
By GREG WESTON
Among all the many colourful ways your faithful scribbler has been described by adoring politicians and other fans over the years, we can now officially add to this list of flattery, "filthy-Earth-warming-gas-belching eco-terrorist."
All this time, I pictured myself and my family as responsible friends of nature, mindful of our fragile ecology and rarely letting a week pass without filling at least one blue-box with empty wine bottles.
But according to a government environmental analysis, our little clan of three-plus-dog is something more akin to a walking smokestack.
More
Environment Canada sees this scribbler as a 'filthy-Earth-warming-gas-belching eco-terrorist'
By GREG WESTON
Among all the many colourful ways your faithful scribbler has been described by adoring politicians and other fans over the years, we can now officially add to this list of flattery, "filthy-Earth-warming-gas-belching eco-terrorist."
All this time, I pictured myself and my family as responsible friends of nature, mindful of our fragile ecology and rarely letting a week pass without filling at least one blue-box with empty wine bottles.
But according to a government environmental analysis, our little clan of three-plus-dog is something more akin to a walking smokestack.
More
Face The Reality Adam-You Are Not Your Father
You should have stayed at City TV where you could have been considered a big fish but when it comes to put forward hare brained schemes and making idiotic statements you are a minnow in the stagnant water of Toronto City Council.
Councillor wants to tax this sidewalk
Lining up outside clubs and theatres could cost the owners -- so how about charging panhandlers?
By SUE-ANN LEVY
Let's all drink to downtown councillor Adam Vaughan.
After just five months at City Hall, the former journalist turned politician has managed to find the most inane way to do his part for the socialist war effort -- that is, raising tax money to fill those near-empty city coffers and reserves.
If Vaughan gets his way -- and trust me with Mayor David Miller and his money-hungry minions at the helm he will -- bar, theatre and movie patrons could soon be taxed for lining up on public sidewalks.
Vaughan's request is on the agenda of Wednesday's public works committee meeting. In his letter to the committee, he asks that licensing staff prepare a report on a new permit scheme, er, tax, for "licensed entertainment facilities" that regularly use public sidewalks for queuing.
That regime, he notes, should includes rules for how the line is formed and where it is located, the number of people allowed into it, crowd control and the need for pay duty police to maintain orderly conduct.
Here's the kicker. Vaughan proposes the permit fee be based on "full cost recovery" for the administration and enforcement of the bylaw, as well as rent for the use of a public sidewalk!
I think I need a drink. For as sure as today is Sunday, I smell another City Hall fiefdom in the making.
When reached last week, Vaughan unabashedly contended the regime would be expensive but didn't really care "if it is."
He said the new permit scheme is meant mainly to deal with "out-of-control" crowds at the some 70 clubs in the Entertainment District, but added it would be a "useful tool" for other trouble spots across the city.
"The line-ups are really loud ... a bunch of 20-year-olds who don't worry about forcing an old lady or child out onto the street," he said. "They have a sense of entitlement."
While he insisted the permit would be targeted to nightclubs or large entertainment facilities, his request to the public works committee leaves the door open to apply the same law to the Toronto Film Festival and other movie, retail and cultural facilities -- in fact any events that require a lineup on public sidewalks.
When I asked Vaughan whether he plans to make aggressive panhandlers -- who also regularly line up for their take on public sidewalks downtown -- get a permit as well.
He laughed at first. When he realized I was serious, he argued panhandling is "very difficult thing to ban" and you can't "arrest people for asking for help."
More
What's Happening?
Toronto's testy tussles
Holy Blossom's reno war, Eastern Ave.'s Wal-Mart fight, media music mayhem
By ROB GRANATSTEIN
Looking through my editor's notebooks this week, I couldn't help but notice a number of battles brewing in the city.
----------------------
A small holy war is shaping up at the Holy Blossom Temple on Bathurst St. It has all the elements necessary for a barn burner -- millions of dollars; a number of the city's high rollers, including Gerry Schwartz, Heather Reisman, Lawrence Bloomberg, and Paul Slavens; and a festering fight over religion and power.
And it's all coming down to a planned renovation and whether seats in the "Church on the Hill," as the reform temple is affectionately known, should be turned around and the historic sanctuary changed.
The Sanctuary Legacy Group -- numbering about 100 names on a letter sent out last week -- wants to keep the seats facing west, as they have since the sanctuary -- a heritage building -- opened in 1938. Jewish custom is to have the congregation face Jerusalem, due east.
The group says there's a shroud of secrecy around everything from who the donors bankrolling the project are and what impact they have, to how much it will cost, to results from a poll of the 7,000 members on the question of what to do in the renovation.
The synagogue's rabbi, John Moscowitz, said that's a "distortion of the truth," calling this little ado about nothing and emphasizing the donors have not asked or demanded any say in the plans.
"The real question is whether we'll face the future," he said. "When you change something that has been one way for 70 years, you get a lot of responses."
The temple's board voted unanimously to push forward with the plan, drawn up by architects Diamond andSchmitt, last week. Jack Diamond and Moscowitz believe turning the sanctuary around will improve the flow and bring the community together.
Jaimie Grossman, whose family is the last of the founding members still at the temple, said everyone agrees a renovation is needed, but the process has been unfair.
"The way they're framing this is you either turn the seats around and support Israel, or keep it the way it is and continue turning your back on Israel," said Grossman, son of former Ontario Tory leader Larry Grossman. "I'm troubled by the divisiveness."
At the end of the day hopefully everyone will remember the Earth is round, and you are always facing Jerusalem -- it just might be a longer trip to get there.
----------------------
One battle that is over involved the City of Toronto and its largest tax debtor. Last October, the owners of Cinespace walked in to City Hall with a cheque for almost $5 million to clear the taxes on 721 Eastern Ave., former home of Canada Metals. Cinespace, owned by the Mirkopoulos family, hopes to put a movie studio on the site.
All the battles on Eastern Ave. aren't over, yet. Next door, Rose Corp., owner of 629 Eastern Ave., home of Toronto Film Studios, recently added a new co-owner to its site, Smart Centres Inc., whose anchor tenant will be a Wal-Mart.
Big box stores in Coun. Paula Fletcher's ward? Let's just say the studio district residents aren't going to be happy and Fletch is flipping out.
Toronto Film Studios is also building Film Port on the port lands and the Mirkopoulos family is furious they may close Toronto Film Studios when the new building is ready, robbing the city of much-needed studio space.
Ken Ferguson of TFS said the aging studio will remain open until the end of 2008. Any longer depends on how development on Eastern Ave. is going. In other words, how long it takes to get the first downtown Wal-Mart and other big box stores built.
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The colossal battle of all battles unfolds Friday night. Newzapalooza, the media battle of the bands, is back for its fourth phenomenal year at the Opera House on Queen St. E. Two Toronto Sun bands will battle it out against the Star, Globe, Canadian Press, CBC and MTV.
Yes, this is the self-indulgent plug zone, but that's a lot of entertainment for $15, with all the money going to the Children's Aid Foundation-- and raffle prizes galore! It's the least I can do. We've raised almost $25,000 in the first three years. Tickets are available at the door or check newzapalooza.ca. May the fourth be with you.
Holy Blossom's reno war, Eastern Ave.'s Wal-Mart fight, media music mayhem
By ROB GRANATSTEIN
Looking through my editor's notebooks this week, I couldn't help but notice a number of battles brewing in the city.
----------------------
A small holy war is shaping up at the Holy Blossom Temple on Bathurst St. It has all the elements necessary for a barn burner -- millions of dollars; a number of the city's high rollers, including Gerry Schwartz, Heather Reisman, Lawrence Bloomberg, and Paul Slavens; and a festering fight over religion and power.
And it's all coming down to a planned renovation and whether seats in the "Church on the Hill," as the reform temple is affectionately known, should be turned around and the historic sanctuary changed.
The Sanctuary Legacy Group -- numbering about 100 names on a letter sent out last week -- wants to keep the seats facing west, as they have since the sanctuary -- a heritage building -- opened in 1938. Jewish custom is to have the congregation face Jerusalem, due east.
The group says there's a shroud of secrecy around everything from who the donors bankrolling the project are and what impact they have, to how much it will cost, to results from a poll of the 7,000 members on the question of what to do in the renovation.
The synagogue's rabbi, John Moscowitz, said that's a "distortion of the truth," calling this little ado about nothing and emphasizing the donors have not asked or demanded any say in the plans.
"The real question is whether we'll face the future," he said. "When you change something that has been one way for 70 years, you get a lot of responses."
The temple's board voted unanimously to push forward with the plan, drawn up by architects Diamond andSchmitt, last week. Jack Diamond and Moscowitz believe turning the sanctuary around will improve the flow and bring the community together.
Jaimie Grossman, whose family is the last of the founding members still at the temple, said everyone agrees a renovation is needed, but the process has been unfair.
"The way they're framing this is you either turn the seats around and support Israel, or keep it the way it is and continue turning your back on Israel," said Grossman, son of former Ontario Tory leader Larry Grossman. "I'm troubled by the divisiveness."
At the end of the day hopefully everyone will remember the Earth is round, and you are always facing Jerusalem -- it just might be a longer trip to get there.
----------------------
One battle that is over involved the City of Toronto and its largest tax debtor. Last October, the owners of Cinespace walked in to City Hall with a cheque for almost $5 million to clear the taxes on 721 Eastern Ave., former home of Canada Metals. Cinespace, owned by the Mirkopoulos family, hopes to put a movie studio on the site.
All the battles on Eastern Ave. aren't over, yet. Next door, Rose Corp., owner of 629 Eastern Ave., home of Toronto Film Studios, recently added a new co-owner to its site, Smart Centres Inc., whose anchor tenant will be a Wal-Mart.
Big box stores in Coun. Paula Fletcher's ward? Let's just say the studio district residents aren't going to be happy and Fletch is flipping out.
Toronto Film Studios is also building Film Port on the port lands and the Mirkopoulos family is furious they may close Toronto Film Studios when the new building is ready, robbing the city of much-needed studio space.
Ken Ferguson of TFS said the aging studio will remain open until the end of 2008. Any longer depends on how development on Eastern Ave. is going. In other words, how long it takes to get the first downtown Wal-Mart and other big box stores built.
---------------------
The colossal battle of all battles unfolds Friday night. Newzapalooza, the media battle of the bands, is back for its fourth phenomenal year at the Opera House on Queen St. E. Two Toronto Sun bands will battle it out against the Star, Globe, Canadian Press, CBC and MTV.
Yes, this is the self-indulgent plug zone, but that's a lot of entertainment for $15, with all the money going to the Children's Aid Foundation-- and raffle prizes galore! It's the least I can do. We've raised almost $25,000 in the first three years. Tickets are available at the door or check newzapalooza.ca. May the fourth be with you.
Step Up To The Plate Stephen - You Are Fumbling The Ball On This Issue
Why Not...the opposition leaders already appear to be in the pockets of the TalibanBlame Tories, not the troops
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Amid all the allegations of the torture of Taliban suspects captured by Canadian soldiers and later handed over to Afghani authorities, let's remember something.
As reported by the Globe and Mail, which broke the story a week ago: "None of the abuse was inflicted by Canadians and most Afghans captured -- even those who clearly sympathized with the Taliban -- praised the Canadians for their politeness, their gentle handling of captives and their comfortable detention facility."
So this controversy is not about the conduct of our soldiers. It's about a flawed process for handing over Taliban suspects to Afghani security forces for interrogation.
In its last month in office, the Liberal government of Paul Martin signed off on a prisoner transfer agreement with Afghanistan, which, while it theoretically guaranteed Afghani authorities would obey the Geneva Conventions against torture, had no verification mechanism.
Anyone knowing the history of Afghanistan's security forces should have known this was a bad idea.
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives took power in early 2006, they inherited the deal.
But ever since, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has failed to address repeated allegations that captured Taliban suspects transferred to Afghani control were being tortured.
The Conservative response has been a maze of contradictions and obfuscations.
At one point, O'Connor said the Red Cross was inspecting the prisoners for Canada. Wrong.
Last week, the Tories said an Afghani human rights group was doing the inspections, but the group said it couldn't do the job effectively.
By week's end, Harper and his ministers seemed to be contradicting each other.
Let's not be naive. The Taliban are a deadly enemy and the opposition parties who have been raising this issue often sound like they care more about them than our soldiers. Some of these allegations of torture are no doubt lies. But that said, Canada should not be handing over captured prisoners to known torturers.
It should not be beyond the competence of the defence minister, after 15 months in office, to come up with an effective way to do these inspections.
If it is, we need a new one.
Fueling The Electrion Train V
McGuinty plays the race card
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Good grief, the premier of Ontario can be a dork.
Last week, Dalton McGuinty was under fire by the opposition parties over allegations the Liberals rushed out $20 million in a year-end spending spree to various multicultural groups, some with apparent ties to the Liberal party.
While rejecting opposition charges of any political favouritism, McGuinty admitted to problems with the application process, or rather the lack of one.
"In terms of how we solicit applications, I think we can do a better job there," he acknowledged.
On Friday, the Liberals conceded as much by posting a new application form online for groups applying in the future.
A day earlier, amid opposition charges McGuinty and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Mike Colle were ducking the issue, the Liberals used their majority to block an opposition motion to have the auditor-general investigate the grants process.
McGuinty has been defending the grants process with some over-the-top rhetoric. An example?: "We're trying to do something here which is largely without precedent in the annals of human history. That sounds like rhetoric, but it's not."
Right. Still, all of this would have amounted to little had McGuinty not accused the opposition of pursuing the issue out of racism on Friday.
His argument? The opposition hadn't asked any questions about up to $50 million in grants that were awarded through a similar process to establishment institutions like the Royal Ontario Museum and The National Ballet of Canada.
Uh, why should they premier? Did you screw them up, too?
Finally, McGuinty went off on a bizarre rant that ended here: "So, you know, let's remember that when it comes to the Conservatives, in the last campaign, in their platform, which is a very political document, which is designed to appeal specifically to their target audience, they put the subject of immigration under crime. We see immigration and diversity differently here in the province of Ontario. We embrace it ..."
Okay. Let's put aside that the Tories' immigration policy in the 2003 election was actually included in a section of their platform called "A Passport to Ontario," that it was four years ago, that they have a new leader, that the NDP have been pursuing this issue as vigorously as the Conservatives and that they're both complaining not about multiculturalism but the grant process.
As NDP MPP Andrea Horwath put it: "It's simply not acceptable that work is being done at the end of the year with little cash handouts if you happen to know the minister or a high-ranking Liberal. That's totally unacceptable. The bottom line is these grants need to be transparent. There needs to be criteria ... to have an open process, where all communities are able to apply."
Indeed. And so, with respect, premier: Flick off.
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Good grief, the premier of Ontario can be a dork.
Last week, Dalton McGuinty was under fire by the opposition parties over allegations the Liberals rushed out $20 million in a year-end spending spree to various multicultural groups, some with apparent ties to the Liberal party.
While rejecting opposition charges of any political favouritism, McGuinty admitted to problems with the application process, or rather the lack of one.
"In terms of how we solicit applications, I think we can do a better job there," he acknowledged.
On Friday, the Liberals conceded as much by posting a new application form online for groups applying in the future.
A day earlier, amid opposition charges McGuinty and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Mike Colle were ducking the issue, the Liberals used their majority to block an opposition motion to have the auditor-general investigate the grants process.
McGuinty has been defending the grants process with some over-the-top rhetoric. An example?: "We're trying to do something here which is largely without precedent in the annals of human history. That sounds like rhetoric, but it's not."
Right. Still, all of this would have amounted to little had McGuinty not accused the opposition of pursuing the issue out of racism on Friday.
His argument? The opposition hadn't asked any questions about up to $50 million in grants that were awarded through a similar process to establishment institutions like the Royal Ontario Museum and The National Ballet of Canada.
Uh, why should they premier? Did you screw them up, too?
Finally, McGuinty went off on a bizarre rant that ended here: "So, you know, let's remember that when it comes to the Conservatives, in the last campaign, in their platform, which is a very political document, which is designed to appeal specifically to their target audience, they put the subject of immigration under crime. We see immigration and diversity differently here in the province of Ontario. We embrace it ..."
Okay. Let's put aside that the Tories' immigration policy in the 2003 election was actually included in a section of their platform called "A Passport to Ontario," that it was four years ago, that they have a new leader, that the NDP have been pursuing this issue as vigorously as the Conservatives and that they're both complaining not about multiculturalism but the grant process.
As NDP MPP Andrea Horwath put it: "It's simply not acceptable that work is being done at the end of the year with little cash handouts if you happen to know the minister or a high-ranking Liberal. That's totally unacceptable. The bottom line is these grants need to be transparent. There needs to be criteria ... to have an open process, where all communities are able to apply."
Indeed. And so, with respect, premier: Flick off.
Gee ! What A Big Surprise
Opposition leaders side with Gore against Baird
Updated Sun. Apr. 29 2007 11:51 PM ETCTV.ca News Staff
* Who was in power in Canada during the 10 years emissions rose 27% in Canada.
* Who was the Minister of the Environment during those 10 years.
* Is the David Suzuki, who sits at the fool of the Goreites, that confronted Baird the same David Suzuki who walked off the John Oakley show in a huff when he was asked to discuss something that refuted the Gore Mantra.
Liberal ads celebrating his victory over global warming at UN meeting just a tad delusional It's amazing how Canada's old government -- the Liberals -- continue to believe their own propaganda about all the great things they did to fight global warming when they were in power.
Environment Minister John Baird slammed back at former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's criticisms of the Conservatives' new environment plan.
"Look, we're going farther than any government in Canada. We're going much farther than Al Gore went," Baird told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.
"If we came forward with our environmental plan in the United States, they'd call it revolutionary because it's so tough."
Before a presentation of his Academy Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore told a Toronto audience on Saturday that the Tory plan was a sham and a fraud.
"I wish Al Gore had asked to be briefed on the plan. I wish he would have read the plan," Baird said.
He aimed to be going further in the next 13 years in fighting climate change than Europe has done in the last 10.
John Bennett of the lobby group Climate for Change told CTV.ca that statement is "a lie. There's no other way to answer that."
The European Union "15" is mostly on track to reach its Kyoto Protocol target, which is an eight per cent cut by 2012. The EU has set a goal of a 20 per cent cut in GHG emissions by 2020, using 1990 as a base -- and will raise that to 30 per cent if other nations join in.
The new Conservative target is a 20 per cent cut by 2020, but using 2006 as a baseline and not 1990.
As of 2004, Canada's emissions had risen 27 per cent above 1990 levels. Kyoto calls for Canada to cut its emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Under the Conservative plan, that level of reduction won't be achieved until 2025.
"If Kyoto could strictly be met, our issue wasn't with Kyoto. Our issue was only with time," Baird said. "I can't turn back the hands of time. I can't take responsibility for the ten years under the Liberals when greenhouse gases went up."
The Reform/Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties -- which eventually merged to form the current Conservative Party -- all opposed both the signing and ratification of Kyoto. In a 2002 letter, then-Alliance leader Stephen Harper referred to the treaty as a "essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations."
Layton, Dion
On Sunday, both Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton stuck up for Gore.
"Mr. Baird is embarrassing Canada around the world,'' Dion said at a Sikh festival in Toronto.
"The world expects Canada will do its share -- more than that, that Canada will be a leader and we are failing the world. We are failing Canadians.''
"Let me remind Mr. Baird and the Liberals before him that the U.S has done better in reducing their emissions than Canada has under the Liberals and the Conservatives,'' said Layton, who was also at the festival.
Between 1993 and 2003, U.S. emissions had risen 13 per cent, compared to 27 per cent in Canada. Experts say Canada's increase in carbon energy production, particularly from Alberta's oilsands, and increases in coal-fired electricity production partly helped drive emissions up.
If one adjusted for that, Canada's emission hike would have been about the same as the U.S.'s, Bennett said.
"I think Mr. Baird better stop throwing stones and start delivering action. Start by delivering the rewritten Clean Air Act to the democratic process of the House of Commons," Layton said.
The fate of the legislation, which had been the centrepiece of the Tories' environment policy last fall, remains in doubt.
The opposition parties declared it dead on arrival, and it went to a special committee for reworking.
However, Thursday's plan is being implemented within the existing legislative framework.
"Well obviously our preference would be to move forward with the clean air act. One of the challenges is that the Liberals put a plan, put an amendment in it that would basically allow industry an unlimited license to pollute," Baird said.
He hoped the government could work with the opposition parties and "salvage big chunks" of the bill.
With files from The Canadian Press
Updated Sun. Apr. 29 2007 11:51 PM ETCTV.ca News Staff
* Who was in power in Canada during the 10 years emissions rose 27% in Canada.
* Who was the Minister of the Environment during those 10 years.
* Is the David Suzuki, who sits at the fool of the Goreites, that confronted Baird the same David Suzuki who walked off the John Oakley show in a huff when he was asked to discuss something that refuted the Gore Mantra.
Liberal ads celebrating his victory over global warming at UN meeting just a tad delusional It's amazing how Canada's old government -- the Liberals -- continue to believe their own propaganda about all the great things they did to fight global warming when they were in power.
Environment Minister John Baird slammed back at former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's criticisms of the Conservatives' new environment plan.
"Look, we're going farther than any government in Canada. We're going much farther than Al Gore went," Baird told CTV's Question Period on Sunday.
"If we came forward with our environmental plan in the United States, they'd call it revolutionary because it's so tough."
Before a presentation of his Academy Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore told a Toronto audience on Saturday that the Tory plan was a sham and a fraud.
"I wish Al Gore had asked to be briefed on the plan. I wish he would have read the plan," Baird said.
He aimed to be going further in the next 13 years in fighting climate change than Europe has done in the last 10.
John Bennett of the lobby group Climate for Change told CTV.ca that statement is "a lie. There's no other way to answer that."
The European Union "15" is mostly on track to reach its Kyoto Protocol target, which is an eight per cent cut by 2012. The EU has set a goal of a 20 per cent cut in GHG emissions by 2020, using 1990 as a base -- and will raise that to 30 per cent if other nations join in.
The new Conservative target is a 20 per cent cut by 2020, but using 2006 as a baseline and not 1990.
As of 2004, Canada's emissions had risen 27 per cent above 1990 levels. Kyoto calls for Canada to cut its emissions by six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Under the Conservative plan, that level of reduction won't be achieved until 2025.
"If Kyoto could strictly be met, our issue wasn't with Kyoto. Our issue was only with time," Baird said. "I can't turn back the hands of time. I can't take responsibility for the ten years under the Liberals when greenhouse gases went up."
The Reform/Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties -- which eventually merged to form the current Conservative Party -- all opposed both the signing and ratification of Kyoto. In a 2002 letter, then-Alliance leader Stephen Harper referred to the treaty as a "essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations."
Layton, Dion
On Sunday, both Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton stuck up for Gore.
"Mr. Baird is embarrassing Canada around the world,'' Dion said at a Sikh festival in Toronto.
"The world expects Canada will do its share -- more than that, that Canada will be a leader and we are failing the world. We are failing Canadians.''
"Let me remind Mr. Baird and the Liberals before him that the U.S has done better in reducing their emissions than Canada has under the Liberals and the Conservatives,'' said Layton, who was also at the festival.
Between 1993 and 2003, U.S. emissions had risen 13 per cent, compared to 27 per cent in Canada. Experts say Canada's increase in carbon energy production, particularly from Alberta's oilsands, and increases in coal-fired electricity production partly helped drive emissions up.
If one adjusted for that, Canada's emission hike would have been about the same as the U.S.'s, Bennett said.
"I think Mr. Baird better stop throwing stones and start delivering action. Start by delivering the rewritten Clean Air Act to the democratic process of the House of Commons," Layton said.
The fate of the legislation, which had been the centrepiece of the Tories' environment policy last fall, remains in doubt.
The opposition parties declared it dead on arrival, and it went to a special committee for reworking.
However, Thursday's plan is being implemented within the existing legislative framework.
"Well obviously our preference would be to move forward with the clean air act. One of the challenges is that the Liberals put a plan, put an amendment in it that would basically allow industry an unlimited license to pollute," Baird said.
He hoped the government could work with the opposition parties and "salvage big chunks" of the bill.
With files from The Canadian Press
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Who Looks After The Rights Of Taliban Prisoners
Ignatieff: O'Connor 'should be fired' over detainees
Updated Fri. Apr. 27 2007 6:19 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has called for the resignation of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, over the alleged mismanagement of Taliban detainees.
French female hostage released by Taliban
The Taliban has freed a French female aid worker who has been held hostage in Afghanistan for more than three weeks. Her male colleague and several Afghans are still being held. ...more
Final Blast At The Environment....for today
Green Blues
Friday, April 27, 2007
About the best thing I can say about the Conservative government's "Green Plan" is that it will probably do less damage to the economy than a Liberal "Green Plan."
But that's cold comfort.
The fact is we are no longer debating whether we should implement a dopey treaty; we are now debating how much we should wreck the economy.
That's not a good road to go down.
No matter who wins that debate Canadians will be forced to shell out; and for what?
Let's face it, the Tory plan will do nothing to halt "global warming" and it will do nothing to impact on global weather conditions.
No plan would have an impact. We could de-industrialize the whole country and live in dark cold caves and it still wouldn't make any difference.
The only reason politcians are pushing this "Green" junk is to win votes.
It has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with wooing the "Suzuki Nation."
Me I preferred the Liberal approach.
Talk about the importance of Kyoto but do nothing.
That's one Liberal policy I wish the Tories would copy.
Labels: environment kyoto
posted by Gerry Nicholls @ 11:57 AM
Friday, April 27, 2007
About the best thing I can say about the Conservative government's "Green Plan" is that it will probably do less damage to the economy than a Liberal "Green Plan."
But that's cold comfort.
The fact is we are no longer debating whether we should implement a dopey treaty; we are now debating how much we should wreck the economy.
That's not a good road to go down.
No matter who wins that debate Canadians will be forced to shell out; and for what?
Let's face it, the Tory plan will do nothing to halt "global warming" and it will do nothing to impact on global weather conditions.
No plan would have an impact. We could de-industrialize the whole country and live in dark cold caves and it still wouldn't make any difference.
The only reason politcians are pushing this "Green" junk is to win votes.
It has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with wooing the "Suzuki Nation."
Me I preferred the Liberal approach.
Talk about the importance of Kyoto but do nothing.
That's one Liberal policy I wish the Tories would copy.
Labels: environment kyoto
posted by Gerry Nicholls @ 11:57 AM
43,000 Afgan Babies Live
But the rights of Taliban "prisoners" takes precedence thanks to layton, dion, doucette........
Jonathan Kay: Meet 43,000 Afghan babies who will live instead of die this year
Sometimes, the media makes bizarre collective choices about what is newsworthy and what is not.
Case in point: Here in Canada, we are obsessed with the brutal treatment of a handful of detainees who our troops have turned over to Afghan authorities. Yet at the same time, all but a few Canadian media organization have ignored a far more important piece of news from Afghanistan: Since the Taliban were in power in 2001, there has been an 18% reduction in the number of children who die before their first birthday.
The good news, reported this week, comes from a countrywide survey by John Hopkins University. According to the new data, 13.5% of Afghan children die before their first birthday. That is an appallingly high number. (By comparison, the Canadian figure is about 0.5%.) But it represents an 18% reduction from the 16.5% of children who died when the Taliban was in power in 2001.
Afghanistan has a population of about 31,000,000, and a birth-rate of about 46.6/1,000 pop. Using those numbers, I calculated that the total number of Afghan babies saved every year (compared to 2001) thanks to the improved infant-mortality numbers is 43,338.
Of course, all of those children — along with countless other humanitarian improvements in the lives of ordinary Afghans — would be put at risk if Canada and other NATO countries withdrew and surrendered the country to the Taliban. Life would then crumble into the brutal. stone-age theocracy it was in the pre-9/11 days.
In fact, some Canadian politicians are seizing on the current detainee scandal to argue for just such a cut-and-run strategy. How perverse would it be if the welfare of a few dozen terror suspects compromised the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Aghan babies?
Jonathan Kay: Meet 43,000 Afghan babies who will live instead of die this year
Sometimes, the media makes bizarre collective choices about what is newsworthy and what is not.
Case in point: Here in Canada, we are obsessed with the brutal treatment of a handful of detainees who our troops have turned over to Afghan authorities. Yet at the same time, all but a few Canadian media organization have ignored a far more important piece of news from Afghanistan: Since the Taliban were in power in 2001, there has been an 18% reduction in the number of children who die before their first birthday.
The good news, reported this week, comes from a countrywide survey by John Hopkins University. According to the new data, 13.5% of Afghan children die before their first birthday. That is an appallingly high number. (By comparison, the Canadian figure is about 0.5%.) But it represents an 18% reduction from the 16.5% of children who died when the Taliban was in power in 2001.
Afghanistan has a population of about 31,000,000, and a birth-rate of about 46.6/1,000 pop. Using those numbers, I calculated that the total number of Afghan babies saved every year (compared to 2001) thanks to the improved infant-mortality numbers is 43,338.
Of course, all of those children — along with countless other humanitarian improvements in the lives of ordinary Afghans — would be put at risk if Canada and other NATO countries withdrew and surrendered the country to the Taliban. Life would then crumble into the brutal. stone-age theocracy it was in the pre-9/11 days.
In fact, some Canadian politicians are seizing on the current detainee scandal to argue for just such a cut-and-run strategy. How perverse would it be if the welfare of a few dozen terror suspects compromised the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Aghan babies?
One Of The Rewards Of Channel Surfing
A few weeks ago I was channel surfing and came across Rez Blues and I stayed until the show was over and only then did I realize/find out that the performers were indians....the music was the message. A message of success that doesn't seem to be promoted enough.
A tradition at Dust My Broom goes to the airwaves;
A big warm hug to some new friends from Rez Bluez which is an all aboriginal blues show featuring live performances that can be viewed on Canada’s Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN). We share some mutual goals so look for some new additions around here in the upcoming weeks. For the record, I’ve been listening to CBC’s Saturday night blues for almost 15 years and I can’t recall them ever featuring aboriginal artists…
Grab a brew and check it out.
Posted by Kate at 9:40 PM
A tradition at Dust My Broom goes to the airwaves;
A big warm hug to some new friends from Rez Bluez which is an all aboriginal blues show featuring live performances that can be viewed on Canada’s Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN). We share some mutual goals so look for some new additions around here in the upcoming weeks. For the record, I’ve been listening to CBC’s Saturday night blues for almost 15 years and I can’t recall them ever featuring aboriginal artists…
Grab a brew and check it out.
Posted by Kate at 9:40 PM
Zero tolerance on torture
We have no interest in Canadian troops becoming accessories to Afghan torturers, risking their lives to capture Taliban fighters only to hand them over to inhuman jailers.
- National Post
Stop The War! A Taliban Has A Boo Boo
Earlier this week, an opposition motion in the House of Commons, to get Canadian troops out of Afghanistan in 2009, was defeated by a vote of 150-134. Jack Layton, and his cabal of socialists, voted with the Conservatives, because as he put it, was nothing more than a green light for an extension to the mission. The NDP wants the troops out immediately.
This could only make sense if Jack Layton thinks he will be Prime Minister by 2009. But rather then delving into Layton's deluded logic, the mainstream liberal media choose instead, to focus on prisoner abuse
- Terry Pearson
-The Story
Voters Are A Finicky Group
As the Bloc and Doucette are finding out.....
Duceppe may be looking for an exit strategy
The Bloc leader could go after the Parti Québécois job
April 28, 2007
Chantal Hebert
With the Bloc Québécois flagging in the polls and sovereignty on the back burner, Gilles Duceppe is looking like a captain in need of a lifeboat these days. His future in politics may actually hinge on his capacity to jump ship before the next federal election.
The third-place finish of the Parti Québécois in last month's Quebec election has freed Duceppe to move on to other challenges, but it has also made an exit strategy from federal politics a more pressing personal priority.
Had the PQ won the election, he would have been stuck on Parliament Hill for the foreseeable future, striving to advance the sovereignist referendum agenda. But now, rebuilding the provincial party is job one for any leading sovereignist.
While PQ Leader André Boisclair says he plans to stay on in opposition, few believe that he will or should lead the party in another campaign. And with the next Quebec election possibly no more than a year away, time will increasingly be of the essence if the PQ is to change leaders.
According to a report in La Presse this week, Boisclair can count on no more than a handful of loyalists within his reduced caucus. He would hardly be the first PQ leader to be forced out of his job by the party.
Two years ago, Duceppe turned down overtures to move to the Quebec scene, arguing that he could not leave the Bloc in a lurch in an election year. He is unlikely to have any such qualms this time around.
Back then, Duceppe was at the top of his game; he was the most popular sovereignist in Quebec. But even under those auspicious circumstances, he would have had to fight hard to win the PQ leadership.
The crown does not shine as brightly now that the PQ is in third place, but then neither does Duceppe's star. Securing the leadership would not be a cakewalk this time, either. He may be too much of a progressive and too much of a Montrealer for a party that faces its biggest challenges in the more conservative areas of the province.
But at this point, the odds that he would win the PQ leadership have become better than the prospects that the Bloc will do well in the next federal election.
Over the past few months, the Bloc has been polling at historical lows. A growing number of Quebecers question its long-term purpose. At the same time, the PQ defeat has loosened the glue that made the Bloc the most cohesive force on Parliament Hill for more than a decade.
Since the Quebec election, one Bloc MP has left to sit as an independent, in protest over Duceppe's authoritarian style. The party's popular second-in-command, House leader Michel Gauthier, will be gone by summer.
Gauthier's Roberval riding sits at the top of the list of seats Stephen Harper believes he can take in Quebec. In the 2006 federal election, the Conservatives scored their best second-place finish there. Gauthier's upcoming retirement has set the stage for a heated local battle for the Conservative nomination.
Shortly after the Quebec election, Duceppe startled observers when he revealed that the Prime Minister had privately assured him that he did not want to go to the polls any time soon.
That assurance stood in sharp contrast with the election fever that gripped Parliament Hill in the immediate wake of the Quebec vote. But it did come across as a green light for Duceppe to ponder a move out of his federal niche.
Harper would have reasons to want to see the last of Duceppe on the Hill. The Bloc leader has not groomed a successor. There is always a possibility that a faded PQ star could come out of the woodwork to lead the Bloc. But jumping quickly into shoes that were originally meant for walking the short distance between one federal election and a referendum would not come easily to anyone.
In an ideal world for the veteran Bloc leader, there would not be a federal vote this spring and Boisclair would be history before the end of the summer. Under that scenario, Duceppe would not have to lead the Bloc in another campaign.
If he sticks around for the next election and the party does as poorly as some of the polls suggest, Duceppe will be headed for a life outside federal politics soon after, albeit of a quieter kind than the one he currently contemplates.
Duceppe may be looking for an exit strategy
The Bloc leader could go after the Parti Québécois job
April 28, 2007
Chantal Hebert
With the Bloc Québécois flagging in the polls and sovereignty on the back burner, Gilles Duceppe is looking like a captain in need of a lifeboat these days. His future in politics may actually hinge on his capacity to jump ship before the next federal election.
The third-place finish of the Parti Québécois in last month's Quebec election has freed Duceppe to move on to other challenges, but it has also made an exit strategy from federal politics a more pressing personal priority.
Had the PQ won the election, he would have been stuck on Parliament Hill for the foreseeable future, striving to advance the sovereignist referendum agenda. But now, rebuilding the provincial party is job one for any leading sovereignist.
While PQ Leader André Boisclair says he plans to stay on in opposition, few believe that he will or should lead the party in another campaign. And with the next Quebec election possibly no more than a year away, time will increasingly be of the essence if the PQ is to change leaders.
According to a report in La Presse this week, Boisclair can count on no more than a handful of loyalists within his reduced caucus. He would hardly be the first PQ leader to be forced out of his job by the party.
Two years ago, Duceppe turned down overtures to move to the Quebec scene, arguing that he could not leave the Bloc in a lurch in an election year. He is unlikely to have any such qualms this time around.
Back then, Duceppe was at the top of his game; he was the most popular sovereignist in Quebec. But even under those auspicious circumstances, he would have had to fight hard to win the PQ leadership.
The crown does not shine as brightly now that the PQ is in third place, but then neither does Duceppe's star. Securing the leadership would not be a cakewalk this time, either. He may be too much of a progressive and too much of a Montrealer for a party that faces its biggest challenges in the more conservative areas of the province.
But at this point, the odds that he would win the PQ leadership have become better than the prospects that the Bloc will do well in the next federal election.
Over the past few months, the Bloc has been polling at historical lows. A growing number of Quebecers question its long-term purpose. At the same time, the PQ defeat has loosened the glue that made the Bloc the most cohesive force on Parliament Hill for more than a decade.
Since the Quebec election, one Bloc MP has left to sit as an independent, in protest over Duceppe's authoritarian style. The party's popular second-in-command, House leader Michel Gauthier, will be gone by summer.
Gauthier's Roberval riding sits at the top of the list of seats Stephen Harper believes he can take in Quebec. In the 2006 federal election, the Conservatives scored their best second-place finish there. Gauthier's upcoming retirement has set the stage for a heated local battle for the Conservative nomination.
Shortly after the Quebec election, Duceppe startled observers when he revealed that the Prime Minister had privately assured him that he did not want to go to the polls any time soon.
That assurance stood in sharp contrast with the election fever that gripped Parliament Hill in the immediate wake of the Quebec vote. But it did come across as a green light for Duceppe to ponder a move out of his federal niche.
Harper would have reasons to want to see the last of Duceppe on the Hill. The Bloc leader has not groomed a successor. There is always a possibility that a faded PQ star could come out of the woodwork to lead the Bloc. But jumping quickly into shoes that were originally meant for walking the short distance between one federal election and a referendum would not come easily to anyone.
In an ideal world for the veteran Bloc leader, there would not be a federal vote this spring and Boisclair would be history before the end of the summer. Under that scenario, Duceppe would not have to lead the Bloc in another campaign.
If he sticks around for the next election and the party does as poorly as some of the polls suggest, Duceppe will be headed for a life outside federal politics soon after, albeit of a quieter kind than the one he currently contemplates.
Get Down On Your Knees And Pay Homage
Translate Al Gore
By Michelle Malkin · April 27, 2007 10:14 AM
Methinks he has been inhaling too many carbon emissions from his private jet:
"Art, music, film, dance, poetry — all the arts — have long been our greatest tools to explore the regions of imagination that defy our efforts to think rationally about subjects that our emotions tell us are too painful to contemplate."
-- Al Gore at the opening of the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night
Will The Environment Lead To Class Warfare
Where do the "poor" get the resources to fight global warming?
Green burden weighs on poor
April 27, 2007
Carol Goar
One of the most cogent rallying cries of the environmental movement is that we're all in this together.
No doubt we are. But we're not all despoiling the planet at the same rate. And some of us have more latitude to change our lifestyle than others.
Generally – though not always – affluence is the determining factor.
People who are rich tend to live in big houses, drive high-powered vehicles, fly all over the globe and buy superfluous appliances. People who are poor, even if they disregard the Earth's limits, don't have the means to do as much damage.
This suggests that the wealthy should be the first to sacrifice. Most of them could get along without an SUV, unplug a few gadgets and reduce their discretionary air travel without great hardship. Low-income people have fewer options. Home heating, basic utilities and work-related transportation account for most of their energy consumption.
This is an aspect of the environmental policy that is seldom discussed.
Politicians would rather announce greenhouse gas reduction targets than allocate the adjustment costs. Economists would rather calculate the price of action vs. inaction than grapple with messy questions of distribution. Even environmentalists would rather speak in generalities – living up to the Kyoto Protocol, respecting the rights of future generations, practising responsible stewardship – than get down to the specifics of who should sacrifice what.
The result of this contribute-what-you-can approach has been limited and spotty progress. Some people have chosen to live more sustainably. Some businesses have adopted clean technologies. Some communities have invested in renewable energy. But most have waited for leadership.
Now that Environment Minister John Baird is promising to provide it – and back it up with mandatory emissions controls and tough energy-use regulations – we're going to have to talk about burden sharing.
This is an area in which there is little research to guide policy-makers.
But we do know a few things:
1.) An across-the-board increase in energy prices would have a disproportionate impact on the poor.
That became clear in April of 2004, when the Ontario government raised hydro rates by 9 per cent. Energy Minister Dwight Duncan maintained that consumers could "eat" the increase with modest changes in their lifestyle.
But for low-income families, many of whom lived in poorly insulated apartments with electric heating and older appliances, there was little room to cut. All they could do was turn down the thermostat or skimp on necessities to pay their utility bill.
Under pressure from anti-poverty groups, Duncan offered a one-time energy relief payment to consumers at risk of having their power cut off.
2.) A strategy forcing everyone to compensate for the profligate energy use of the privileged would destroy any hope of solidarity.
We've seen that in global climate change negotiations for decades.
Nations such as China and India argue that they should not be held back by emissions caps drafted by Western nations that were free to burn fossil fuels and produce greenhouse gases during their industrialization phases. They see no reason to deprive their citizens of the benefits of unconstrained growth to make up for the mistakes of richer nations.
These same tensions would surface domestically if Ottawa forced all Canadians to contribute equally to the battle against global warming.
Conservers would complain that they were being punished for the bad habits of energy hogs. Farmers would point out they needed more energy than urban dwellers. Suburban commuters would say they couldn't afford to live in the city. Low-income tenants would object to cutting basics while well-off homeowners trimmed frills.
3.) A poll-driven response to the recent surge in environmental concern would push poverty to the margins of the political agenda.
That is the scenario social activists fear. If climate change is the defining issue of the next election, the widening gap between those who can afford to alter their lifestyle and those who can't will be ignored.
The resources needed for decent housing, safe places for kids to play and adequate income support programs will be diverted into technology development and tax incentives.
In the long run, the poor will suffer the most if we continue to mistreat our habitat. They are the least able to cope with heat waves, water shortages and rising food prices.
But in the short run, they need to be shielded from harsh correctives.
It is easy to get caught up in the green craze. It taps into our middle-class guilt, our concern over the disappearance of forests and farmland and our desire to do better.
But hurting vulnerable people to fix a compromised ecosystem would be a bad bargain.
Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Green burden weighs on poor
April 27, 2007
Carol Goar
One of the most cogent rallying cries of the environmental movement is that we're all in this together.
No doubt we are. But we're not all despoiling the planet at the same rate. And some of us have more latitude to change our lifestyle than others.
Generally – though not always – affluence is the determining factor.
People who are rich tend to live in big houses, drive high-powered vehicles, fly all over the globe and buy superfluous appliances. People who are poor, even if they disregard the Earth's limits, don't have the means to do as much damage.
This suggests that the wealthy should be the first to sacrifice. Most of them could get along without an SUV, unplug a few gadgets and reduce their discretionary air travel without great hardship. Low-income people have fewer options. Home heating, basic utilities and work-related transportation account for most of their energy consumption.
This is an aspect of the environmental policy that is seldom discussed.
Politicians would rather announce greenhouse gas reduction targets than allocate the adjustment costs. Economists would rather calculate the price of action vs. inaction than grapple with messy questions of distribution. Even environmentalists would rather speak in generalities – living up to the Kyoto Protocol, respecting the rights of future generations, practising responsible stewardship – than get down to the specifics of who should sacrifice what.
The result of this contribute-what-you-can approach has been limited and spotty progress. Some people have chosen to live more sustainably. Some businesses have adopted clean technologies. Some communities have invested in renewable energy. But most have waited for leadership.
Now that Environment Minister John Baird is promising to provide it – and back it up with mandatory emissions controls and tough energy-use regulations – we're going to have to talk about burden sharing.
This is an area in which there is little research to guide policy-makers.
But we do know a few things:
1.) An across-the-board increase in energy prices would have a disproportionate impact on the poor.
That became clear in April of 2004, when the Ontario government raised hydro rates by 9 per cent. Energy Minister Dwight Duncan maintained that consumers could "eat" the increase with modest changes in their lifestyle.
But for low-income families, many of whom lived in poorly insulated apartments with electric heating and older appliances, there was little room to cut. All they could do was turn down the thermostat or skimp on necessities to pay their utility bill.
Under pressure from anti-poverty groups, Duncan offered a one-time energy relief payment to consumers at risk of having their power cut off.
2.) A strategy forcing everyone to compensate for the profligate energy use of the privileged would destroy any hope of solidarity.
We've seen that in global climate change negotiations for decades.
Nations such as China and India argue that they should not be held back by emissions caps drafted by Western nations that were free to burn fossil fuels and produce greenhouse gases during their industrialization phases. They see no reason to deprive their citizens of the benefits of unconstrained growth to make up for the mistakes of richer nations.
These same tensions would surface domestically if Ottawa forced all Canadians to contribute equally to the battle against global warming.
Conservers would complain that they were being punished for the bad habits of energy hogs. Farmers would point out they needed more energy than urban dwellers. Suburban commuters would say they couldn't afford to live in the city. Low-income tenants would object to cutting basics while well-off homeowners trimmed frills.
3.) A poll-driven response to the recent surge in environmental concern would push poverty to the margins of the political agenda.
That is the scenario social activists fear. If climate change is the defining issue of the next election, the widening gap between those who can afford to alter their lifestyle and those who can't will be ignored.
The resources needed for decent housing, safe places for kids to play and adequate income support programs will be diverted into technology development and tax incentives.
In the long run, the poor will suffer the most if we continue to mistreat our habitat. They are the least able to cope with heat waves, water shortages and rising food prices.
But in the short run, they need to be shielded from harsh correctives.
It is easy to get caught up in the green craze. It taps into our middle-class guilt, our concern over the disappearance of forests and farmland and our desire to do better.
But hurting vulnerable people to fix a compromised ecosystem would be a bad bargain.
Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
A Simple Question For Memb ers Of The Suzuki Nation
"Okay, who is ready to quit their job and sign up to help him?"
Al Gore meets `Suzuki Nation'
April 28, 2007
Bob Hepburn
The instant the doors to the crowded elevator closed, an elegantly dressed businesswoman who was squashed into one corner spoke up loudly and excitedly: "Okay, who is ready to quit their job and sign up to help him?"
The "him" was Al Gore.
We were riding up the elevator in a downtown Toronto hotel late last month to meet Gore after he had delivered to a business audience his now-famous presentation on global warming, which formed the basis of the Oscar-winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.
The woman's excitement mirrored the response that follows Gore, known by many of his fans as "The Goracle," wherever he appears in Canada.
That excitement was present Monday when Gore spoke to 5,000 people packed into a Regina hockey rink, and when he spoke later that day to 1,600 people at a Calgary concert hall at an event sponsored by the local chamber of commerce.
Today, Gore will be back in Toronto, giving his presentation to a sold-out event at the Green Living Show at Exhibition Place, where tickets were going for up to $240 each, and to an invitation-only event at the Hummingbird Centre sponsored by an investment company and several law firms.
That excitement is most noticeable among Canadians who feel deeply about the environment and are eager to take action. A report prepared for the Harper government and obtained by the Star labelled these people, who it said represent about one-fifth of the population, "the Suzuki Nation."
In Toronto today, Gore will once again meet with "Suzuki Nation" members. Suzuki, of course, is David Suzuki, the highly respected Canadian environmentalist who has a dedicated following around the world.
Like Gore, Suzuki has reached rock-star status, speaking to huge crowds and obtaining vast media coverage.
This week alone, Gore will have given his slide show on climate change eight times. Suzuki is just as active. Earlier this year, he made 40 appearances as part of a 30-day, cross-Canada bus tour aimed at promoting the fight against global warming.
Together, Gore and Suzuki are influencing a nation, especially young Canadians, like no politician is these days. And together, they have put climate change at the top of the political agenda. Politicians are slowly becoming aware of that, as demonstrated this week by the Harper government's effort to put a positive spin on its much-hyped plan to combat global warming.
For his part, Suzuki told Environment Minister John Baird face-to-face yesterday that the plan was a disappointment and showed the Conservatives were out of touch with Canadians.
Just as they have fans, Gore and Suzuki have some critics, like the young protester Monday in Calgary who ranted to people entering the concert hall that Gore "is lying to you."
These critics also like to personalize the debate, saying Gore's large house in Tennessee isn't energy efficient, or that the bus in which Suzuki rode across Canada was polluting the air. Did they expect him to walk or ride a bicycle?
The global warming skeptics also claim they are being muzzled by the media. The opposite is more likely, though. They probably receive too much publicity given the preponderance of scientific evidence linking global warming to man-made emissions.
Still, despite the skeptics, Gore believes he is seeing progress in Canada.
On his website, AlGore.com, he wrote about his visit to Calgary. "What impressed me was the willingness of the energy company executives to have an open and honest discussion about the problem and why I believe that these resources should not be developed.
"In his introduction of me, Gary Holden, CEO of the ENMAX Corporation said, `Mr. Gore has ignited a spirit of co-operation that, a year ago, could not have been anticipated.'"
Gore said that while "it's safe to say that I did not change the minds of everyone in the auditorium," he is hopeful that environmentalists and energy industry executives are at last starting to work together. "The conversation has been taken to a higher, more productive level," he wrote.
Sadly, it seems Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have failed to understand the reasons behind the excitement that Gore and Suzuki are generating, from a Toronto hotel elevator to the Calgary oil patch.
Clearly, Canadians hunger for real action on climate change and want their political leaders to take decisive action now, not at some future date.
Indeed, the Canadian electorate, after years of indifference, is once again passionate about improving our environment – and sophisticated enough to see through the Tories' propaganda about their climate-change program.
Al Gore meets `Suzuki Nation'
April 28, 2007
Bob Hepburn
The instant the doors to the crowded elevator closed, an elegantly dressed businesswoman who was squashed into one corner spoke up loudly and excitedly: "Okay, who is ready to quit their job and sign up to help him?"
The "him" was Al Gore.
We were riding up the elevator in a downtown Toronto hotel late last month to meet Gore after he had delivered to a business audience his now-famous presentation on global warming, which formed the basis of the Oscar-winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth.
The woman's excitement mirrored the response that follows Gore, known by many of his fans as "The Goracle," wherever he appears in Canada.
That excitement was present Monday when Gore spoke to 5,000 people packed into a Regina hockey rink, and when he spoke later that day to 1,600 people at a Calgary concert hall at an event sponsored by the local chamber of commerce.
Today, Gore will be back in Toronto, giving his presentation to a sold-out event at the Green Living Show at Exhibition Place, where tickets were going for up to $240 each, and to an invitation-only event at the Hummingbird Centre sponsored by an investment company and several law firms.
That excitement is most noticeable among Canadians who feel deeply about the environment and are eager to take action. A report prepared for the Harper government and obtained by the Star labelled these people, who it said represent about one-fifth of the population, "the Suzuki Nation."
In Toronto today, Gore will once again meet with "Suzuki Nation" members. Suzuki, of course, is David Suzuki, the highly respected Canadian environmentalist who has a dedicated following around the world.
Like Gore, Suzuki has reached rock-star status, speaking to huge crowds and obtaining vast media coverage.
This week alone, Gore will have given his slide show on climate change eight times. Suzuki is just as active. Earlier this year, he made 40 appearances as part of a 30-day, cross-Canada bus tour aimed at promoting the fight against global warming.
Together, Gore and Suzuki are influencing a nation, especially young Canadians, like no politician is these days. And together, they have put climate change at the top of the political agenda. Politicians are slowly becoming aware of that, as demonstrated this week by the Harper government's effort to put a positive spin on its much-hyped plan to combat global warming.
For his part, Suzuki told Environment Minister John Baird face-to-face yesterday that the plan was a disappointment and showed the Conservatives were out of touch with Canadians.
Just as they have fans, Gore and Suzuki have some critics, like the young protester Monday in Calgary who ranted to people entering the concert hall that Gore "is lying to you."
These critics also like to personalize the debate, saying Gore's large house in Tennessee isn't energy efficient, or that the bus in which Suzuki rode across Canada was polluting the air. Did they expect him to walk or ride a bicycle?
The global warming skeptics also claim they are being muzzled by the media. The opposite is more likely, though. They probably receive too much publicity given the preponderance of scientific evidence linking global warming to man-made emissions.
Still, despite the skeptics, Gore believes he is seeing progress in Canada.
On his website, AlGore.com, he wrote about his visit to Calgary. "What impressed me was the willingness of the energy company executives to have an open and honest discussion about the problem and why I believe that these resources should not be developed.
"In his introduction of me, Gary Holden, CEO of the ENMAX Corporation said, `Mr. Gore has ignited a spirit of co-operation that, a year ago, could not have been anticipated.'"
Gore said that while "it's safe to say that I did not change the minds of everyone in the auditorium," he is hopeful that environmentalists and energy industry executives are at last starting to work together. "The conversation has been taken to a higher, more productive level," he wrote.
Sadly, it seems Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have failed to understand the reasons behind the excitement that Gore and Suzuki are generating, from a Toronto hotel elevator to the Calgary oil patch.
Clearly, Canadians hunger for real action on climate change and want their political leaders to take decisive action now, not at some future date.
Indeed, the Canadian electorate, after years of indifference, is once again passionate about improving our environment – and sophisticated enough to see through the Tories' propaganda about their climate-change program.
Citizens Speak Out On Comrade Miller's Green Plan
Voices: Greening Toronto TheStar.com - News - Voices: Greening Toronto
April 26, 2007
We asked readers to look at the city of Toronto's 27-point plan for a greener city ahead of April 29's public forum, and to give us your thoughts. Here is a selection of responses:
I think it's great to implement green plans for a greener city. Gov't made many suggestions on increasing taxes and/or per user fees to encourage the general public to be more environmental conscious. My husband & I are diligently recyclying, using green bins, all the lights in the house are changed to energy saving bulbs, we don't use the dryer for our clothes, etc. However, we find that it's inevitable when we buy groceries and/or take out foods. There are so much containers that are not recyclable. ... Can the gov't enforce the retailers/foods distributors to be more environment conscious as well? If styrofoam is so bad, why didn't the gov't ban the use of it? For example, can the city gov't come up with some reusable containers for people to use when they're buying take out? ... Enforcing (the) general public to save (a) certain amount of energy is important, but the same should also apply to the BIG corporations as well.
G Truong, Thornhill
I think the city should be more concerned with its budget. Without moulah the environment won't matter.
Micheal Frank, Toronto
I really don't mind adding fees etc. for parking and fully support all directions towards a "Green Toronto", but what I don't understand is why David Miller is changing the median complete with green grass and trees along Lakeshore (close to Parkside Dr.) into a parking lot? Not only will it make Lakeshore an eye-sore, it will increase congestion (MORE pollution) and potential accidents from people running across the eastbound lanes, to get to the walking/bike paths. Sometimes I really wonder who makes these types of decisions and/or why we are spending money on these endeavours.
Patricia L, Toronto
The day that I walk along Yonge Street and don't have to pick up other people's tossed away recycables, will be the day I believe we might be able to solve some of the city's pollution problems.
John Stratton, Toronto
It's hard to chose which level of government (is most responsible for improving Toronto's environment), municipal, provincial ... or local citizens. It seems to me that one can't do it without the other. I would say that the mayor and city council should lead the way, with the support of local citizens and working with and pressing Queen's Park and the federal government. People need help to retrofit their houses for solar panels, we need more wind turbines, we need help to finance buying hybrid cars, and we need federally funded transit systems that are good. It should be easier to take the transit. It takes too long to get to where you want to go. I have to admit I never use it although I would if I had a job downtown, where I wouldn't want to park my car.
Pamela Ewen, Toronto
The choice of priorities given in your survey really are all equally important. We should be concentrating on all of them! If we don't, we won't have any choices in the end.
Heather-Ann Brown, Toronto
The city's highest priority should be within (its) control and many of your choices go beyond that. Who's going to check every toilet? What service will be sacrificed or how high will they raise taxes to pay for extra trees? Will we save money when we save electricity so that we can fund other initiatives or will they just raise the kw/h rate? I support anti-car measures (even though I live here, own one, and sometimes drive downtown) but what's the use of punishing the Torontonians when most of our car traffic comes from 905? If we're going to do anything regarding cars, we need to make it convenient for people to park on the outskirts and take transit downtown while also making it inconvenient for them to overlook this option and just drive in.
Brett Tremblay, Toronto
The greening of Toronto needs to be addressed by all levels of government and all people in the GTA. One major contributor to water consummtion levels are the golf courses which use vast quantities of water for the use of the wealthy few. There are some trees there but nowhere as many as there could be if they were converted to Parks like Stanley Park in Vancouver. ... Parks do not require constant watering and fertilising, which depletes the water supply and toxify what water is left. All told, golf courses neither add to the "green canopy" nor to the green consciousness of Toronto, nor serve the people at large.
Christine Boldt, Scarborough
Cutting emissions that cause asthma as presented by the conservatives should come first. They are the only ones to address human health in this regard. Let's get over the baloney the world will end, and take some reasonable steps to (improving) our health with out causing us to be unemployed.
Wade Ens, Toronto
April 26, 2007
We asked readers to look at the city of Toronto's 27-point plan for a greener city ahead of April 29's public forum, and to give us your thoughts. Here is a selection of responses:
I think it's great to implement green plans for a greener city. Gov't made many suggestions on increasing taxes and/or per user fees to encourage the general public to be more environmental conscious. My husband & I are diligently recyclying, using green bins, all the lights in the house are changed to energy saving bulbs, we don't use the dryer for our clothes, etc. However, we find that it's inevitable when we buy groceries and/or take out foods. There are so much containers that are not recyclable. ... Can the gov't enforce the retailers/foods distributors to be more environment conscious as well? If styrofoam is so bad, why didn't the gov't ban the use of it? For example, can the city gov't come up with some reusable containers for people to use when they're buying take out? ... Enforcing (the) general public to save (a) certain amount of energy is important, but the same should also apply to the BIG corporations as well.
G Truong, Thornhill
I think the city should be more concerned with its budget. Without moulah the environment won't matter.
Micheal Frank, Toronto
I really don't mind adding fees etc. for parking and fully support all directions towards a "Green Toronto", but what I don't understand is why David Miller is changing the median complete with green grass and trees along Lakeshore (close to Parkside Dr.) into a parking lot? Not only will it make Lakeshore an eye-sore, it will increase congestion (MORE pollution) and potential accidents from people running across the eastbound lanes, to get to the walking/bike paths. Sometimes I really wonder who makes these types of decisions and/or why we are spending money on these endeavours.
Patricia L, Toronto
The day that I walk along Yonge Street and don't have to pick up other people's tossed away recycables, will be the day I believe we might be able to solve some of the city's pollution problems.
John Stratton, Toronto
It's hard to chose which level of government (is most responsible for improving Toronto's environment), municipal, provincial ... or local citizens. It seems to me that one can't do it without the other. I would say that the mayor and city council should lead the way, with the support of local citizens and working with and pressing Queen's Park and the federal government. People need help to retrofit their houses for solar panels, we need more wind turbines, we need help to finance buying hybrid cars, and we need federally funded transit systems that are good. It should be easier to take the transit. It takes too long to get to where you want to go. I have to admit I never use it although I would if I had a job downtown, where I wouldn't want to park my car.
Pamela Ewen, Toronto
The choice of priorities given in your survey really are all equally important. We should be concentrating on all of them! If we don't, we won't have any choices in the end.
Heather-Ann Brown, Toronto
The city's highest priority should be within (its) control and many of your choices go beyond that. Who's going to check every toilet? What service will be sacrificed or how high will they raise taxes to pay for extra trees? Will we save money when we save electricity so that we can fund other initiatives or will they just raise the kw/h rate? I support anti-car measures (even though I live here, own one, and sometimes drive downtown) but what's the use of punishing the Torontonians when most of our car traffic comes from 905? If we're going to do anything regarding cars, we need to make it convenient for people to park on the outskirts and take transit downtown while also making it inconvenient for them to overlook this option and just drive in.
Brett Tremblay, Toronto
The greening of Toronto needs to be addressed by all levels of government and all people in the GTA. One major contributor to water consummtion levels are the golf courses which use vast quantities of water for the use of the wealthy few. There are some trees there but nowhere as many as there could be if they were converted to Parks like Stanley Park in Vancouver. ... Parks do not require constant watering and fertilising, which depletes the water supply and toxify what water is left. All told, golf courses neither add to the "green canopy" nor to the green consciousness of Toronto, nor serve the people at large.
Christine Boldt, Scarborough
Cutting emissions that cause asthma as presented by the conservatives should come first. They are the only ones to address human health in this regard. Let's get over the baloney the world will end, and take some reasonable steps to (improving) our health with out causing us to be unemployed.
Wade Ens, Toronto
Even The Star Takes Comrade Miller To Task
Walk this way? Not with gutless leaders
Pedestrians, bicyclists stymied by lack of will
April 28, 2007
Chris Hume
What Toronto thinks it is and what it really is are two different things.
Creative? Not a bit. Green? Would love to be, but doesn't have the guts. Pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly? Not a chance.
In fact, the growing sense of disappointment with Mayor David Miller comes from his failure to deliver even on the most basic of promises. And please, spare us the rhetoric about Toronto the impoverished; much can be done without spending a dime.
At a public meeting Wednesday evening at the Harbourfront Community Centre, a lonely group of citizens showed up to suggest ways the city could better incorporate foot traffic and two-wheelers. They came up with all kinds of ideas – wider sidewalks, more footbridges, safer crosswalks, slower speed limits and so on.
Their proposals will be on the agenda of Walk21, an international conference to be held here in October. Its slogan, Putting Pedestrians First, is not intended to be ironic.
Before the participants broke up into workshops, however, they heard a brief presentation from Gil Penalosa, executive director of Walk and Ride for Life, and former parks commissioner of Bogota, Colombia, where with his brother, Enrique, the mayor, he transformed that city. In just three years, the administration opened 200 parks and built 280 kilometres of bike paths.
"Bogota is a poor city," he pointed out. "Toronto is rich. The problems aren't technical, they're political.
"This is not just about pedestrians and cyclists. It's about making Toronto competitive. It's about figuring out how to attract and retain wealth-creating people; that's every city's goal in the 21st century. Toronto needs to develop a sense of urgency; it's got to be done and it's got to be done now."
Penalosa proposes Toronto could start by copying another Bogota success story, the Ciclovia. Introduced in '93, it is a program that sees 113 kilometres of streets closed every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 1.5 million people take advantage of car-less roads to walk, ride or skate.
Connectivity is key; the idea is to create a network of streets so that users can travel in a giant loop.
Penalosa suggests the program be implemented from Victoria Day to Labor Day, about half a year.
"Not only is it healthy," he adds, "but it would be an exercise in social integration. Everybody meets here as equals."
Like many Torontonians, Penalosa can't understand why this city has no designated pedestrian precinct. Sure, we close Kensington for a few Sundays during the summer, but why not permanently? The reason, of course, is that local merchants are terrified that closure will destroy their business. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The shopkeepers brayed just as bitterly in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Edinburgh and in every other city when similar measures were introduced. But as Penalosa makes clear, they were dead wrong. In fact, these pedestrian-only neighbourhoods are now hugely desirable retail districts.
Tourists, of course love them. That's because tourism is largely a pedestrian activity. Too bad Toronto politicians are too weak to resist the uninformed complaints from the business community.
"I think the majority of people in Toronto are in favour of pedestrian streets," Penalosa says. "But the NIMBY factor is strong. Politicians here are scared and a little behind. Miller is the type of mayor who wants to do the right thing but he doesn't seem to be the type of mayor who can do the right thing. He needs to surround himself with doers."
Ah, but in Toronto, the town that time forgot, we have added 41 kilometres of dedicated bike lanes since 2001. Here streets are for cars and trucks, and only cars and trucks. The Pedestrian Charter city council passed in 2002 isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
Fair enough. Neither stupidity nor hypocrisy are anything new in politics, but in a world where no city can take its future for granted, Toronto might at least try being smart for once.
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca
Pedestrians, bicyclists stymied by lack of will
April 28, 2007
Chris Hume
What Toronto thinks it is and what it really is are two different things.
Creative? Not a bit. Green? Would love to be, but doesn't have the guts. Pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly? Not a chance.
In fact, the growing sense of disappointment with Mayor David Miller comes from his failure to deliver even on the most basic of promises. And please, spare us the rhetoric about Toronto the impoverished; much can be done without spending a dime.
At a public meeting Wednesday evening at the Harbourfront Community Centre, a lonely group of citizens showed up to suggest ways the city could better incorporate foot traffic and two-wheelers. They came up with all kinds of ideas – wider sidewalks, more footbridges, safer crosswalks, slower speed limits and so on.
Their proposals will be on the agenda of Walk21, an international conference to be held here in October. Its slogan, Putting Pedestrians First, is not intended to be ironic.
Before the participants broke up into workshops, however, they heard a brief presentation from Gil Penalosa, executive director of Walk and Ride for Life, and former parks commissioner of Bogota, Colombia, where with his brother, Enrique, the mayor, he transformed that city. In just three years, the administration opened 200 parks and built 280 kilometres of bike paths.
"Bogota is a poor city," he pointed out. "Toronto is rich. The problems aren't technical, they're political.
"This is not just about pedestrians and cyclists. It's about making Toronto competitive. It's about figuring out how to attract and retain wealth-creating people; that's every city's goal in the 21st century. Toronto needs to develop a sense of urgency; it's got to be done and it's got to be done now."
Penalosa proposes Toronto could start by copying another Bogota success story, the Ciclovia. Introduced in '93, it is a program that sees 113 kilometres of streets closed every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 1.5 million people take advantage of car-less roads to walk, ride or skate.
Connectivity is key; the idea is to create a network of streets so that users can travel in a giant loop.
Penalosa suggests the program be implemented from Victoria Day to Labor Day, about half a year.
"Not only is it healthy," he adds, "but it would be an exercise in social integration. Everybody meets here as equals."
Like many Torontonians, Penalosa can't understand why this city has no designated pedestrian precinct. Sure, we close Kensington for a few Sundays during the summer, but why not permanently? The reason, of course, is that local merchants are terrified that closure will destroy their business. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The shopkeepers brayed just as bitterly in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Edinburgh and in every other city when similar measures were introduced. But as Penalosa makes clear, they were dead wrong. In fact, these pedestrian-only neighbourhoods are now hugely desirable retail districts.
Tourists, of course love them. That's because tourism is largely a pedestrian activity. Too bad Toronto politicians are too weak to resist the uninformed complaints from the business community.
"I think the majority of people in Toronto are in favour of pedestrian streets," Penalosa says. "But the NIMBY factor is strong. Politicians here are scared and a little behind. Miller is the type of mayor who wants to do the right thing but he doesn't seem to be the type of mayor who can do the right thing. He needs to surround himself with doers."
Ah, but in Toronto, the town that time forgot, we have added 41 kilometres of dedicated bike lanes since 2001. Here streets are for cars and trucks, and only cars and trucks. The Pedestrian Charter city council passed in 2002 isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
Fair enough. Neither stupidity nor hypocrisy are anything new in politics, but in a world where no city can take its future for granted, Toronto might at least try being smart for once.
Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca
You Still Have To Wait Longer But Now You're More Fashionable
No more hangin' out at the hospital
By SARAH GREEN
It's the end of an era for the open-back hospital gown.
Trillium Health Centre unveiled its new patient attire at its annual gala last night, featuring a new style of gowns, jackets and pants that make more than a fashion statement.
The clothing is tailored with front and back ties, Velcro closures, even wider legs that allow medical staff to care for patients without leaving them feeling overexposed.
"It's all about dignity," said Jo-Anne Oake-Vecchiato, Trillium's director of women's and children's health. "It's the age-old complaint -- those gowns leave you exposed and vulnerable in one of the more challenging times."
The idea for the new patient attire began several years ago at the women's health centre.
TEST CLOTHING
Patients having mammograms were offered jackets instead of gowns and the cover-ups came in two sizes. Skirts followed in shorter and longer lengths, to accommodate cultural needs.
"It went over really, really well," Oake-Vecchiato said. "This is something we should do hospital-wide."
Last night's gala raised $525,000 towards the $600,000 cost of new patient attire. A three-month pilot project will test the clothing in different areas -- from the emergency room to birthing suites.
While research hasn't looked specifically at patient attire, Oake-Vecchiato said there's some evidence that patients are more willing to come back for screening and other procedures if the experience is not anxiety-ridden.
By SARAH GREEN
It's the end of an era for the open-back hospital gown.
Trillium Health Centre unveiled its new patient attire at its annual gala last night, featuring a new style of gowns, jackets and pants that make more than a fashion statement.
The clothing is tailored with front and back ties, Velcro closures, even wider legs that allow medical staff to care for patients without leaving them feeling overexposed.
"It's all about dignity," said Jo-Anne Oake-Vecchiato, Trillium's director of women's and children's health. "It's the age-old complaint -- those gowns leave you exposed and vulnerable in one of the more challenging times."
The idea for the new patient attire began several years ago at the women's health centre.
TEST CLOTHING
Patients having mammograms were offered jackets instead of gowns and the cover-ups came in two sizes. Skirts followed in shorter and longer lengths, to accommodate cultural needs.
"It went over really, really well," Oake-Vecchiato said. "This is something we should do hospital-wide."
Last night's gala raised $525,000 towards the $600,000 cost of new patient attire. A three-month pilot project will test the clothing in different areas -- from the emergency room to birthing suites.
While research hasn't looked specifically at patient attire, Oake-Vecchiato said there's some evidence that patients are more willing to come back for screening and other procedures if the experience is not anxiety-ridden.
RIP And Good Riddance
While I question whether it is a good tactic Harper gets credit for putting the environment issues back where they belong.....on the plates of the environuts and the average citizen. What will we, the average citizen, who are accussed of being the cause of global warming going to do as individuals....
* park the gas guzzler
* turn down the stat in winter and up in summer
* turn off the bulbs, television, computers
* buy bulk to reduce the need to manufacture/dispose of plastic packaging
* not fire up the bar-b-que this summer
* add what you are going to do
Here lies Kyoto, dead and unloved
By Lorrie Goldstein
Ding-dong the Kyoto witch is dead, killed off by Canadian politicians -- Conservative and Liberal -- who never believed in it anyway.
The messy coup de grace was delivered Thursday by Environment Minister John Baird, standing in for the nation's leading, although now undercover, global warming sceptic, Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Meanwhile, the predictable festival of indignation marking Kyoto's demise was led by Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberals -- collectively the biggest bunch of hypocrites on Kyoto to ever darken a doorway in Ottawa.
Bad enough Harper now pretends to take global warming seriously. The Liberals pretended to do so for almost a decade after they signed Kyoto in 1998, then did nothing to implement it until they were tossed from power last year.
To know how dead Kyoto is, you only had to listen to the reaction of the special interest groups on Thursday, after Baird announced the Tories' "Kyoto-lite" plan, which is actually tougher on pollution than greenhouse gases.
Spokespeople for Alberta's oil sands, the auto sector and other big industrial emitters said the regulations were tough, but they could live with them. (Translation? They're relieved.)
As for those groups that believe in Kyoto, let's call them "the Suzuki nation," they were really ticked off.
Harper is gambling we Canadians talk a better game on Kyoto than they're willing to play, or, more important, pay.
He read the polls showing that while we support implementing Kyoto by a margin of two-to-one, we also, by the same margin, don't want to pay significantly more for fossil fuels to do it.
Thus we've been handed "Kyoto-lite" -- which will cost the average family a few hundred dollars a year once it's up and running, rather than a few thousand.
Since the Conservatives will introduce their reforms by regulation, not legislation, they won't become an issue on which they could fall through a non-confidence vote.
Still, the next election will come soon enough. Then, Kyoto supporters will be able to punish the Conservatives by voting Liberal, NDP, Bloc or Green.
But even if they do, make no mistake. In Canada, Kyoto's dead. Born 1998, died 2007. RIP. And good riddance.
* park the gas guzzler
* turn down the stat in winter and up in summer
* turn off the bulbs, television, computers
* buy bulk to reduce the need to manufacture/dispose of plastic packaging
* not fire up the bar-b-que this summer
* add what you are going to do
Here lies Kyoto, dead and unloved
By Lorrie Goldstein
Ding-dong the Kyoto witch is dead, killed off by Canadian politicians -- Conservative and Liberal -- who never believed in it anyway.
The messy coup de grace was delivered Thursday by Environment Minister John Baird, standing in for the nation's leading, although now undercover, global warming sceptic, Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Meanwhile, the predictable festival of indignation marking Kyoto's demise was led by Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberals -- collectively the biggest bunch of hypocrites on Kyoto to ever darken a doorway in Ottawa.
Bad enough Harper now pretends to take global warming seriously. The Liberals pretended to do so for almost a decade after they signed Kyoto in 1998, then did nothing to implement it until they were tossed from power last year.
To know how dead Kyoto is, you only had to listen to the reaction of the special interest groups on Thursday, after Baird announced the Tories' "Kyoto-lite" plan, which is actually tougher on pollution than greenhouse gases.
Spokespeople for Alberta's oil sands, the auto sector and other big industrial emitters said the regulations were tough, but they could live with them. (Translation? They're relieved.)
As for those groups that believe in Kyoto, let's call them "the Suzuki nation," they were really ticked off.
Harper is gambling we Canadians talk a better game on Kyoto than they're willing to play, or, more important, pay.
He read the polls showing that while we support implementing Kyoto by a margin of two-to-one, we also, by the same margin, don't want to pay significantly more for fossil fuels to do it.
Thus we've been handed "Kyoto-lite" -- which will cost the average family a few hundred dollars a year once it's up and running, rather than a few thousand.
Since the Conservatives will introduce their reforms by regulation, not legislation, they won't become an issue on which they could fall through a non-confidence vote.
Still, the next election will come soon enough. Then, Kyoto supporters will be able to punish the Conservatives by voting Liberal, NDP, Bloc or Green.
But even if they do, make no mistake. In Canada, Kyoto's dead. Born 1998, died 2007. RIP. And good riddance.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Giving Comfort & Freedom To The Enemy
Comfort and freedom that the enemy has proven on numerous occassions they would not extend to us......
So-called Anti-War Activists Join the Jihad...
It's one thing being a critic of George Bush and the War in Iraq - but for the anti-war left to actually ally themselves with the Jihad is just contempible....
This time, I'm here to say Canada's main "antiwar" groups have finally, fully, and openly exposed themselves to be active participants in that war. And they're on the side of the enemy.
Two months ago, in Richmond Hill, Ontario, the key leaders of the Canadian Peace Alliance, the War Resisters Support Group, and the Toronto Stop the War Coalition joined Iranian diplomats and theocrats in celebration of the 28th anniversary of the Khomeinist revolution in Iran.
Cohosted by the Iranian Embassy, the anniversary celebration was, by all accounts, a happy and pleasant affair. There was singing and speeches, and on the same day, back in Iran the Khomeinist theocracy's defence minister was announcing the production of a new 2,000-kilometre-range missile.
Last month, about 20 Canadian "antiwar" leaders answered the call of the Canadian Peace Alliance and assembled in Cairo, Egypt, for a strategy session with some of the world's most foul jihadists. Among them were senior officers from Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese client statelet that pioneered the current savagery of Islamist suicide bombings, and Hamas, the death cult whose stabbings, shootings, and explosions have taken the lives of hundreds of innocent Palestinians and Israelis in recent years.
According to the Egyptian English-language weekly Al-Ahram, one of the Canadian Peace Alliance delegates at the Cairo conference, Toronto's James Clark, told the gathering that Canadian activists use incidents of Islamophobia in this country to "educate and mobilize people". Clark is reported to have uttered the lie that the Canadian government actively and deliberately enflames Islamophobia in order to wage war in Muslim countries. Clark vowed that "the Canadian peace movement, inspired by the Arab resistance in Lebanon and Iraq, would work with Muslims to defeat imperialism."
The Reuters news agency reported that a surprise guest at the Cairo conference was a certain Abu Omar, a shadowy cleric who fled Egypt several years ago after the government outlawed and suppressed his group, Jamaat al-Islamiya, for waging a campaign of tourist murders and assassinations through the 1990s. Jamaat al-Islamiya's most memorable contribution to the struggle for social justice was a 1997 machine-gunning and stabbing spree at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor that left 71 innocents dead, most of them foreign sightseers. Last August, al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri declared Jamaat al-Islamiya an al-Qaeda subsidiary.
Please read the whole report - but a warning - it will make your blood boil.
posted by GayandRight @ 5:11 PM
So-called Anti-War Activists Join the Jihad...
It's one thing being a critic of George Bush and the War in Iraq - but for the anti-war left to actually ally themselves with the Jihad is just contempible....
This time, I'm here to say Canada's main "antiwar" groups have finally, fully, and openly exposed themselves to be active participants in that war. And they're on the side of the enemy.
Two months ago, in Richmond Hill, Ontario, the key leaders of the Canadian Peace Alliance, the War Resisters Support Group, and the Toronto Stop the War Coalition joined Iranian diplomats and theocrats in celebration of the 28th anniversary of the Khomeinist revolution in Iran.
Cohosted by the Iranian Embassy, the anniversary celebration was, by all accounts, a happy and pleasant affair. There was singing and speeches, and on the same day, back in Iran the Khomeinist theocracy's defence minister was announcing the production of a new 2,000-kilometre-range missile.
Last month, about 20 Canadian "antiwar" leaders answered the call of the Canadian Peace Alliance and assembled in Cairo, Egypt, for a strategy session with some of the world's most foul jihadists. Among them were senior officers from Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese client statelet that pioneered the current savagery of Islamist suicide bombings, and Hamas, the death cult whose stabbings, shootings, and explosions have taken the lives of hundreds of innocent Palestinians and Israelis in recent years.
According to the Egyptian English-language weekly Al-Ahram, one of the Canadian Peace Alliance delegates at the Cairo conference, Toronto's James Clark, told the gathering that Canadian activists use incidents of Islamophobia in this country to "educate and mobilize people". Clark is reported to have uttered the lie that the Canadian government actively and deliberately enflames Islamophobia in order to wage war in Muslim countries. Clark vowed that "the Canadian peace movement, inspired by the Arab resistance in Lebanon and Iraq, would work with Muslims to defeat imperialism."
The Reuters news agency reported that a surprise guest at the Cairo conference was a certain Abu Omar, a shadowy cleric who fled Egypt several years ago after the government outlawed and suppressed his group, Jamaat al-Islamiya, for waging a campaign of tourist murders and assassinations through the 1990s. Jamaat al-Islamiya's most memorable contribution to the struggle for social justice was a 1997 machine-gunning and stabbing spree at the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor that left 71 innocents dead, most of them foreign sightseers. Last August, al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri declared Jamaat al-Islamiya an al-Qaeda subsidiary.
Please read the whole report - but a warning - it will make your blood boil.
posted by GayandRight @ 5:11 PM
Fueling The Election Train IV
John Turley-Ewart: McGuinty's 'FLICK OFF!' campaign isn't clever. It's plain dumb
Remember when Dalton McGuinty was elected Premier of Ontario in 2003? His goal was to be remembered as the education premier, the leader who put kids first and made their education a priority.
His Liberal government claimed to understand the needs of parents and their expectations. Almost as soon as he was sworn in as Premier he told Ontario parents:
"We've seen you make the kids lunches, fill out the school forms, sell the chocolate almonds, put in more than a full day at the office or down at the plant and still manage to get the kids to Brownies or hockey practice ... our government will be as tireless as you are."
Yesterday that "tireless" government let Ontario parents, educators and most importantly the province's children down by launching a vulgar environmental program aimed at children. At a cost of $500,000, Ontario Environment Minister, Laurel Broten, launched the FLICK OFF! campaign with the government's corporate partners — Virgin Mobile, MuchMusic, Roots Canada and Environmental Defence. It's goal is to promote energy conservation by having kids turn off unnecessary lights.
T-shirts, bracelets and stickers will be sold through Roots stores that say FLICK OFF!. But here's the catch. The font used makes FLICK OFF! read as F--K OFF!
Head over to the Ontario government supported Web site and kids learn that we have 10 years to reduce green house gas emissions or we're "screwed."
Reports in the press suggest the Premier's Office thinks parents who find this campaign offensive lack a sense of humour, that they are just not with it. Parents who prefer that their children not debase themselves by telling family and friends to F--K OFF see things differently.
Ms. Broten, when announcing this program, said "The McGuinty government is proud to be part of this coalition that empowers Ontarians to take action." But decent minded Ontarians are ashamed of this Minister and her government for its lack of judgment and encouraging children to use language that has no place in our schools or public debates.
Indeed, the T-shirts that the Minister wants kids to wear could not be worn to the province's schools, where dress codes don't permit students to wear garments dressed up with deeply offensive language.
Ms. Broten must resign, Mr. McGuinty must apologize and, Ontario should pursue whatever means it has at its disposal to retrieve the $500,000 that was put into the ill-advised campaign.
Link to this | E-mail this | Digg this | Post to del.icio.us
Posted Thursday, April 26, 2007 11:21 AM by John Turley-Ewart
Simplicity Is A Lost Art
Many of societies ills, beyond Aids, would disappear if that simple piece of advice was followed.
What the world needs now...
- Live below sea level? Move. Live in the desert? Likewise. The Appalachans? People still live there? Why?? It's called "the bus..."
- Africa needs zippers, not condoms. You'd think from last night's show that AIDS magically generates in little children's bodies like mythical maggots. No cause and effect in Africa, apparently. Can no one just control their urges for five minutes?
Common sense: It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
Labels: Personal Responsibility
posted by RightGirl # 3:22 PM
What the world needs now...
- Live below sea level? Move. Live in the desert? Likewise. The Appalachans? People still live there? Why?? It's called "the bus..."
- Africa needs zippers, not condoms. You'd think from last night's show that AIDS magically generates in little children's bodies like mythical maggots. No cause and effect in Africa, apparently. Can no one just control their urges for five minutes?
Common sense: It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
Labels: Personal Responsibility
posted by RightGirl # 3:22 PM
The Value Of Blogging DOES Depend On Your Sources
"I read it on the Internet." That was a very popular refrain from newbies but invariably when you asked if they has confirmed the story the answer was NO! With blogging it becomes even more critical.......
As Newspapers Debate Being Like Blogs, Prominent Blogger Says Just Link to Your Sources
Posted by Ken Shepherd on April 26, 2007 - 17:15.
A troubled newspaper industry is beset with a raging journalistic debate around using the Internet to bolster the bottom line for the nation's broadsheets.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Faced with declining circulation, many U.S.
newspapers are trying to engage readers by allowing them to respond to
news stories online. But the anonymity of the Internet lets readers
post obscenities and racist hate speech that would never be allowed in
the printed paper.
LaShawn Barber lays out her thoughts in an April 26 post to her eponymous blog, suggesting that newspapers are misguided to attempt to co-opt the blog format. Rather than allowing anonymous comments that can encourage trolls that cheapen honest debate and discussion, Barber suggests another strength of the blogosphere that is easily adaptable to newspapers' online versions.:
Ken Shepherd's blog
As Newspapers Debate Being Like Blogs, Prominent Blogger Says Just Link to Your Sources
Posted by Ken Shepherd on April 26, 2007 - 17:15.
A troubled newspaper industry is beset with a raging journalistic debate around using the Internet to bolster the bottom line for the nation's broadsheets.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Faced with declining circulation, many U.S.
newspapers are trying to engage readers by allowing them to respond to
news stories online. But the anonymity of the Internet lets readers
post obscenities and racist hate speech that would never be allowed in
the printed paper.
LaShawn Barber lays out her thoughts in an April 26 post to her eponymous blog, suggesting that newspapers are misguided to attempt to co-opt the blog format. Rather than allowing anonymous comments that can encourage trolls that cheapen honest debate and discussion, Barber suggests another strength of the blogosphere that is easily adaptable to newspapers' online versions.:
Ken Shepherd's blog
Simple Truths Allude Comrade Miller & The Politburo
Keep up the heat, Councillor
By Lorrie Goldstein
Toronto councillors can ridicule Coun. Rob Ford all they want.
But his ongoing campaign to shame them into giving up some of their perks, even as they demand that the rest of us pay more for diminishing city services, deserves support.
Sure, Ford is grandstanding in part, but so what? At least he's not a hypocrite.
Every year, he spends the least amount of money set aside by councillors to ensure they can live in the style to which too many of them have become accustomed.
On one level, what Ford's critics say is true.
Things like free golf passes for councillors at city-owned courses, free parking at "Green P" municipal lots, free passes to the TTC, Toronto Zoo, Casa Loma and Exhibition Place, free tickets for plays and concerts and free food at council meetings, don't amount to much in the $7.8-billion budget council approved this week.
But the optics are terrible, and not just because councillors jealously guard their own perks, while asking the rest of us to pay more.
Just as important is the fact that people who get things for free don't tend to value them.
How can councillors appreciate what a hardship it is for a family of four on a tight budget to shell out $60 (plus parking or TTC fares) for a one-day trip to the Toronto Zoo, if they never have to pay for it themselves?
Since it doesn't cost councillors anything to ride public transit in Toronto, they will never develop the common sense perspective that comes from paying your own way. One that would cause them to pause and think, for example, "geez, we can't hike fares so soon after the last time, it's just not fair."
It's hard to treat the public's dollars like your own when you're constantly helping yourself to them.
While Ford can be a buffoon, the reason the attacks against him by other councillors on this issue are so persistent, personal and vicious is that deep down, they know he's right. They simply lack the courage to admit it.
Worse, they are too greedy and arrogant to do anything about it.
By Lorrie Goldstein
Toronto councillors can ridicule Coun. Rob Ford all they want.
But his ongoing campaign to shame them into giving up some of their perks, even as they demand that the rest of us pay more for diminishing city services, deserves support.
Sure, Ford is grandstanding in part, but so what? At least he's not a hypocrite.
Every year, he spends the least amount of money set aside by councillors to ensure they can live in the style to which too many of them have become accustomed.
On one level, what Ford's critics say is true.
Things like free golf passes for councillors at city-owned courses, free parking at "Green P" municipal lots, free passes to the TTC, Toronto Zoo, Casa Loma and Exhibition Place, free tickets for plays and concerts and free food at council meetings, don't amount to much in the $7.8-billion budget council approved this week.
But the optics are terrible, and not just because councillors jealously guard their own perks, while asking the rest of us to pay more.
Just as important is the fact that people who get things for free don't tend to value them.
How can councillors appreciate what a hardship it is for a family of four on a tight budget to shell out $60 (plus parking or TTC fares) for a one-day trip to the Toronto Zoo, if they never have to pay for it themselves?
Since it doesn't cost councillors anything to ride public transit in Toronto, they will never develop the common sense perspective that comes from paying your own way. One that would cause them to pause and think, for example, "geez, we can't hike fares so soon after the last time, it's just not fair."
It's hard to treat the public's dollars like your own when you're constantly helping yourself to them.
While Ford can be a buffoon, the reason the attacks against him by other councillors on this issue are so persistent, personal and vicious is that deep down, they know he's right. They simply lack the courage to admit it.
Worse, they are too greedy and arrogant to do anything about it.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
A Twinkle Of Sunshine Thanks To Our Troops
With help from Canada and other donors, Aghanistan is making significant progress:
* successful presidential and legislative elections and the establishment of a new constitution;
*tremendous growth for the Afghan economy;
*over four million more children (1/3 of them girls) enrolled in primary school;
* more than 120,000 Afghan women provided with micro-loans towards sustainable livelihoods;
*over 3.5 million refugees resettled;
*collection and storage of 11,000 heavy weapons; 63,000 combatants disarmed; *continued Canadian leadership on demining and eliminating surplus ammunition;
*rural poverty reduction through reconstruction in over 11,000 Afghan villages.
Is it any wonder the Taliban are carrying out their wave of terror?
Signs of progress can be found in Kandahar City
Jonathan Fowlie, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2007
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—Hidden within the confines of a cobblestone courtyard, and just beyond the flaps of a large white tent, progress is quietly being made in Kandahar City.
Within those walls, a class of young girls were doing what their counterparts could mostly only dream about just a few years ago - getting a daily education.
“The girls have joined the school since the Taliban regime collapsed and this new regime took over,” Abdul Aziz, the school’s principal said Tuesday. “Fortunately, when we got the Islamic Republic state of Afghanistan, they put more attention towards education and training.”
[...]
When asked why Aziz continues to take on the risk to run a school, especially one that teaches girls, he said he does it because he wants to serve his country.
“Education is very important to stability in Afghanistan. It is very positive,” he said Tuesday through an interpreter. “Schools are one of the very important sources. If we have schools it means we are going to have a very bright future.”
In one class of almost 30 young girls at Aziz’s school on Tuesday, many of the students spoke proudly and confidently of their ambitions, and of their plans for the future.
“Engineer,” said one girl when asked what career she wants to pursue.
“Doctor,” added another.
“Teacher,” called out a third.
It was a scene that would have been virtually unthinkable under a Taliban regime, one where women could only study the Koran until age eight, and then were banned from any kind of education.
Aziz, who became a teacher about five years ago, said part of the reason he is able to operate his school is because the security situation in Kandahar City has been getting continually better.
The liberals in Canada are against all of that.
Posted by Joel Johannesen on 04/25/07
* successful presidential and legislative elections and the establishment of a new constitution;
*tremendous growth for the Afghan economy;
*over four million more children (1/3 of them girls) enrolled in primary school;
* more than 120,000 Afghan women provided with micro-loans towards sustainable livelihoods;
*over 3.5 million refugees resettled;
*collection and storage of 11,000 heavy weapons; 63,000 combatants disarmed; *continued Canadian leadership on demining and eliminating surplus ammunition;
*rural poverty reduction through reconstruction in over 11,000 Afghan villages.
Is it any wonder the Taliban are carrying out their wave of terror?
Signs of progress can be found in Kandahar City
Jonathan Fowlie, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2007
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—Hidden within the confines of a cobblestone courtyard, and just beyond the flaps of a large white tent, progress is quietly being made in Kandahar City.
Within those walls, a class of young girls were doing what their counterparts could mostly only dream about just a few years ago - getting a daily education.
“The girls have joined the school since the Taliban regime collapsed and this new regime took over,” Abdul Aziz, the school’s principal said Tuesday. “Fortunately, when we got the Islamic Republic state of Afghanistan, they put more attention towards education and training.”
[...]
When asked why Aziz continues to take on the risk to run a school, especially one that teaches girls, he said he does it because he wants to serve his country.
“Education is very important to stability in Afghanistan. It is very positive,” he said Tuesday through an interpreter. “Schools are one of the very important sources. If we have schools it means we are going to have a very bright future.”
In one class of almost 30 young girls at Aziz’s school on Tuesday, many of the students spoke proudly and confidently of their ambitions, and of their plans for the future.
“Engineer,” said one girl when asked what career she wants to pursue.
“Doctor,” added another.
“Teacher,” called out a third.
It was a scene that would have been virtually unthinkable under a Taliban regime, one where women could only study the Koran until age eight, and then were banned from any kind of education.
Aziz, who became a teacher about five years ago, said part of the reason he is able to operate his school is because the security situation in Kandahar City has been getting continually better.
The liberals in Canada are against all of that.
Posted by Joel Johannesen on 04/25/07
The Opposition When It Comes To Reality
Opposition a real scream
By GEOFF MATTHEWS
My neighbours must think I'm cracking up. To say nothing of my poor cat.
Normally I only yell at my television during the closing minutes of hockey games, particularly when I need the Senators to score a quick goal to tie a game or, better yet, put it out of reach.
Lately, though, it has been the nightly news setting me off. Watching the smug faces of NDP Leader Jack Layton, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and wannabe leader Michael Ignatieff demand the head of Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor is sending me into a profanity-laced rant.
Layton, Dion and Ignatieff have been frothing for the cameras over the alleged mistreatment of a handful of Taliban prisoners who they say have been roughed up by Afghan jailers.
Who told our politicians the prisoners had suffered abuse? Why, the Taliban members themselves, once they had been turned loose. Were there any independent witnesses to corroborate their tales? Er, no.
Didn't matter to Layton et al, however. After all, why shouldn't they believe a few members of an armed resistance group whose members think nothing of blowing up innocent civilians to make their point?
I'm not going to suggest for one moment that torture is right, or that it's an acceptable way to treat any prisoner. It isn't. Period.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that justice is less sugar-coated in developing nations. You go against the law and you pay the consequences. Certainly those who grew up with the Taliban in power were aware of that.
Under Taliban rule, a "crime" like educating your daughter, shaving your beard or appearing uncovered in public could get you a beating on a good day -- and something far worse on a bad one.
Members of the Taliban don't much like the fact they're out of power now, so they do their best to create chaos, blowing things up, planting landmines, staging hit-and-run attacks, targeting innocent civilians as well as NATO forces.
In retaliation, Afghan authorities are reported to be smacking the prisoners with cables when they're handed over for questioning.
Spurred on by a couple of academic eggheads, Layton, Dion and Ignatieff are demanding that members of our armed forces stop handing the prisoners over to Afghan justice officials, and instead build some nice Canadian-style jails to house them.
In one particularly wacky moment, Dion suggested bringing the prisoners to Canada, where they'd no doubt claim refugee status and tie themselves up in our legal system for the next decade or so.
Yesterday Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Mideast adviser, Wajid Khan, tried to inject some sense into the debate, pointing out that Afghanistan's various tribes have their own ways of settling accounts.
"These things happen in those tribal cultures ... I'm not supporting it. There should be no torture. It is not acceptable, and the (Canadian) government is doing as much as (it) can."
But I'm betting Iggy, Dion and Layton weren't listening. Not when there's political hay to be made.
These politicians, who have nothing to say when Taliban and al-Qaida members lop off the heads of innocent men and women and display them as trophies, will be back in front of the cameras tonight condemning mistreatment of the captured terrorists. I hope my neighbours are out for the evening.
Cycling Status
There seems to be two levels of cycling. One is the lofty one where cyclists don their helmets and skin tight, crack exposing bicycle pants and save the environment and then there are the others....trail bikers. Two wheels and free to travel where you want, roadways, sidewalks, footpaths, etc. but there are rumblings afoot.
Riding roughshod
Chainsaw-toting trail bike high-flyers cutting valley into mucky ribbons
By KYLA DIXON-MUIR
At 52 hectares, about half the size of High Park, Crothers' Woods, a small Carolinian Forest at the foot of the Leaside Bridge, is an ecological rarity in these parts.
Signage erected at Beechwood Wetlands nearby warns walkers and birders to tread softly. "Areas like the Lower Don Valley that have been heavily disturbed by human activity are particularly susceptible to the effects of invasive non-native species."
But despite being declared an ecologically sensitive area more than a decade ago, Crothers is being sliced into mucky ribbons by trail bike enthusiasts who think nothing of carting in chainsaws and cutting down mature trees to build ramps for their daredevil jumps.
Illegally constructed stunts and jumps on the steep forest hillsides of Crothers were torn down a few years ago, but the degradation, including the excavation of huge ditches for jumps in the flats between Crothers and Beechwood Wetlands, has continued at a breakneck pace.
Large turnouts of 30-something male riders, a fixture at public consultations in recent years, show little concern for preserving this rare forest we're lucky to have this far north.
The Planning Partnership (TPP), the consulting group coordinating and authoring a new management plan for the area, seems intent on maintaining a system of bike trails through Crothers.
As if to justify the cyclists' presence, one TPP member observed at a November 2006 consultation that "volunteer user groups [read the pro-off-road International Mountain Bicycling Association, or IMBA] have removed over 3 tons of garbage from the valley in recent years."
Indeed, TPP has received extensive input from IMBA.
Durham region IMBA rep Jason Murray says the group wants to "keep the riding experience the same – a good and fun experience." At the same time, he admits that "overuse is what has caused the spaghetti effect" on muddy trails.
Friends of the Don East points out that mountain biking is banned in other Toronto ravines. But planners, instead of protecting the area outright, are hell-bent on making the trails multi-use. Urban forestry supervisor Garth Armour was the only city staffer at the recent public consultation to say that "jumping and skills facilities should be elsewhere."
"A continuity of environment," says Gavin Miller of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, "and of our Natural Heritage Strategy are the overall TRCA thrust."
But there's little talk of sustaining the unique wildflower meadows, reserving areas for wildlife or looking at the Don Valley as a whole corridor system.
Miller points out that "TPP's [draft] plan results in a net reduction in [bike] trail kilometres."
Crothers' interior is intersected by 10 kilometres of natural surface trails, densely in its steepest third. The consultants propose to close only 1.8 kilometres of duplicate trails on these highest-sensitivity slopes.
Sean Wheldrake, bicycle promotions coordinator, says city cycling ambassadors, who are paid city staff, will be dispatched to Crothers to reduce conflict and educate trail users.
But the ambassadors, while versed in trail etiquette, are not trained in biota (flora and fauna) recognition, wildlife protection or restoration.
Friends of the Don East has produced a paper noting that mountain biking is banned in Glendon Forest and Rouge Park and confined to trails by fencing in Sherwood Park.
"Ecological integrity must be the guiding principle of any strategy," says the Friends report. "Without this, the forest will not survive."
Stephen Smith, a forester and certified arborist, argues that "there are plenty of areas already ravaged in the city, plenty of brown lands that could easily be converted to allow stunt riders.
"Neither dog walkers nor bikers are a passive use, and it only takes a few to ruin it for the rest." the end
Riding roughshod
Chainsaw-toting trail bike high-flyers cutting valley into mucky ribbons
By KYLA DIXON-MUIR
At 52 hectares, about half the size of High Park, Crothers' Woods, a small Carolinian Forest at the foot of the Leaside Bridge, is an ecological rarity in these parts.
Signage erected at Beechwood Wetlands nearby warns walkers and birders to tread softly. "Areas like the Lower Don Valley that have been heavily disturbed by human activity are particularly susceptible to the effects of invasive non-native species."
But despite being declared an ecologically sensitive area more than a decade ago, Crothers is being sliced into mucky ribbons by trail bike enthusiasts who think nothing of carting in chainsaws and cutting down mature trees to build ramps for their daredevil jumps.
Illegally constructed stunts and jumps on the steep forest hillsides of Crothers were torn down a few years ago, but the degradation, including the excavation of huge ditches for jumps in the flats between Crothers and Beechwood Wetlands, has continued at a breakneck pace.
Large turnouts of 30-something male riders, a fixture at public consultations in recent years, show little concern for preserving this rare forest we're lucky to have this far north.
The Planning Partnership (TPP), the consulting group coordinating and authoring a new management plan for the area, seems intent on maintaining a system of bike trails through Crothers.
As if to justify the cyclists' presence, one TPP member observed at a November 2006 consultation that "volunteer user groups [read the pro-off-road International Mountain Bicycling Association, or IMBA] have removed over 3 tons of garbage from the valley in recent years."
Indeed, TPP has received extensive input from IMBA.
Durham region IMBA rep Jason Murray says the group wants to "keep the riding experience the same – a good and fun experience." At the same time, he admits that "overuse is what has caused the spaghetti effect" on muddy trails.
Friends of the Don East points out that mountain biking is banned in other Toronto ravines. But planners, instead of protecting the area outright, are hell-bent on making the trails multi-use. Urban forestry supervisor Garth Armour was the only city staffer at the recent public consultation to say that "jumping and skills facilities should be elsewhere."
"A continuity of environment," says Gavin Miller of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, "and of our Natural Heritage Strategy are the overall TRCA thrust."
But there's little talk of sustaining the unique wildflower meadows, reserving areas for wildlife or looking at the Don Valley as a whole corridor system.
Miller points out that "TPP's [draft] plan results in a net reduction in [bike] trail kilometres."
Crothers' interior is intersected by 10 kilometres of natural surface trails, densely in its steepest third. The consultants propose to close only 1.8 kilometres of duplicate trails on these highest-sensitivity slopes.
Sean Wheldrake, bicycle promotions coordinator, says city cycling ambassadors, who are paid city staff, will be dispatched to Crothers to reduce conflict and educate trail users.
But the ambassadors, while versed in trail etiquette, are not trained in biota (flora and fauna) recognition, wildlife protection or restoration.
Friends of the Don East has produced a paper noting that mountain biking is banned in Glendon Forest and Rouge Park and confined to trails by fencing in Sherwood Park.
"Ecological integrity must be the guiding principle of any strategy," says the Friends report. "Without this, the forest will not survive."
Stephen Smith, a forester and certified arborist, argues that "there are plenty of areas already ravaged in the city, plenty of brown lands that could easily be converted to allow stunt riders.
"Neither dog walkers nor bikers are a passive use, and it only takes a few to ruin it for the rest." the end
The Downside Of Owning A Garbage Dump
It takes the pressure off city council to seriously look at alternative ways of disposing of garbage rather than put it in someone elses backyard. Is landfill as evironmentally friendly as they would have us believe and their claim that the methane created is used to produce energy needs to be looked at more closely otherwise we need to look at the impact that has on the bottom line.
Landfill purchase wise Apr. 26, 2007
Toronto's purchase of the Green Lane landfill site near St. Thomas was controversial when it was announced last fall. But the benefits of the deal shone clear on Tuesday when the U.S. House of Representatives supported banning trash ...
The question of how we handle the 500,000 of methane.....it would appear that Gore's purchase of carbon credits isn't what it seems.
Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’
By Fiona Harvey and Stephen Fidler in London
Published: April 25 2007 22:07 | Last updated: April 25 2007 22:07
Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.
A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.
Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.
The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a “green gold rush”, which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go “carbon neutral”, offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel out their contribution to global warming.
The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.
The FT investigation found:
? Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
? Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
? Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
? A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
? Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.
Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.
“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.
These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.
Some companies are benefiting by asking “green” consumers to pay them for cleaning up their own pollution. For instance, DuPont, the chemicals company, invites consumers to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called HFC-23. But the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss.
The FT has also found examples of companies setting up as carbon offsetters without appearing to have a clear idea of how the markets operate. In response to FT inquiries about its sourcing of carbon credits, one company, carbonvoucher.com, said it had not taken payments for offsets.
Blue Source, a US offsetting company, invites consumers to offset carbon emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery, which pumps carbon dioxide into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. However, Blue Source said that because of the high price of oil, this process was often profitable in itself, meaning operators were making extra revenues from selling “carbon credits” for burying the carbon.
There is nothing illegal in these practices. However, some companies that are offsetting their emissions have avoided such projects because customers may find them controversial.
BP said it would not buy credits resulting from improvements in industrial efficiency or from most renewable energy projects in developed countries.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Bream
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Landfill purchase wise Apr. 26, 2007
Toronto's purchase of the Green Lane landfill site near St. Thomas was controversial when it was announced last fall. But the benefits of the deal shone clear on Tuesday when the U.S. House of Representatives supported banning trash ...
The question of how we handle the 500,000 of methane.....it would appear that Gore's purchase of carbon credits isn't what it seems.
Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’
By Fiona Harvey and Stephen Fidler in London
Published: April 25 2007 22:07 | Last updated: April 25 2007 22:07
Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.
A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.
Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.
The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a “green gold rush”, which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go “carbon neutral”, offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel out their contribution to global warming.
The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.
The FT investigation found:
? Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
? Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
? Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
? A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
? Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.
Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.
“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.
These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.
Some companies are benefiting by asking “green” consumers to pay them for cleaning up their own pollution. For instance, DuPont, the chemicals company, invites consumers to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called HFC-23. But the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss.
The FT has also found examples of companies setting up as carbon offsetters without appearing to have a clear idea of how the markets operate. In response to FT inquiries about its sourcing of carbon credits, one company, carbonvoucher.com, said it had not taken payments for offsets.
Blue Source, a US offsetting company, invites consumers to offset carbon emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery, which pumps carbon dioxide into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. However, Blue Source said that because of the high price of oil, this process was often profitable in itself, meaning operators were making extra revenues from selling “carbon credits” for burying the carbon.
There is nothing illegal in these practices. However, some companies that are offsetting their emissions have avoided such projects because customers may find them controversial.
BP said it would not buy credits resulting from improvements in industrial efficiency or from most renewable energy projects in developed countries.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Bream
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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About Me
- Unhypentated Canadian
- I lean to the right but I still have a heart and if I have a mission it is to respond to attacks on people not available to protect themselves and to point out the hypocrisy of the left at every opportunity.MY MAJOR GOAL IS HIGHLIGHT THE HYPOCRISY AND STUPIDITY OF THE LEFTISTS ON TORONTO CITY COUNCIL. Last word: In the final analysis this blog is a relief valve for my rants/raves.