cruel hoax they're pulling over on the public

           More evidence that the Harper government holds environmental regulatory measures in utter contempt. 

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/19/enbridge/ 

 " While Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the fate of Enbridge’s proposed pipeline from the Alberta oilsands to tankers on the British Columbia coast will be based on science and not politics, documents show some of that science isn’t forthcoming.
And critics say there is no time for the science to be completed before a federal deadline for the environmental assessment currently underway."

             And why is the science not forthcoming? Because the government hasn't had the time to assess the impact of the Enbridge project on some 1,000 (!sic!) streams and their associated ecosystems the pipeline will cross. And why hasn't the government had the time to do the assessments? Well it might have something to do with budget cuts to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the body mandated to carry out the assessments..

              Get the pic? First you cut budgets to regulatory bodies. Then, because, of understaffing / underfunding they can't do the job they were mandated to do: regulate. It's called deregulation on the sly (as if we didn't have enough already..)
 
              But doing things on the sly, dealing cards from a hidden deck under the table, is NOT transparency, which democracy requires in order to function properly (or simply to function - period). Don't forget Mr Harper "transparency" was one of the planks of your electoral platform going into your first mandate. That's why we - the people - elected you, in fact. (The people were fed up with the lack of transparency and back room shenanigans of the senescent Chrétien government so they voted you in, Mr Harper, hoping for CHANGE.)

"[Harper] says the science will make the decision. Well he’s basically disembowelled the science,” said Langer. “It’s a cruel hoax that they’re pulling over on the public."

                  One gets the impression that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has become a mere pathetic puppet with Harper's hand up its backside. This is not a picture of a functioning democracy.

 One definition of fascism: the control or seizure of the State by the Corporate Elite.

Some wise words even if you are not a writer

http://milwaukeereflections.blogspot.ca/2012/08/truth-sometimes-comes-hard.html#comment-form

                 Transparency, like charity, begins at home. Ultimately, transparency, if it is to be an operative virtue in society at large, must begin with personal authenticity. 

              Personal authenticity can be defined as transparency with respect to the contents of our own minds and the narratives we tell ourselves to explain the world and our place in it.

Harper remaking Canada in his image..

"Harper remaking Canada in his own image" - scary stuff when you stop to think about it..

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jim-harris/robocalls-scandal_b_1305397.html?ref=canada

Why Haper suppresses environment science?

         Hidden costs of unsustainable development?? Global Warming theory predicts that, with a heated up Hydrological Cycle, there will be more extreme precipitation events. Data from the Insurance Bureau of Canada seems to confim this prediction. It will become harder to get insurance in the future and / or you will pay more. Like conservatives like to say: "there's no free lunch kid. You pay sooner or you pay later." Too bad they don't follow their own advice!

         The real costs of 2 centuries of unsustainable development (fossil fuel powered) are beginning to roll in. Deep pockets, anyone..

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/07/09/flood-claims-montreal.html

Internal blog links (previous related articles):

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/07/rip-death-of-evidence.html

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/06/psychology-of-denial.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/06/bill-38-clear-window-open-on.html

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/cost-of-externalities.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/decline-and-fall-of-canadian-science.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/03/decline-and-fall-of-canadian-science.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/01/elizabeth-may-pleads-for-realism-on.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2011/12/laffin-fiddlin-while-rome-burns.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2011/09/environmental-transparency-what-you.html

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2011/08/is-canada-serious-in-its-committment-to.html

From the Bureaucracy Sucks file

         Here's a beaueaucracy story that just happened. About a week ago I returned some books to the municipal library (big city). One book was not listed as returned ...and fines began adding up. Several emails were sent and received no reply.

          Today, I went to the library in person and talked to a technician. She explained in detail all the hassles I was in for. They would... have to do 4 searches before charging me about 50 bucks for the book and handling fees if they could not find it. In the meantime I would receive notices by mail, phone calls and might even have my account frozen, etc. The whole thing would take a month or so to fix, "but I shouldn't worry" (!!) she said with a smile.

          According to the technician, THEY HAD ALREADY CONDUCTED ONE SEARCH AND HAD NOT FOUND THE BOOK ON THE SHELVES - three more searches to go. So, being old enough to know how bureaucracy functions I went to the shelves and - guess what? - found the damn book IN THE RIGHT PLACE..


          Imagine,..
 
          This is an example of why, despite all the gaping horrors ahead, I find some reason for hope in the Peak Oil crisis. Cheap oil is finished and, with it, the globalized economy it built. It will soon be too expensive to ship junk from sweatshops in China to big box sweatshops in N. America or to grow food through industrial farming as we now do. The world will be forced to de-globalize productive, economic and financial activities. We will once again grow, manufacture, and consume locally and regionally. Bureaucracy will shrink.
 
            Do you hear that? Bueaucracy will shrink! Yesssss!
 
            Can Peak Oil be all that bad..
 

CAVEAT EMPTOR: buyer beware

"We can't live in this grandiose U.S. fantasy world any longer, this pretense of our unlimited exceptional America that is the pinnacle of all evolution up to this moment. We are actually moving into a period of collapse nurtured for a long time by that hubris. Coming to terms with ourselves is a critical and urgent task of this moment so that we can learn how to encounter that collapse honestly, and then figure out how we are going to live from here on out as the world moves into deeper and deeper crisis.

Tell stories that reveal truth. Tell stories that reveal us to ourselves. Don't hold back. We need some real truth-telling now." 

http://milwaukeereflections.blogspot.ca/2012/07/stories-reveal.html

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/18-2

               There is much food for thought in these two texts. One need not agree with them completely but they do point to an essential point: we are living through an epoch of unprecedented change and transformation which, inevitably for those living through them, have an apocalyptic tenor and appearance. Change IS, after all, unsettling, especially if it means the loss of the very things we defined ourselves by, like SUVs, cheap energy, the hyperconsumption society..)

               Another point for reflection: what does all this have to do with govermental transparency?

               Quite a lot, actually. Covering up the truth, lack of transparency, is a way for corrupt, ruling elites to hold on to power as long as they can. The public is diverted by "bread and circuses": pseudo-issues (gay marriage, abortion, islamofascism, "socialism", the president's citizenship status, Climategate), or mind-deadening / soul-destroying mass "entertainment" and spectator sports. When the public is no longer focused on real issues, the masters of the old order can hold onto power for a little longer..

                And when the fall comes, it will be all the harder..

                 Caveat Emptor

Blows against the Borg

 http://petition.liberal.ca/fight-for-katimavik-harper-cuts-youth-funding/

 "For every dollar the organization spends, about $2.20 is generated for the host community" 

Q: If Katimavik is a $ maker and conservatives are all about making $, why the hell defund it? 

R: ? Ideology ? (What other replies make sense..) 

PS: Fed up with neocon clones in Ottawa? Strike back against the borg - sign the petition. And don't forget to share..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29 

internal blog link (previous article):

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/rip-29-march-2012.html