» Green Blogs

Dear Prime Minister Harper

Children Aid Society Windsor Emergency I fear just returned from Windsor Ontario air is toxic concern for complete society breakdown in Windsor their society seems hopelessly addicted to alcohol their food contaminated industry deliberately throwing toxic waste on soil for no apparent reason other than spite and paper-bus stop signs.  Fancy building in town is actually some kind of union condo building.  Imagine water is likely chemically contaminated if ever properly tested VIA rail staff refused me boarding twice Windsor seems detention center in many ways what's going on and I do not want to know what kind of school system such a municipality could have under conditions should Windsor Ontario be declared Substance Abuse Emergency where even City Leadership seems to have lost all control of facilities and actively work to detriment of business for which they receive government su...

Following up on Huguette Allen's post, in the current circumstances, I think it would be fair, and helpful to members, if Sylvie Lemieux were allowed to email all members about motion G10-dll.

Given that:

John Deverell asked me to post his response to this recent discussion for your consideration and comments:

"Those Greens who oppose an unqualified and unofficial negative voting campaign are quite right. It would confuse and harm the Green Party without any probability of success.

Those who argue that something drastic needs to be done, now, are also quite right.

The initiative to which Greens, New Democrats and Liberals should be prepared to respond enthusiastically must come from the largest opposition party, the Liberal Party of Canada. Until it accepts reality and shifts gears, the other opposition parties are indeed condemned to pursue stand-alone strategies with results we can anticipate easily by studying the last three elections.

If however Liberal Party leaders were to propose a tempor...

It's an old line in politics but it has teeth!

From where I sit Canadians are tired, we are tired of going to the polls, we are tired of the recession, we are tired of the fear mongering, we are tired of the slashing, slandering, playground antics of parliament hill, we are tired of majorities and dis-functional minorities, we are tired of bad News and heartbreak, we are tired of protests and lies,  in short we are sick and tired of it all!  I can't remember a time in Canadian history when we were so low as a Nation.  I even saw on one blog that perhaps its time we just broke up Canada and got it over with what's even scarier is several people agreed with him and few against, and I find that very disheartening.  Regional interests are dividing us more and more and this is a result of our national disunity and the continued presence of the Bloc in Parliament.  The Liberals after the disaster that was Dion have moved more right under Ignatieff in o...

The oil industry under bush, and BPs and Exxons latest comments on the Rachel Maddow newshour on MSNBC viewable at justin.tv live,  shows they have no advanced ability to clean up messes they create.  Indeed they went further to say that damages are inevitable!!;  we should not tolerate this kind of mess, and the war in iraq and blackwater's involvement even though now they are operating in afghanistan under a different name, is reprehensible.  The cult of death they are has to be limited in the interests of public health world wide and in the name of the UN.  Bob Gates has to curtail microphone bugging of the UN that Kofi Annan complained about at the time of Colin Powell's speech to the UN in New York about weapons of mass destruction.  Haliburton and Cheney are war criminals,   BP may just be another black op funded by the CIA and haliburton, they definately had some involvement ,   aka pearl harbour.  perhaps it was necessar

A good question was asked to me about what is realistic vs what makes sense for the guaranteed annual income program.  EI, CPP, welfare, disability are very entrenched right now.  Many don't mind paying the premium as it appears to go for the program it is listed for to the average person.  Of course, anyone who digs sees quickly that billions have been targeted for these programs that instead went to general funds.  Also the premiums are hitting the poorest hardest.  For example, a person earning $45k a year pays the same raw dollar amount as a person making $90k who pays the same as a person making $135k.  Thus the effective tax rate for that person at $45k is triple the rate of the person making $135k.  Imagine if income tax worked that way - you pay a percentage of income until you hit the mid-to-high $40k range then that is it.  Worse, if you are on contract (as most CEO's are) you pay $0 to EI and CPP.  Of course, you don'

Currently the polls in the UK have Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas predicted to win her riding,  Brighton Pavilion.   This would be a huge breakthrough for the UK Greens.  I am sure you all join me in wishing Caroline all the best on e-day UK.

Yes, finally joined & happy with some trees being planted.  Also, hoping for the Green Party to make statements pertaining to the Oil spill-as I have commented about this issue.

I am off this summer from College (Environmental Management) & hope to be working for ERCA (Essex Region Conservation Area) soon!

I have been planning on writing a blog in reply to Matthew Day's recent post about how Elizabeth May feeds on baby tears (or something to that effect) but let's face it, those who know whats going on often find many factual errors in his posts.  Often these errors are small but sometimes they are fundamental.  However people who know stuff are often bound by confidentiality agreements or realize that chatting about things on the internet out of context is rarely helpful.  This vacuum (l

I've been keeping a close eye on the election campaign being waged in the UK at the moment. One item of possible interest to Canadians is the possibility, and it is only a possibility, that the Brits will end up with a minority government in Westminster. If that does occur then it is quite possible that a reform of the electoral system will be forthcoming. There have been increasing calls for a proportional representation electoral system to be enacted in Westminster for some years now and a minority government could set the stage for this long over due reform. The Scottish and Welsh governments have operated successfully in this manner since their inception and this has further undermined the resistance to reform. If British elections go proportional then the opportunity to put pressure on the Canadian Government to enact proportional representation will greatly increase. Polling will take place in the UK on May 6th and with a bit of luck a minority government will result.

To the Honourable Mr. Dion,

I saw you last week as I sat in on Parliament. You looked dejected, and we didn't get to hear a peep out of you. I found this disappointing, as you are the most recent ELECTED leader of the Liberal Party, which should make you the current leader of the Opposition. But who says the Liberals care about silly things like Democracy, or Integrity or standing up for what's right. Perhaps if they did, they wouldn't have thrown you under the bus after one unsuccessful election. Even John Tory, architect behind Kim Campbell's famous disaster of a campaign (one of the worst in Canadian history, by its results), got far more chances than that. And to be fair, did they even support your Green Shift while they were campaigning? Or did they pretty much act like you shouldn't have been leader the minute you were elected, even if it was their own undemocratic methods of electing leaders that they so stubbornly clung to that led to your victory. Have you ever ...

A new EKOS poll was released this morning that has the GPC at 13.4% nationally.  I think it's awesome and probably related to Elizabeth speaking out so strongly and early against prorogation and Canadians' general dissatisfaction with the old line parties.  What I find more promising than the national numbers are the provincial/regional breakdowns and the momentum.

read more

...

Whenever new Canadian policy analysis on climate change arrives the domestic propaganda arm of the global resource sector and its courtiers mechanically respond.

An economic study on greenhouse gas targets and climate policy [full report] in Canada has been released by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation.

Reports like these, highlighting needed action by Canada to preserve our well-being and safety, have been coming out for years. This time, however, the report was commissioned by TD Bank, an emblem of small-c conservative thinking and an organization that is otherwise taken quite seriously. Defenders of our artificially profitable and dangerous status quo are particularly agitated by this.

One of Canada's finest apologists and Conservative Senator-in-waiting ...

Hello Green people!

There is an important event happening on October 4 supporting the fight against turning Northern Saskatchewan into a nuclear energy producer / dumping ground. Even after a report released last week stating that 85% of respondants were against nuclear activity (power generation, uranium mining and nuclear waste storage) in Saskatchewan, the provincial government is only "yellow lighting" the issue. Which isn't surprising, considering the officials involved in the analysis of the nuclear industry in Saskatchewan are either main players in the industry or know supporters. 

Let's show the Saskatchewan government that it is time to "red light" the nuclear issue and "green light" an all out energy efficiency program, greening the grid and investment in renewable energy production. Saskatchewan has some of the highest potential in renewables in Canada.

Here is some information on the rally:

...

A recent CBC radio show raised the question of whether the current parliamentary “culture had run its course”, a culture with a “lack of civility” and in “a permanent discourse on electoral politics”.  The prospects of continuing minority governments, with the emerging growth of new parties being an increasing prospect for the future, and we have something we need to address.  In the face of this, it is very easy to be critical, and harder to act to change the unsatisfactory direction in which we are headed.  Perhaps wishful thinking (trusting that organizations have a tendency to reorganize, change and self-adapt to a severe crisis) is not enough.  Perhaps it is time to set an example.  We are proposing to extend a hand in our riding to the political constituencies to help create a “new politics” that will put the riding, put the interests of the people and their well being, before partisan interests.  We propose a “new politics�

Looks like, from the UN speech on Friday 25 September 09 by Minister Cannon, that someone  has been reading some of the alternative solutions submitted to the Manley Panel that were discounted by the commission and the government.  The speech indicates an intention to ease ourselves out of our combat role.   Maybe the Manley contention that 1000 more troops and more killing will ensure success, as a major part of the Canadian contribution, is being relegated to the dustbin where it more properly belongs.  Maybe someone has seriously read my submission to the Manley Panel and also published in the “Peace Research, The Canadian Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies” Vol 39, Numbers 1-2 (2007).  In this Journal is was noted that the panel received 219 submissions and there were “some indications that panel members only read summaries of these submissions”.  Peace Research decided to publish a selection of these submissions as a

Harper has a realistic shot at a majority, given the media attacks on Ignatieff for wanting to help precipitate an election.

If Harper gets a majority, our vote subsidy will be gone almost the very next day.

We need a Liberal minority with Elizabeth in parliament. If that happens all the dynamics of how the media cover us change.

We will suddenly be taken seriously with the added benefit that Harper will be gone from the PMO and very likely gone from Canadian politics althogether. The media only cares about parties with seats. Period.

So for this election only, we have to put every available resource into Winning Saanich via a local ground war and forget about votes elsewhere that -- let's be honest -- only split the progressive vote and help elect Cons ( they won 11 seats last time by less than 2,000 votes). 

This strategy will cost us overall vote totals this time, but the alternative is a complete loss of vote subsi...

While governments rush to bail out the auto industry's mistakes in leading the destruction of our atmosphere & climate for decades, the green economy is being choked to death by tight credit and high interest rates.

All across this country renewable energy projects are being cancelled or halted due to lack of funding. Over 30% of the funnel of new wind energy projects are in receivership. Many more projects are stuck on the drawing boards with no access to funding.

Instead of bailing out the automakers, we need to call on the government to take affirmative and urgent action to protect our future:

1. Provide immediate loan guarantees to existing projects that have secured long term contracts for their green energy. This includes the Dokie wind project - Canada's largest single wind energy project.

2. Instruct the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) to allocate 1/3 of its funds for the development and advancement of new alte...