Canadian morals

I was hoping Canadians were over that There I go again that unpleasant feeling of being ashamed of being a Canadian, the last time was just months ago when a Canadian candidate for PM in the last Federal election did a credible impression of a frontrunning Republican Presidential candidate spouting hate, intolerance and Religiophobia. I don’t know how many protests I have been in over the years, probably the first about Bill Bennet and his restraint abomination then more recently C-51, contempt, Omnibus C-38 and the severe trashing of Canada’s environmental laws, C-23 an attack on democracy to name a few, and there would be 30-50 people out there with me braving the wet and cold and I would always wonder where everyone else was, was I wrong weren’t these important issues in a democracy, a supposedly free country, I guess not. Then I read the paper the other day and there they were 1000 people out in the street protesting what it would seem really matters to them, the homeless getting a roof over their heads. There they were 1000 people that are angry that something is finally being done about this national homeless travesty, not for an instant realizing these people are victims not villains, although I am sure if you really looked hard there would be a few in their ranks as there are in all segments of society, first a lot of them are physically or mentally handicapped, the last figures I saw it was 40 percent then you have the people that are victims of a government that has allowed companies to export Canadian jobs overseas and still others that are displaced by foreign workers that are brought right in to Canada to do Canadian jobs for less money, and then you even have people that do have jobs, but don't make enough money to eat and have a roof over their heads too. For the most part all this hate anger and intolerance and total lack of compassion breaks down into two things, not in my back yard and I won’t pay for it. There are no easy answers to this growing festering, marginalizing, disenfranchising of a whole new underclass of people we have purposely created, ironically starting with that very first protest I went to, Bill Bennet’s RESTRAINT. There are many aspects to this problem and there obviously is no magic bullet, just trying different things until there is no more problem, it will not be easy, but the first and most important thing is to start somewhere and adjust it till the problem no longer exists or at the very least not a colossal national disgrace that it is now. Make no mistake if we do not fix this travesty it shall become even worse as even more Canadians jobs are sent overseas and foreign workers do our jobs even here at home thanks to TTP and 49 other bad trade scams, and never mind the coming automation wave that is about to hit us, stores and factories with no employees. Believe it or not most people are about 3 paydays away from being homeless if you are unfortunate enough to have no family or friends you can live with till you can find some way to support yourself. I shall look back at my life and try to figure out where my morals and core beliefs skewed drasticaly away from the rest of my fellow Canadians values, I suspect that it would be about a decade ago. There but for the grace of god go you and I.

Government corruption

Besides appointing 49 patronage positions in the last dying days of his rule the Steven Harper government of Canada also took one last kick at myself and thousands of other Canadians. On or about September 17th he made the medication I have successfully controlled my Fibromyalgia with for 17 years illegal to buy in Canada, maybe it is dangerous you say, well it has been around for over 400 years and it was not even a prescription drug in Canada or the USA not to mention 17 years of personal use with no harmful side affects in fact it is one of the very few drugs that has NO KNOWN SIDE AFFECTS, I think it is reasonable to say in 400 years it’s side affects would be very well known. The drug Guaifenesin is used in dozens of medications such as cough medicines as it dissolves phlegm, mucus, phosphoric acid and uric acid and is also a muscle relaxer so thousands of Canadians use it successfully to treat their Fibromyalgia which is a build up of phosphoric acid. I tried years ago to stop using it when they raised the price 500 percent and that turned out badly with all my symptoms coming back rapidly, and I had no choice but to go back on it. But this is not the real story here the problem has nothing to do with how good or bad Guaifenesin is, it has to do with being an old un-patentable drug so the big Pharmaceutical companies can’t charge outrageous fees for this proven drug, the problem is it takes millions of dollars to okay a drug and no one will pay to do this for un-patentable drugs, so big Pharma wants to get rid of these drugs so they can sell you one of their patented cash cows which comes with a dozen serious side affect that they will gladly sell you another drug to control the side affect. Nobody does anything for nothing so I would like to know what politician or public servant got what, to make it impossible to control my condition Fibromyalgia, in 1997 I was told by a Rheumatologist “just keep doing whatever you are doing because anybody that was like you were in 1991 should be in a wheelchair by now”. Make no mistake this shall be the fate of many effective medications that are also un-patentable, and it is already happening to many of the medications Naturopaths use regularly. Well thanks to some ignorant or greedy politician myself and thousands of Fibromyalgia sufferers are faced with a painful, bleak future and even a wheelchair. This stupid, cruel decision has to be reversed I have been without my medication for 6 weeks now and already I am getting aches and pains in my hands, forearms, elbows, shoulders, back, hips, legs and feet.

Hypocrisy

A couple months back I was walking the dyke with my dog and taking pictures and I encountered the first burka? and niqab I have ever seen in BC, it was as I found out quite a personal journey the husband started talking to me about my dog and we walked and had a conversation about Saudi Arabia and his impressions of Canada, his wife and child walked 10 paces behind us and never tried join the conversation once, I found myself feeling very sorry for this lady and more than a little guilty myself for feeling I was somehow enabling this strange reality of subjugation and disrespect if not outright misogymy, but the strangest outcome of this experience was I came to pity this father and husband, because I realized that even if he had 100 wives he would never be friends with any of his wives, he couldn’t go to the gym and work out with his wife or the beach or cycling or jogging, running etc etc, probably not even have a stimulating conversation as most are not allowed to get a education, in other words he could never be friends with this woman who was his chattel and mother of his children, they were not equal partner in this relationship, she could never be his friend. I came away from this experience throughly disgusted by this personal walking prison the burka and niqab. Having said that I have to say I don’t think it is Canadians right to tell women what they can or can’t wear, by our laws it is legal for them to wear these oppressive statements, and by those same laws their children will get an education, whether they like it or not. There is another way to look at this situation I grew up in East Vancouver and there were a lot of Italians and the first generation women wore traditional shawls and head scarfs, but none of the second or third generation women wore these garments, they adapted to the style of their new home, I think it has always been the same it is hard for first generation immigrants to adapt to a new culture especially when they were chased out of their homeland and forced to immigrate to a new strange way of life, of course it is hard to give up everything that they know. This whole issue is a non-issue bought about by a desperate Herr Harper to distract Canadians from his abysmal record of lies, corruption and economic failure and gunboat diplomacy most of these women will not ever have a drivers licence but if they do it will have thier picture on it just like you and me but it will be done discreetly with respect for their beliefs, they are not getting away with anything and this is just Muslim religion baiting by a course and corrupt dictator in a feeble attempt to cling to power at any cost. This is really the ultimate hypocrisy when on the one hand Herr Harper further oppresses and spreads hate and misogymy against already brutally oppressed and marginalized Muslim women for the way they dress and on the other hand befriending and supporting one of the most brutal undemocratic theocracies in the world, a country that not only oppresses all women and pro-democracy champions but is easily one of the biggest supporters of terrorism in the world, supporting and financing the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS, fighting Yemen who is fighting Al Qaeda and wanting the destruction of Iran who is also fighting ISIS, and of coarse the destruction of Israel, not to mention reportedly financing 9/11 and the home of 15 of the 19 9/11 terrorists, a country that regulatory beheads men, women, cuts of limbs, stones people to death, kills people with a thousand lashes and crucifies people then hangs different parts around the town, an apt description of cruel and unusual punishment if I ever heard, a truly brutal theocratic Monarchy guilty of horrific crimes, and Herr Harper sells them military equipment to further brutalize it’s population and neighbours. Once again Harper demonstrats his ignorance about what Canada and Canadians are all about, you don’t take away someones lawful rights and freedoms to prove how much you cherish freedom. The hypocrisy defies logic.

Dumb and Dumber

Watching this government is like a bad B movie about Moe, Larry and Curly’s evil twin brothers meets Dumb and Dumber, first you have extremly highly paid top civil service employees ( Canadians can not know how highly paid, it is apparently top secret) that (A) can’t be bothered or are to incompetant to read a critically important E-mail about a $90,000 dollar illegal bribe involving a PM his secretary and a Senator or (B) they are liars and perjurers, or both. Canada has a Prime Minister that is (A) totally incompetent and has no control over his caucus, Senate appointees or his most trusted confidants or underlings or (B) he is a liar and can’t even reprimand these incompetent, corrupt employees, and in fact instead of reprimands, demotions, or firings, gives them raises and promotions for their lying, perjury and incompetence and or both. It would appear they have something on Harper such as the ability to place Harper at the top of this criminal conspiracy. Then we have a defence Minister that want’s to be kept in the dark about the people that his planes are killing, for the obvious reason I suppose to give himself plausible deniability when Canadians find out what he is doing in our names, and last but not least apparently neither Canada’s Prime Minister or our Finance Minister know the definition of a recession in 2008 it took Harper weeks to acknowledge the 2008 recession and exposed many middle class Canadians to financial ruin with their investments by that failure of leadership, but somehow the rich chosen few who were somehow warned before the shit hit the fan came out with profits of over $70 billion dollars, and now these economic geniuses have even gone to the unbelievable extent to come up with a new definition for recession to cover their economic asses, how are Canadians and businesses supposed to make rational informed financial decisions when our own government insists on lying to us? Probably the saddest part of this political nightmare is that 30 percent of Canadians have so little respect for Canada and Canadians that this extreme level of corruption and incompetence is perfectly acceptable to them.

Train Wreck

There is and old saying "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt". I guess the same thing could be said about "being a criminal” and it is likely that this is the reason Herr Harper has told all his delegates to avoid political election debates, he realizes that not many of them will be as accomplished a liar as he is, and some of them might actually have a few morals or heaven forbid a conscience and spill the beans or the dirt as it were. Nothing says it like Jim Flaherty’s face when Herr Harper had his infamous "I did not have sex with that woman” moment and Jim Flaherty’s head literally exploded, some pictures literally do say a thousand words and Herr Harpers denial of his knowledge and involvement of the Duffy bribe furnished a picture that will haunt Herr Harper till the end of time. Realistically what can any Conservative say in a debate that isn’t a lie or something that will get him thrown under a bus, and it doesn’t matter really what the question is about the economy, transparency, corruption, bad decisions on everything from Senate appointments to environmental stewardship, to murdered women, to secret deals with foreign governments and corporations, how about Canada’s very sovereignty or C-51 and privacy rights or the lost $3.1 billion dollars etc etc, it doesn’t matter where the debate takes you they have to either play the fool or lie, using the Crime Ministers own words, not a good premise to bring to a debate, if there is a silver lining to this train wreck of a government I can not see it and I can only wonder what in Herr Harper’s desperation will he do to cling to power.

Ultimate Incompetence

I wonder how one goes about losing $3.1 billion dollars, that can’t be easy, as that is a stack of $1000 dollar bills 1110 ft high. In fact you just can’t lose that much money, the truth is obviously that what the Harper government of Canada really spent that $3.1 billion dollars on would get every Canadian out in the streets, obviously this money was spent on something so heinous that Harper would rather Canadian's just believe they were just careless or are bad money managers ( theres certainly enough evidence of that already) than have you know the true destination of this massive missing amount of your tax dollars. We can at this time only guess where this money ended up perhaps in someones offshore tax free numbered account, or how about the CONservative re-election war chest, or a new highly advanced domestic spy system that monitors every Canadian every minute of every day, or maybe Harper bought some new state of the art stealth aircraft carrier and he doesn’t want anyone to know we have it, or maybe it was spent spying on our allies for some corporation, or to finance some foreign war that the Canadian people don’t support, knowing this crowd it could be something so bizarre that normal Canadians could not even comprehend it. Possibly this is the one illusive issue that would finally infuriate Canadians enough to get them off their couches and finally rid Canada of this fraudulently elected, illegitimate dictatorship, a government with so many ongoing and past corruptions that with a true democracy we would have seen these quislings turfed long ago, and more than a few actually put behind bars. One thing is for sure that money is not lost, it has just been misappropriated by a less than honest government and the Canadian people have a right to know who took it and why, and if it is illegal as I am sure it is most of the government should be put in jail because I believe that it is more than just a few of the CONS who know the whereabouts of these stolen Canadian tax dollars, or are the rest of the CONS content to just shrug their shoulders and write off the $3.1 billion as an accounting error.

Drug fiasco

November 16, 2015 Honourable Minister of Health Jane Philpot Dear Jane Philpot First of all congratulations on your new position, the health of the nation is a great responsibility and as much as I love the idea of having Ministers that actually know about their particular portfolio I also recognize that yours will be particularly trying as a doctor. You shall have to wear many other hat’s such as all the other disciplines that make up the Canadian heath care system, not only that .other cross you shall have to bear is the one that generates my grievance. You shall have to find a balance between the interests of big Pharma and the generic and un-patentable drug industries. I know as a doctor that the pressure to cow-to to big Pharmaceuticals will be great but to serve the Canadian people you shall have to stand up for the Guaifenesen’s and other old, un-patentable, affective, cheaper drugs, less dangerous drugs that people like me have found by trial and error to control their various conditions over the years, that being said here is my problem, Guaifenesin a non-patentable medication from the 17th century, it is an expectorant and is in dozens of medical products such as cough medicines it dissolves mucus and phlegm and also Phosphoric acid and Uric acid and is also a muscle relaxer. It is now for some inexplicable reason unavailable in Canada, probably because I suspect it is un-patentable medication. The Conservatives did this in the last month or so during the election. I tried to buy some Sept 17 2015 and the order actually went through to a Canadian company Fludan Fine Chemicals and I was waiting for the shipment and then I phoned and was told that they are not allowed to ship to Canada, I tried Amazon and was told the same thing. It has been suggested it might be about safety of the product, bad call, this product has not only been around for 4 centuries but in the book that tells you about all the drugs and their side affects, it says “absolutely no known side affects” I think in 4 hundred years they would have noticed any bad side affects that is sure something you can’t say about most other drugs. I guess the next criticism would be it doesn’t work. Well it is in dozens of other medicines and I have documented what it has done for me over the last 17 years. I have Fibromyalgia and have successfully used this drug and also tried to come off Guaifenesin at one point because it went up in cost 500 percent and I had to go back on it because all my symptoms started to come back in a big way. Once I got rid of the symptoms again I went on a maintenance dose and have been on it for years, My Doctor has documented all my success I have had with this medication and I have written a book about it. I want to find out what legislation or sweetheart deal was made to make this happen, and who the individuals who profited from this. Obviously a deal has been made with the big pharmaceutical companies to get rid of these low cost un-patentable drugs to force people to buy their expensive ineffective drugs with a dozen serious side affects. This is a perfect example of what free trade looks like to the Conservatives. I can’t even get a crucial drug that I quite simply can not go without, I have been without it now for 7 weeks and already I have aching in my fingers, forearms, shoulders, feet, calves, knees and lower back and the head aches are starting, it will also affect my eyes and hearing. In other words the Phosphoric acid is starting to build up in my tissue again, if left long enough I will literally turn into what I once was again, stone, or to be more correct Phosphoric acid. When I started on Guaifenesin once I got to the proper loading which for me was 2400 Mg a day I lost 23 lb. of Phosphoric acid in 6 weeks. It burned every time I went to the bathroom, this 23 lb was mostly surface deposits, it took a lot longer to get the acid right in the muscle tissue which I broke up with IMS and flushed with Guaifenesin and lot’s of water. This is not just my problem, as I believe many un-patentable drugs have suffered the same fate. I talked to a Naturopath and apparently a lot of the drugs they use are no longer available because no one will pay the millions of dollars to do the testing on these un-patentable mostly older medications. At 55 years old, I went to a Rheumatologist and he told me to just keep doing what you are doing because considering how you were in 1991 you should be in a wheelchair by now, and now one of the most important reasons for my success is no longer available to me. This is so wrong, and must be rectified as soon as possible, as I quite simply shall not go back to the time I should have been in a wheelchair before I found all the medications to let me control my condition. I have literally fought my whole life to find the proper medications and other things that allow me to live an almost normal life. I don’t believe at this time there is a cure for Fibromyalgia. but it definitely can be controlled as I am 73 years old and in the last 3 years I have jumped out of an aeroplane, done paintball, kayaked, swim, well you get the idea, not bad for someone who was supposed to be in a wheelchair in 1996. If this sounds like a cry for help it probably is because it is and I can honestly say a matter of life and death, I quite simply can not go back to the way I was before I found Guaifenesin. Sincerely yours, Wayne R. Clark

Moment of Clarity

May 3/2015

Just when you think you have seen and heard it all something you can’t even imagine, the people of Alberta have had a moment of clarity, an epiphany you might say, and as a result the NDP would appear to have a chance at forming the next government in Texas North (Alberta). 
Hell might freeze over, but there it is, after all the trickle down right-wing bullshit a little light at the end of the tunnel. 
Typically when the People of Alberta get disgusted enough with their dismal right wing governments their usual answer is to just move further to the right, if that is even possible, maybe someone finally realized that Quote “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” ― Albert Einstein“ might just be true. 

It has been quite an long and costly 80 year experiment, since 1935 the right has been using and abusing the province and people of Alberta, are they really now open to try something else?

It might help to compare Alberta and Norway which have comparable populations and oil production, Alberta started it’s Heritage fund 15 years before Norway and has produced 18 percent more conventional crude and natural gas than Norway not even counting bitumen and Alberta has 17.2 billion in it’s Heritage fund while Norway has a cool trillion to show for it’s exported non-renewable resources, so even if oil were to cease being a cash cow tomorrow the people of Norway will have a huge cash cushion to ride out the fall, unlike Alberta which even when oil prices are up consistently runs a deficit, and any hiccup in oil prices brings the province into survival mode. 

The obvious difference between the two countries is that in Canada the one percent get the money from our non-renewable resources and Canadians get to clean up the mess and live with the pollution and resulting health problems, but in Norway the Norwegian people get the money for their resources, maybe it is time for Albertans to take an alternative proven path instead of the failed economic model they have been following for 80 years and have something substantial to show for future resource extraction, unlike the 24 billion barrels of oil that has already been extracted from Alberta with not a whole lot to show for it except for pollution.

It is time for the people of Alberta and Canada to take a leap of reason and do the rational thing.

The truth is there is probably lot’s of oil left as it would appear that peak demand for oil has already occurred and as alternative energies take off and get cheaper by the day demand will shrink even more until oil will just be used for products that there is no replacement and there doesn’t seem to be many of those items.

PS May 6/2015 the voters of Alberta did the rational thing and voted for change which means the first NDP government, it is going to be interesting to see how this works out, you can bet the Federal CONS and the one percent will undoubtedly try to make this change of direction fail, keep tuned in it is going to be interesting.

Paper Tiger

Talk about shameless exploitation in a feeble attempt to cling to power, Steven Harper is a paper tiger using fear and exaggeration and gratuitous rhetoric against a paper dragon (ISIS) to make Canadians afraid. Be very afraid he says, I am the only one that can save you from ISIS. 
First of all ISIS is 20,000 religious fanatics, the Arab nations armies surrounding so called ISIS outnumber them 250 to 1, Jordan 180,000 troops, Egypt 1.4 million, Iraq 800,000, Turkey 991,000, Saudi Arabia 250,000, Kurds 250,000, Lebanon 280,000, Syria 600,000, and even if you don’t count Iran's 913,000 armed forces a grand total of 4,751,000 troops which in my view makes it in fact a paper war, in other words it sounds like a severe mismatch to me, not to mention a regional problem that even America is reluctant to get into. 

Now you are going to tell me what horrible despicable people they are, yes they chop off heads, cut off hands and feet, stone people to death, crucify people putting the various parts on display around town, whip them to death with a 1000 lashes, in my opinion a fitting description of cruel and unusual punishment, but wait I am not talking about ISIS, although they are just as barbaric, I am talking about Saudi Arabia and they are supposedly our allies and Canada sells them armaments, and they hate everything we stand for, freedom, democracy and most of the most severely punished victims are guilty of promoting democracy or women. 
How is it any different when our supposed allies do these barbaric atrocities, but when some other faction does it it is unacceptable.

This is a sectarian war and Canada has no business being involved, as the numbers show this is a local problem that can easily be solved by the local affected nations armies. ISIS is no threat to Canadians other than the fact that Harpers ridiculous posturing has made Canada a target, even so you have a better chance of being killed by lightning than being killed by a terrorist and the only threat to that statistic is Steven Harper as he changes Canada from being a peace keeping nation into just one more warmongering puppet.

Hero

I went to see American Sniper and I have to say I have not been so shaken by a movie ever. I am not sure what Mr. Eastwood wanted us to take home from this movie but as a Canadian I certainly did not find it to be a pro-war movie, on the contrary the supposed hero might have been a legend in the core but he did not come off as a hero to me. There were many savages, was much bravery, courage, wanton violence, basically all the elements of war, the bravest act in the whole movie were done by a woman and a child fighting for their home.
I hate how the language has changed so a man fighting for his home is the insurgent and the only crime you have to be guilty of to deserve killing, is being in the wrong country at the wrong time in your own home. Mr. Kyle is obviously a brave uniquely skilled warrior and obviously a legend but I don't think that someone well protected and 2100 yards from the field of conflict is a hero anymore than a drone operator is a hero unless carpel tunnel syndrome is considered a life threatening injury, these remote assassins regularly kill the innocent as well as soldiers on the opposing side, there probably is not a whole lot you can do about that fact, as is is the fact of death by friendly fire in modern warfare. It was just as sad to see the damage done to the soldiers including Mr. Kyle that even managed to come back alive from the cluster fuck that was Iraq.
Watching the stupidity that is war, the one thing that kept running through my head through the whole  spectacle was that the whole horrible waste of lives and resources was based on deliberate lies and would never have happened in a just rational world. The fools that gave us the Iraq war should all be in prison as the war criminals that they are.

Modern Luddite

Any Suggestions: The News Friday Dec 5/2014

I have a suggestion Cherryl maybe you could give us your expert opinion on the hundreds if not thousands of other chemicals and other deadly toxins released in the burning and recovery of fossil fuels, maybe you could enlighten us of the benign inconsequential global affects of say Sulfur Dioxide which just one supertanker produces 5000 tons a year, and 16 super tankers produce more pollution than all the cars in the world and acidify our oceans, create acid rain, pollute our fresh water supplies and the very air we breath, not to mention damage our and our childrens health. Maybe you could give us your expert opinion about some of the other deadly byproducts of the fossil fuel industry such as Benzene, Nitrogen Oxides, Pet Coke, Formaldehyde, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH), Mercury, Silica, Radon, Hydrofluoric acid(HF) Hydrogen Fluoride, to name a few of the more deadly ones. You continue to deny or trivialize the deadly affects this old fossil fuel technology dumps on the earth every minute of every day as though there is no other options, with flippant comments like going back to pre-industrial times. 

The simple irrefutable truth is that 97 percent of actual climate scientists agree that climate warming trends over the last century are very likely due to human activity but you chose to ignore the obvious and chose to not take the only sensible path out of this clear and present danger to life on this fragile planet.

I read your letters and it is quite clear the only degrees you have are in trickle down economics 101 and a masters degree in ultra right-wing double speak, thanks but I think I will trust and listen to the 97 percent instead of a modern Luddite.

Like Daniel Patrick Moynihan says Cherryl "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts”.

Fuzzy Logic

We have all seen the veiled Conservative governments latest attempt at using our tax dollars to make their political rivals look bad with their REEFER MADNESS advertisement which claims that Marijuana is 300 to 400 times more powerful than it was 30 years ago which is possibly true. 

Did you know that the prohibition moonshine alcohol (everclear) that was made in the days of alcohol prohibition was anywhere from 160-200 proof and contained any number of toxic metals and chemicals, lead, and methanol for example and killed thousands of people all through prohibition until the government finally legalized, taxed and regulated alcohol once again and once more made it safer for consumption. For one thing it is cut 4 or 5 times down to the normal 40 proof you buy in the liquor store only after you show your ID. 

To any reasonable rational person the fact that marijuana is 300-400 times stronger than it was 30 years ago is even more reason for this product to be legalized and regulated for it’s purity was well as strength and just as important keeping it out of the hands of children, as any fool knows pot is easier for children to get than alcohol or tobacco, as would be expected with any regulated product such as alcohol or tobacco.

I don’t expect Neanderthals like the Conservative to ever get it, but the fact is 71 percent of Canadians want to either decriminalize or legalize marijuana such as is happening right now in America the birthplace of the tragic, costly, failed war on drugs. In BC the figures are even more prominent, 54 percent are for the full legalization and regulation of pot.

Canada Lost

Is nothing sacred to these soulless carpetbaggers and their political shills Harper and his gaggle of mindless doppelgangers. 
It is clear that there is absolutly no respect for the laws of Canada, including electoral, parliamentary, environmental, human right’s and freedoms, property rights, Supreme court, Canada’s constitution, Charter of rights and freedom and the rights and freedoms that document is supposed to ensure and last but not least democracy. According to Harpers ideology the environment is nothing more than something to use and abuse, the animals both commercial and non-commercial species are acceptable collateral damage and lets not forget Canadian workers. Canada’s parks are just in the way and are to be treated the same as all the rest of the environment and resources are to be exploited and polluted or destroyed as needed. The traditional jobs that composes most of Canada”s real economy such as fishing, forestry, tourism etc, etc are subservient to non-value added non-renueable resource extraction destined for other countries for pennies on the dollar. 

These quisling have even gone as far as giving away Canada’s sovereignty for 31 years to a brutal Communist dictatorship, and the Kocks. Because Canadians have rejected this total sellout they have resorted to doing an end run around all our laws by signing FIPA which gives China the ability to sue any jurisdiction for billions of dollars, such as Vancouver, Burnaby or Maple Ridge or anyone that get’s in the way of forcing whatever evil they decide to do no matter the cost to the environment or any of it’s creatures, commercial or non-commercial, and the jobs those resources provide.

Canada’s people are expected to accept poisoned water, loss of habitat, health of Canada’s people and the whole of the west coastal waters are all considered an acceptable price to pay for profits to the one percent. 

This government ceased working for the Canadian people and it’s best interests long ago and is in effect a radical, illegitimate government by their proven many electoral frauds. 

The system and the Crown has failed the Canadian people as the Governor General should have called an election years ago when Harper was charged with contempt of Parliment and the ongoing contempt he shows it every day since, since then multiple convictions of electoral fraud and the many other corruptions this government has perpetrated on Canada's laws, people, and Constitution, and as such these traitors are a clear and present danger to Canada and it’s people.

Divine Right

It would appear good King Harper has invoked the Divine right of Kings and once again put himself above the laws of Canada. He claims he can’t be called to testify at Mike Duffy’s trial because he has answered all those questions already in the House of Commons, you know that branch of government that lying is the rule, not the exception, in fact according to various Conservatives it is something they all do every day, it is such a common practice that it not even called lying, it is just misspeaking or embellishment.

The first thing Harper and every other MP, Governor General etc etc did when they took office was swear the Oath of Allegiance which is an oath that represents egalitarian governance and the rule of Canada’s laws, it signifies that here in Canada justice is done not in the name of the PM or the Mayor, or the police chief as in totalitarian nations but by the people, in other words a democracy. These are meant to be positions of public trust and power therefor elected individuals are expected to act patriotically and in the best interests of the country and it’s people, it is a solemn oath to adhere to the symbolic keystone of the Canadian Constitution, Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the laws of the land and national life. 

The court system Mr. Harper is a lot different in as if they can prove you lied or committed a crime they can put you in jail, you don’t just agree to disagree and carry on as usual as is Harpers usual stand. Which is obviously why Harper in particular wants to stay away from that troublesome reality.   

The Oath of Allegiance besides all that democracy ideal, is for the most part an Oath of fealty to the Crown and the supremacy of the reining Monarch and that is who Harper is working for the Crown. 
If it was otherwise the Governor General would have shut Harper down long ago due to Harpers long list illegal actions, contempt, his obvious disrespect for every Canadian institution from Parliament, electoral laws, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Senate, free press, Supreme court and it’s judges, environment, the and last but not least Canadian people and their democracy.

The deafening silence from the monarchies Canadian representative the Governor General tells me that Harper is doing exactly what the Crown wants , which is turning Canada into nothing more than another resource poor dictatorship for the pleasure of the one percent, of which as always the Monarchy is a prominent member first and foremost. 

Ironically this sad situation is no different than if the Kock brothers were the absolute rulers of America, the only difference is an accident of birth. 

SCREWED

Dog owners lose, dogs lose, democracy loses, due process loses, we never had a chance, they never intended to give the off leash dog park users any input into the process at all, as Al Hogarth would say the "fix was in”. It was supposed to be a slam dunk and the only glitch was MR council recognizing the total lack of democracy and due process and kicking it back to the Parks and recreation, in affect giving us a two day reprieve from June tenth to the twelfth, the next Parks and recreation meeting where the users were supposed to get to finally tell the users side of this issue, the schedule appeared to give us the opportunity to speak to the issue but when it came to the meeting the parks commission voted on the issue before the dog park users were allowed to speak, history sadly repeating itself. We heard Al Hogarth and others tell the heart wrenching story of the horror and stress of living beside an off leash dog park, stories of unsubstantiated complaints of noise, easily fixed problems of dust, lies about bio-hazard a strain of e-coli allegedly taken in the adjacent school yard, only one problem the e-coli comes from cattle, sheep and goats definitely not dogs, if in fact this is true it is undoubtedly coming from the farm on the North side of the playground and the dog park was originally farm land. The Parks board just took all this BS and without substantiating these claims they swallowed these sad anguished tales hook line and sinker. In the 5-8 months this small group secretly lobbied the commission I guess it never occurred to the parks board to actually do some decibel testing or put a hedge where there was an actual sound problem or change the park hours or how about put in some turf to stop the dust problem, I suppose for some unknown reason they just accepted all these lies and exaggerations as fact. One of the main reasons Hogarth, Morden used to shut the park down was the danger of violence and the safety of the dogs, I would have to ask Al Hogarth and Michael Morden if that is the case why they didn’t get the RCMP who apparently were never tasked to find the monster that has been poisoning and trying to maim our dogs ongoing for over a year, and I have been informed that the SPCA was never contacted about these crimes, I guess they weren’t all that worried after all. Then after all that they for some unknown reason chose to totally disregard the parks and recreation staff recomendations about the park. I guess they forgot to ask Sam the main spokes person for the 27 name secret petition how long he has lived in that home as the dog park was there when he bought the house and would totally make their argument about doing it right and to not make the same mistakes the next time, and make sure all the home owners adjacent to the next location for a dog park are happy with the decision a joke at best. 

In the end it was a done deal conducted in secret with the secret 27 with only one side of the issue of the park considered, users only finding out about the closure after the deed was done the 1300 names on a petition a waste of time and of of absolutly no consequence to these dictators, absolutely no democracy, no due process of any kind. 

You may have won the battle but it is very likely Al Hogarth and Michael Morden could lose the war, I know that there are 27 people that are very happy that your heavy-handed undemocratic un-inclusive good old boy political style got  them what they wanted, but even they might have second thoughts after seeing first hand how you operate when it comes to things that do not affect them personally, and make no mistake this is how these people operate doing all Maple Ridges business and I know 1300 people that will not be giving them another mandate and probably 10,000 other dog owners that have had a severe reality check watching this travesty unfold.

 

P.S. It would seem that Pitt Meadows has a few like minded politicians who are quite comfortable with a total lack of democracy or due process also, but that is for the most part Pitt Meadows voters responsibility to fix.

Animal Cruelty Laws

It seems every time I pick up a paper, turn on TV, go on the internet there it is again a horror story about animal cruelty, man shoot’s and stabs and ultimatly slaughters a hundred Husky’s, man beats ex police dog to death, 6 men duct-tape a foxes jaws shut and make sport of kicking him to death, 8 men fired from dairy farm in Chilliwack for beating probably natures most docile creature cows with chains and boards, or how about because of a total failure of our government and the existing animal cruelty laws to provide even minimal safety in a public dog park and then government uses this personal failure as an excuse for closing down an off leash dog park, all because of Canada's laws inability to catch and prosecute a serial dog poisoner that places poisons, glass, tacks, fishhooks around park in an attempt to maim and kill dogs and this outrage goes on continuously unabated for over a whole year. 

Probably when most people see these atrocitys they think what the hell is wrong with these people and secondly they think why doesn’t someone do something about it. You might well blame the police or the SPCA or if they are by chance caught Judges, but actually none of these people can do a whole lot about this situation because Judges don’t make laws they just enforce the laws that politicians make and the fact is animal cruelty laws are a misdemeanour and that in itself pretty well insures any penalty will be minimal to non-existent, we are talking 6 months in jail and $300 dollar fines which rarely ever happens. 

The real problem is that these laws were brought enacted in 1892 and were never intended to be laws to prevent cruelty to animals that was a different time when you could be shooting bears, wolves, wild dogs in your back yard they were laws to protect commercially viable species such as cattle, horses and you would likely be hanged if you stole or killed someone else’s livestock, they would have probably thought you were crazy if you actually thought people should protect dogs for instance, they were animals that lived outside and killed rat’s and guarded the livestock for their keep, they weren’t seen as family pets as now, anyway this is only a part of the problem.  

Any law no matter how good or up to date a law is it is open to interpretation and more importantly affected by past precedents, no law says "if this crime happens this shall happen", it says or this, or this, etc etc depending on past precedents, and in this case you have 122 years of past precedents, particularly when that law didn’t even have the same intent as what we want it to mean in this day and age. 

In other words these animal cruelty laws are nothing more than unenforceable misdemeanours at best and possibly the worst assembly of words to ever sully a Canadian law book at worst, at least looking at it 122 years after the fact. Over the years they have tried to tweak these laws but have only managed to make them even more bizarre, here’s a beauty the criminal code penalty for uttering a threat to kill poison, or injure an animal or bird comes with maximum imprisonment of 24 months as opposed to 6 months for actually killing the animal.

The government has to first extinguish this archaic relic from the past and all it’s precedents along with the many loopholes that guarantee any lawyer could ensure no one is ever convicted under this law, and come up with a new humane law more in tune with the realties of today’s society and it’s attitudes about animals and in particular the humaine treatment of animals, and this new modern law shall make animal cruelty a felony that gives the police the power to apprehend these monsters and gives judges the tools to punish and fine the perpetrators of these atrocity's appropriately putting the worst offenders behind bars or mental institutions whatever the case may be.

Travesty Averted

I would like to thank all MR council for righting a wrong to the users of Volker dog park and postponing the shutdown before options can be explored, with the obvious exception of Al Hogarth and Michael Morden who acted like a couple of spoiled brats because they didn’t get their way. After the May 27 Th. Council meeting it is quite easy to see how situations like this particular fiasco transpire with Mr Hogarth’s apparent contempt for democracy and due process and of course the help of his hand puppet sidekick Michael Morden.

The one lesson we should all learn from this distressing exercise is to not give in to bullies or psychos no matter whether they are sitting across from you at a council meeting or throwing rocks through your windows or egging your house or even trying to kill or maim your furry family members. 

The users of dog parks should not have to do walk arounds looking for poison kibble, glass, tacks, fish hooks and have to change the water in the dish and then worry and hope to god you did not miss anything, every time you go to the park.

Now to ensure this is not a hollow victory we need to change the laws and put some teeth in the animal cruelty laws and make the poisoning and maiming and other cruelty done to animals a felony and put a few of these monsters in jail as a warning to others that commit these heinous acts with impunity and even if they get caught it is a misdemeanour, no big deal, no real consequences, this is after all not a victimless crime. 

Terrorism Rewarded

May 15/ 2014 I went to a hearing if you could honestly call it that, in reality it was a sham at best an insult at worst, over 1300 signature were collected in under 3 weeks and the petition was presented to the Parks board and a couple of speakers presented a compelling case for the users of the dog park to be involved in this important decision.  
The meeting took place at MR City Hall about the iminent Volker dog park closure and was the result of a huge public backlash because all the people that use this important facility were undemocratically left out of the process of the ultimate fate of the dog park, and consequtently the media was inundated by angry letters of outrage over the lack of proper procedure for taking such a drastic arbitrary action as closing the dog park without proper consultation. 
The truth is none of the issues used to justify the closure are valid the noise problem does not exist and strategically placed hedges would cut that down even more, the dust problem is totally fixable by the installation of a heavy duty playground turf, the hours the park is open can be adjusted to please everyone, and the bio hazard is non existent the e-coli allegedly found are found only on cattle, sheep, and goats not dogs, but apparently none of these issues was really the reason the dog park is being shut down, we heard from Al Hogarth that he voted to shut the park down because he was afraid of the threat of violence and for fear of the dogs safety and another couple members said that was their main concern also, isn’t that sweet. 

This is a failure of council as they should have told RCMP to make sure this facility was safe and the only way to do that was instruct RCMP to catch this monster, but that never happened. Not only that but all the complaints should have been addressed to the satisfaction of all, except of course the few individuals that are beyond pleasing. 


I want to thank the few members of the council that did not take the cowards way out to protect our furry family members and at least tried to do the right thing.

Over a year ago my dog was poisoned at Volker dog park and nearly died, along with two other dogs that also thankfully recovered from the poisoning. I don’t know how many dogs were cut or maimed by the glass and tacks and fish hooks strewn around the park with the poisoned Kibble but when I phoned the RCMP about the poisoning I told the officer I might not take my dog back to Volker dog park and he said to me “so you are going to let him win” I thought about it and said NO, we talked about putting infrared cameras in the trees and what else could be done to catch this monster, so every time I went back to the park I would empty the water dish put clean water in the dishes and do a walk around looking for glass, poisoned kibble or old balls and anything else suspicious, basically doing everything I could do to reducing the risk to my beloved furry friend, all the time assuming the RCMP were taking steps to catch this monster.

I have to wonder what kind of world we are now living in where a few bullies and psychopaths can force change on all the rest of us. Since when has any level of government not only succumbed to the violence and terror of a terrorist but also rewarded them for their terrorist acts. 
Ask yourself what would happen if this monster had been targeting the children in the adjacent school ground, perhaps leaving poisoned candies or shooting at them, would they have shut down the school or playground, I don’t think so, they would have made it a top priority to catch the criminal and he would have either stopped his violent terrorist acts or been caught, but in this case the criminal still to this very day continues his terrorist acts with impunity, but it is just dogs right. The RCMP obviously never told put in the cameras and consequencialy never pursued and brought to justice this monster, all because the powers that be never told the RCMP to get this guy yesterday, whatever it takes. 

This monster should have been targeted, caught and made an example of, as what he did is not only against the law, but a cowardly crime against total innocents that cannot protect themselves against monsters such as these.

This whole issue is about “NOT IN MY BACK YARD" and I have news for these people the Volker dog park is not their back yard it belongs to the people of Maple Ridge.

Star Chamber

It would seem something is rotten in Maple Ridge, after witnessing the farce that passes for due process in the Parks and Recreations board meeting of May 15/2014 in Maple Ridge council chambers as pertains to the parks boards arbitrary decision to shut down Volker dog park in a Star Chamber like decision with only one side of the issue represented, that was done literally in secret with the users of the park only finding out about the dog park closure after the decision was already made, especially in light of the fact that that decision is contrary to the explicit recommendations of the original Parks Board staffs recommendation. 

If this is the way this council and it’s various departments function it is no wonder they get so upset when someone like Corisa Bell dares to raises questions about pending issues. I can only guess how many other municipal issues have been handled in this partizan, undemocratic, one sided, dictatorial manner. 

Here is something I find nearly impossible to understand, it was almost a year ago my dog was poisoned at Volker dog park and the glass, tacks, fish hooks and poison have continued constantly right up to this day, here is the question the RCMP have been involved from day one, I know because I talked to them about it and we talked about how to catch this monster but as far as I know the infrared cameras were obviously never installed as the criminal has never been unmasked, is it really possible that the RCMP can not find the guilty party in an ongoing crime after a whole year of investigation surely even Elmer Fudd could have caught this monster by now in a crime being committed in the very same location in the open for over a year, how is that possible, have the RCMP even been told to investigate these heinous crimes against dogs and and their families or have they been told to stand down because they already know who is committing these crimes and they are being protected by someone. 

Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done, and in this case we certainly have not lived up to that ideal. 

It would seem that Maple Ridge Parks and Recreation board and Council is following Victoria’s and Ottawa's lead and doing the peoples business in dark secret rooms with vested interests.

See no Evil Hear no Evil

Randy Kamp Conservative MP extraordinare, a man and government with a finger on the pulse of the nation, sensitive to the wants and needs of Canadians of every creed, colour and economic demographic. Quote Randy Kamp “ We don’t see a lot of opposition” unquote, seriously, Mr Kamp is talking about the seriously misnamed "Fair Election Act” C-23 which short of blood running in the streets of Canada has had nothing but condemnation from every faction of Canada, Constitutional scholars, political scientists, past chief electoral officer Jean Pierre Kinsley, present chief electoral officer Mark Mayrand and past Auditor General Sheila Fraser has called the bill “an attack on democracy", and private citizens all over Canada have been hitting the streets of nearly every town and city of Canada including a demonstration that Mr.Kamp failed to notice as he will probably fail to notice another protest on C-23 on May 10 at 1:00 PM in front of his office, and miracle of miracles even Herr Harpers rubber stamp Senate have given the thumbs down to this undemocratic unconstitutional attempt to disenfranchise certain voting groups in a desperate attempt to hold onto power, even his mentor Preston Manning had unkind words about it. This attempt to Americanize Canadian voter suppression has even got the attention of international democracy watch groups but Mr. Kamp apparently hasn’t seen a lot of opposition.
Possibly the worst part other than the obvious attempt of voter suppression and total lack of respect to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the fact that it does absolutely nothing for the actual flaws in Canada’s voting system but are not seen as flaws by a government more interested in stealing the next election than improving Canada’s democracy. Instead of increasing the amount of money spent on elections mostly 2nd and 3rd party money this should be eliminated or at least cut down drastically not increased or how about a proportional voting system and maybe a box for “none of the above” for people that want a protest vote and no excuse for not voting. 
Love him or hate him at least Pierre Trudeau left Canada a more democratic country than when he was first elected.

These are just a few of the changes we need in Canada’s democracy, but these are important issues for Canadians that need to be debated by Canadians according to their merits for the betterment of our democracy and Canada not to be dictated by some dictator for his own benefit and self interest.
As far as Randy Kamp Mr. hear no evil, see no evil, I can’t honestly say, say no evil, all-told this is not a good virtue when you are the perpetrators of that evil.