Daily Musings - Jan 29th

Hey -- did you hear about the new Quebec Charter?  

A replacement for the despised "charter of values"  -- this was supposed to be a satirical piece but I think that the fact that (all these religious symbols are worn above the waist) we all wear the same pants is a good point.  

"Described as the 'perfect charter,' Bourassa says that, "by wearing the same pants, we are saying that from the waist down Quebecers are united, but from the waist up we are all unique and can celebrate our individually anyway we like." 
He went on to state that, "there is absolutely nothing controversial about pants."

And it is amusing, (if perhaps a little stereotyped in the French accent department) listen here: 

 http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/This+Is+That/ID/2408342828/  

My childhood was pretty happy and un-eventful: parents stayed together, we had a family vacation (by car every summer) no one got really sick or died.  My father did break a leg, both his arms and smashed his heel in a fall at work.  I remember it,  but not as traumatic.  Parents were pretty stoic Scots (I was born there, but of Irish descent on both sides)  - so nothing much caused big drama.  We were allowed to be intellectually challenging - political discussion was not out of bounds - but not angry or upset. We cried a lot, though -- something about the Irish -- I remember all of us, even my father, shedding a tear without shame at "Not a love story"  and how we laughed at ourselves.  But all that is just a lead in to this:

My nuns were those in black habits with white wimples around the face and voluminous skirts and LARGE crucifixes. . . intimidating?  Guess so. . . 

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A note or two on the environment: 

This is American data, but, in case you thought that oil pipelines might be safer than rail - since we have had several big rail derailments with fire, death, destruction, evacuation etc. - check out this time lapse of oil spills, from pipelines, in the U.S. since 1986.  

This piece is a list of the crimes against the environment that the Harper Cons are guilty of. . . check it out -- it is a looooong list!  It includes the following categories and under each a long list of evidence: 

The charge: Promoting willful ignorance by eliminating advisory bodies and restricting data gathering.

The charge: Preventing knowledge from reaching the public by muzzling government scientists.

The charge: Systematically dismantling decades of environmental protection legislation.

The charge: Limiting scientists’ ability to provide perspective by reducing environmental research funding.

The charge: Undermining conservation and monitoring efforts by cutting funding, staff and programs.

The charge: Obstructing and threatening environmental education and advocacy efforts.

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On women:  Check out this Bollywood star, and her angrily giving it to journalists, who want to suggest that she was dissing India, in an American interview.  As she points out she was just describing the country's treatment of women. It is mixed Hindi and English but totally understandable!

And speaking of the position of women in society -- this is a great piece by the Guardian about childcare.  It is about the UK, but, of course,  we do not provide state funded  childcare in Canada.  Daycare as daycare (in a group with trained providers)  is un-affordable  for people making minimum wage or even a little better and yet we distribute income by work - essentially consigning mothers and even two parents and children to poverty.    And they wonder why we, in Canada, delay childbearing and have so few children -- because it is each individual that is supposed to be responsible for all the costs of raising children, staying housed and employed etc. and it is hard unless you have a living wage and then some.  The paragraph I love from the article above is this: 

I believe the work situation is substantially down to the way we talk about life in gender silos, where "children", "maternity leave", "pregnancy" and "families" are filed under "women", while "industrial relations", "tribunals", "contracts" and "workplace" go under "men". This has blinded us to the fact that many statutory entitlements can never be upheld. Maybe you have the wrong kind of job or the wrong kind of (zero hours) contract; some rights build up over time and you can't prove unbroken service if you've never had a proper contract. Even if you could, your position is too precarious to insist on the rights you do have; and if it all turns sour you can't take anybody to a tribunal because since last July you've had to pay to do so.

Good eh?  ______________________________________________________________________________

Couple more things about the Harper Cons before I go. . .  You should check out:    http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/omar-alghabra/muslims-sue-pmo_b_4682824.html  a story about Harper calling Muslims terrorists and their backlash. . .they are suing!   It says in part: 

A prominent Muslim Canadian advocacy group has decided that enough is enough and is suing the Prime Minister and his chief spokesperson.

Jason McDonald, Stephen Harper's Communication Director publicly accused the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) of having "documented links to a terrorist organization" with a straight face and without providing a shred of evidence.

His irresponsible smear was in response to a plea the organization made with the Prime Minister not to invite a controversial Rabbi to accompany him on his trip to Israel.

Instead of reacting maturely to the request, Mr. McDonald chose to level a nasty charge against the NCCM, accusing them of one the most egregious crimes a person or a group can be accused of.

Unfortunately, the journalist who reported the accusation didn't ask the spokesperson to provide evidence or wonder why, if there are "documented links," this organization has not been charged with anything.

And then there is this:

Judge Exposes Harper Government's "paternalistic, self serving, arbitrary" approach to First Nations

Which says in part: 

On January 17, 2014, Justice Patrick Smith of the Specific Claims Tribunal issued his decision in Aundeck Omni Kaning v. Canada, finding that Canada's unilateral, take-it-or-leave-it approach to the resolution of specific claims represents a blatant refusal to negotiate and undermines the Honour of the Crown in its dealings with First Nations . . . In his decision, Justice Smith observed Canada's position is: "frankly, paternalistic, self-serving, arbitrary and disrespectful of First Nations. It falls short of upholding the honour of the Crown, and its implied principle of "good faith" required in all negotiations Canada undertakes with First Nations. Such a position affords no room for the principles of reconciliation, accommodation and consultation that the Supreme Court, in many decisions, has described as being the foundation of Canada's relationship with First Nations. " 

Harper has a couple of other crimes on the books today. . . 

Info on one comes from NUPGE and says that the federal gov (Harper Cons)  is backing away from their promise to improve/update/clean up the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW)Program -- you will recall that a couple of corporations (Including banks) got caught abusing this program. . . and I can tell you they are not looking too hard in NS before they bring in TFWs!  Those workers are welcome here but they should be able to immigrate and have the same rights as other Canadian workers.  Instead, it appears to be just another strategy to reduce wages and increase profits. 

According to NUPGE, and as one example: 

A recent Globe and Mail article suggested measures to force companies to prove they've made an effort to hire or train Canadians before they can use the TFWP may be scrapped after lobbying from business groups. This comes less than a month after the federal government scrapped plans to prevent those convicted of human trafficking, sexual abuse or causing death to employees from participating in the TFWP.

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And one last piece on Harper. . . (daily I feel like there is a book to be written about our PM and fedgov. . . ) and this happened last year but just came to my attention (today) and I do pay attention so it must have passed quietly. 

Last year Harper set up a Venture Capital Action Plan- a comprehensive strategy for deploying 400 million "to help increase private sector investments to create jobs and economic growth. "

I heard about it because this week they appointed a new Chair of the Venture Capital Expert Panel - those who get to decide who gets the 400 million.  IN a country without daycare, without jobs, with too many children in poverty - they are giving 400 million to Venture Capital Firms?  That's where the money already is and the problem is they are sitting on capital without investing it and now the gov't thinks that they will solve that problem by giving them money?  I am aghast!

Links are here: 
http://actionplan.gc.ca/en/initiative/venture-capital-action-plan-0

http://www.capebretonpost.com/section/2014-01-28/article-3593171/Flaherty-names-Verschuren-chair-of-the-venture-capital-expert-panel/1

http://www.fin.gc.ca/n14/14-012-eng.asp

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And, of course, we cannot forget the Post Office!!! Click here for what you can do to help save the post office and home mail delivery! Save Canada Post!

And while thinking about mail delivery - this passed by my eyes on FB and felt compelled to share it as it is very funny. . . and really, although amusing, speaks to the difficulties of door to door delivery! 


And that's today's musings -- 

Daily Musings -- January 28th

 Pete Seeger died this morning.  I guess we should have expected it -- he was 94, but it still makes me sad -- he lived through almost the entire twentieth century -- born in 1919 he missed the great war -- and always seemed to be on the right side.  I wonder if overall he thought things got worse or better?  Rolling Stone piece with links to other articles about Pete Seeger, with pics etc. can be found here.  Certainly the 60's and 70's improved the lot of many people in the northern world,  especially through the civil rights movement, women's liberation and gay rights --  all successful to a certain extent.   Turns out that legislating rights doesn't mean that you live without     discrimination day to day. . . but hard to fault improvements in legislation!     True - economically things improved from the 1940's - 1970's for North American workers, but it has been all downhill from there.   In other parts of the world, severe poverty has been reduced from the 1970's, BUT 80% of the world still lives on $10 a day (US) or less so we are not really doing very well! Pete also worked on the environment and yet 5% of the world's population consumes 13 of its resources and makes nearly half the waste on the planet -- that 5% is unfortunately. . . us.   You can though hear Jian Gonmeshi's tribute to Pete Seeger from Q on CBC radio this morning, by clicking on the  link or by playing the audio clip at the top of the page.     _________________________________________________ What else?    Hmmm. .  . A written piece on cbc.ca is very interesting. . .   it talks about how federal cabinet Ministers are no longer "responsible" for their departments or the "screw-ups" in their departments and how this is a change.  In fact they say: 

Somewhere between the first Conservative election victory and the last election, the rules on ministerial responsibility changed without any fanfare or public discussion.

The 2007 guide for ministers, written by the PCO, explained ministerial responsibility this way: "Ministers are individually responsible to Parliament and the prime minister for their own actions and those of their department, including the actions of all officials under their management and direction, whether or not the Ministers had prior knowledge."

By 2011, there had been a shift in thinking.

"Ministerial accountability to Parliament does not mean that a minister is presumed to have knowledge of every matter that occurs within his or her department or portfolio, nor that the minister is necessarily required to accept blame for every matter," wrote PCO in an updated version of the pamphlet.

Well, that's a problem - and Nigel Wright and more fall under this -- just a stroke of a policy pen and parliamentary accountability is eroded. The article goes on to say: 

"Accountability means accepting responsibility (a) for the action, and (b) for the correction. PCO/PMO guidelines suggest only the latter responsibility."

Turnbull put an even sharper point on it than that.

While these guidelines are written down, they are just guidelines, she said. The idea of ministerial responsibility is a convention. It is an unwritten constitutional rule.

"It's easier to ignore an unwritten convention than it is to ignore a written part of the constitution," she pointed out.

"It becomes a test of what the government can get away with if they want to start playing with conventions. And that's a huge problem," she added.

"These guidelines do not gel with the rest of our system."

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CCPA has published a new study targeting the Harper government plan to allow income splitting.   There is a massive potential tax loss and it is entirely beneficial to the rich!  (Of course) it feels like once people get elected, they are lobbied only by the rich and powerful in any meaningful way and just forget about the rest of us . . . though of course in the case of the Cons, they are Harper's friends and his ideological allies. 

According to the report, about 86 per cent of all Canadian families would gain no benefit from the proposed tax loophole, while it would cost taxpayers as a whole almost $5 billion.  

This study examines the cost and the distributional impact of three income splitting scenarios: pension income splitting; income splitting for families with children under 18, as the Conservatives have pledged; and income splitting for all families. The study finds that the impact of income splitting in all scenarios is very unequal and the lost revenue for Canadian governments would be substantial. - See more at: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/income-splitting-canada#sthash.xTsEKqxE.dpuf

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I spend quite a bit of time mulling over why people behave the way they do politically.  Why don't they vote in their own self-interest?  Why don't they demand better? - why don't they pay attention to the people controlling much of their lives municipally, provincially and federally?  I have  this vague, sneaking suspicion that  people don't because too often things are difficult to understand and things have gone the way of corporations and the rich for so long that people just assume that "government" is there just to screw them.   

But among all my musings in this area, I had begun to think that the "left" always deals in greys -- that we have a sophisticated understanding of the world and often debate how to achieve something, like the greatest good for the greatest number, or, which policy will be better, or, should we vote for the NDP or are we just encouraging another neo-liberal party?  ANd the right deals in/promotes these eaqsy statements -- vote for us and reduce your taxes (but they don't tell you it is the rich who will pay less) - etc.     Anyway this article on Rabble started me thinking about that again.  It is about Harper on Israel,  but basically it is about communicating a message, and gives examples,  suggesting that people will vote for a clear message over muddle even if they do not like the clear message.  I am starting to think that there is something to that logic. 

Daily Musings Jan 27th

Went this morning to a rally at the Almon St., Postal facility in Halifax to support the launch of a "support our post office" demand home mail delivery demo. 

Photo Credit Toni MacAfee

A few things I learned:  Canad Post lied when they said that only 30% of Canadians get home mail delivery.  They "forgot" to include apartment buildings and rural mail delivery to mail boxes!    Oops - Turns out 60%+ of Canadians get home mail delivery -- so most Canadians would be negatively impacted by a stop on all home mail delivery,  which is the plan.   Of course they are also raising the cost of a stamp to a dollar and getting rid of jobs. 

Many people believe that this is just the continuing saga of a real plan to get rid of the Post Office altogether,  and/or privatizing the service.  If that happens how will the north,  and remote regions of the country, be able to even get mail delivery.  Why would Purolater or FedEx deliver to some place in the Arctic, or a back road in NS,  where there is not enough of a population to recoup the costs?   Too bad! they will say.   It is hard to imagine - but imagine places in Canada with no ability to have something delivered?  Not much available to buy locally but now you cannot order online either!  It could happen just the same way that there are places in NS where there is no bus or train -- you have to have a vehicle or you cannot get there (anywhere) Every Canadian has a stake in this fight.   The market is not cheaper or better when it comes to the delivery of non-profit public services.   What we do for each other is not better done by a profit-making enterprise - they don't do it better or more efficiently -- it is done to maximize profit with, generally speaking, no look at the human cost. 

In addition if this plan is put in place up to 8000 jobs will be lost -- Post Office jobs - good, living wage jobs, with benefits.   Now we are consigning another group of individuals that contribute to the tax base, can have the occasional restaurant meal and buy a car etc, to fast food, precarious work and low pay.   Right now they are shopping in your stores, eating in your restaurants and sending their kids to play on your hockey team.   Without them we all suffer. 
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And one more thing about the Post Office and the Harper Con's and P.O. management and their attempts to privatize etc.   -- and that is that the report that suggests all these service eliminations are from a report by the Conference Board of Canada and Deepak Chopra (the CEO of Canada Post) is a Board member.   So as the Nat'l Post puts it, even though the gov't and the Post Office deny that there is any conflict of interest:  

OTTAWA — Canada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra is a board member of the organization that highlighted the financial plight facing the Crown corporation and suggested eliminating door-to-door delivery as a way for it to save money.

In announcing Wednesday a five-point restructuring plan that includes ending door-to-door residential mail delivery in urban areas, Canada Post repeatedly pointed to a Conference Board of Canada report released last spring that documented challenges facing the postal service. That same report included options such as eliminating door-to-door service for urban residential households and increasing postal prices as ways to cut costs and improve the bottom line — options the Crown corporation has now adopted.

Chopra is a member of the board of directors of the Conference Board of Canada.

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Also this morning 500 or so of our hard working brothers and sisters at the Chignecto Central School Board are on strike.  CUPE 3890 members who are school bus drivers, bus mechanics, Maintenance/Inventory/Warehouse Clerks, Tradepersons, Safety Technicians, General Maintenance, Groundskeepers, custodians and labourers are now walking a picket line.     I heard some parents on the radio (CBC) this morning speculating on whether they should keep their kids home until the strike ends, to force the Board to deal with this.   Hey -- good idea!  Pressure the Board!

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And on the west coast the a judge has ruled against the province in its fight with BC public school teachers over bargaining provisions.  The ruling involves a move by the government to take away provisions involving class size and composition.  The court has also ordered the government to pay the union damages of $2 million.  Guessing that this will be appealed and on we go -- unions follow the rules and governments don't.   Civil Disobedience is where its at -- but we need a LOT of people to come along!  

On the BC Supreme Court Decision -- here is some of what it says from the JUDGEMENT  found at: http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/14/01/2014BCSC0121.htm 

SummaryThe hearing before this Court follows on the Court’s declaration on April 13, 2011 that legislation interfering with teachers’ collective bargaining rights was unconstitutional as a breach of s. 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of association. The legislation at issue deleted collective agreement terms and prohibited collective bargaining having to do with a range of working conditions, many having to do with class size and composition and the number of supports provided in classes to students with special needs.The freedom of workers to associate has long been recognized internationally and in Canada as an important aspect of a fair and democratic society.  Collective action by workers helps protect individuals from unfairness in one of the most fundamental aspects of their lives, their employment. Normally the result after legislation is determined by a court to be unconstitutional is that it is struck down.  This is part of Canada’s democratic structure, which requires that governments must act legally, within the supreme law of the country, the Constitution.Here this result was suspended for twelve months to give the government time to address the repercussions of the decision. The government did not appeal.After the twelve months expired, the government enacted virtually identical legislation in Bill 22, with the duplicative provisions coming into force on April 14, 2012. The over-arching question, then, is whether there is something new that makes the new legislation constitutional when the previous legislation was not.. . . The Court concludes that there is no basis for distinguishing the new legislation from the previous findings of this Court.  The new duplicative legislation substantially interferes with the s. 2(d) Charter rights of teachers, which protects their freedom to associate to make representations to their employer and have the employer consider them in good faith.As a result, the Court finds the duplicative legislation in Bill 22 to be unconstitutional, namely s. 8, part of s. 13, and s. 24, set out in Appendix A.  The unconstitutional provisions that have not already expired, ss. 8 and 24, are struck down.When legislation is struck down as unconstitutional, it means it was never valid, from the date of its enactment.  This means that the legislatively deleted terms in the teachers’ collective agreement have been restored retroactively and can also be the subject of future bargaining. . . .The Court has also concluded that it is appropriate and just to award damages against the government pursuant to s. 24(1) of the Charter.  This is in order to provide an effective remedy in relation to the government’s unlawful action in extending the unconstitutional prohibitions on collective bargaining to the end of June 2013.  The government must pay the BCTF damages of $2 million.

Daily Musings Jan 26th.

I am very excited about being able to watch this film for free this weekend.  The NFB site is putting it on the 25th and today only, accessible to everyone in canada for free. 


  You can watch it at: www.nfb.ca/myprairiehome 

 I was so upset at Harper's visit to Israel this week and the position that he suggested Canadians have/take that Israel is all right and the Palestinians all wrong. . .  a couple of articles came up later,  in analysis that I appreaciate: 

First Rick Salutin`s piece that complained that fawning over any country other than Canada this way is an embarrasment to Canadians everywhere.  He goes so far as to say:

"As for that arms-crossed campfire moment when he sang “Hey Jude,” even Bibi (Netanyahu) looked perplexed. But Bibi’s a guy who’s spent his life feeling paranoid about everyone else being determined to get him. The undiluted adulation might’ve thrown him."

And then there is  Scarlett Johansson and the Soda Stream boycott.   What an idiot.  "Soda stream building bridges between Palestinians and Israeli`s. . ."  yeah right. . .  so I enjoyed this peice called:   Scarlett Johansson's naive SodaStream Defense. 

One of the things I had not thought of previously about SodaStream is,  it was people like me that bought them (yes some years ago we bought one - still sitting in the kitchen though we no longer use it as we can no longer buy gas cylinders for it that are not purchased from SodaStream.)  We bought it because we were going through a ton of club soda cans and wanted to reduce our recycling.   It is not cheaper than PC Club Soda in cans,  but it felt like we had stopped a bit of production and that was a good thing.  However, when we discovered that we had purchased something made in an occupied territory/illegal settlement, we were aghast.  I think that is why the backlash against Soda Stream is so big -- it is progressive people that had an interest int he state of the planet that bought it,  and that now find themselves (like me) on the wrong side of a human rights issue.  I got on the right side as fast as I knew about it!

I enjoyed this --  Kumi Naidoo Executive Ditrector of Greenpeace Int'l posted this picture with the caption:
Young members of the Swiss Socialist Party organize a zombie walk in Davos to protest against the lack of substance of the discussions at the World Economic Forum.

You can read  more  about the coverage in Davros here where you can watch a clip from John Stewart and which says:  

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart did his best to make a mockery of the media's fawning coverage of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the so-called correspondents there from the Fox Business Channel and Bloomberg looked more like some teenagers thrilled to meet their favorite rock star than anyone who is supposed to be doing some actual reporting on financial matters -- or heaven forbid, income inequality -- which was one of the topics being discussed there by the one percent attending the conference.

 And, another piece from Huffpo, talking about the essential uselessness of the "world economic Forum"  (and which I cannot shorten as all of this info/comparison is shocking) says in part: 

But world military expenditure now stands at $1.7 trillion a year -- yes, that is trillion with a T. And according to the IMF global fossil fuel subsidies (oil, gas and coal) combined with electricity subsidies total a staggering $1.9 trillion a year. (As an aside, why are governments worldwide subsidizing the most profitable industry in the world and driving climate change?) Combined, this $3.6 trillion a year equals 5 per cent of global GDP.

What could the world do with $3.6 trillion a year, or roughly $10 billion a day? What chronic problems could be solved?

Solving the climate change crisis will only cost 2 per cent of global GDP according to Nick Stern -- in other words 40 per cent of the annual military budgets and fossil fuel subsidies!

Staggering Facts:

The world could meet basic human needs for everyone on earth with $80 billion -- equal to stopping military spending and fossil fuel subsidies for just for just eight days, according to UNICEF in 2000.

Oxfam estimates that to ensure that every child could go to school, it would take an additional $6 billion -- just over one day of global fossil fuel subsidies and military spending.

Providing reproductive health care for all women in developing countries: cost $12 billion (just over one day)

Providing safe drinking water and sanitation for all people in developing nations: $9 billion (one day)

Providing basic health and nutrition needs universally in the developing world $13 billion (just 1.3 days)

What other bad news has capitalism brought me today? oh yeah. . . there is this little nugget. . . 
that the CEO of Bayer has defended their drug prices for cancer medicines by saying that they were developed for Westerners who can afford it and were not developed for Indians who cannot. 

http://www.msfaccess.org/content/msf-response-bayer-ceo-statement-medicines-developed-only-western-patients

DaIly Musings January 23rd

There are few interesting things of note (now yesterday) - first, I always found a stethoscope kind of difficult -- you have to listen and practice listening over and over and I am not sure that any group who does not listen daily can pick up anything except maybe the most obvious murmur.  SO I was excited to see that other technologies may replace it (on the one hand) and make things easier as they point out in this article in the Guardian -   On the other hand,  if we move to powered ultrasound devices we move a little further away from hands on medical care.   It is like watching a midwife determine the position of the baby with her hands vs an OB bringing in an ultrasound machine to verify it.   I do worry about the expertise moving from our own brains and hands into the hands of a machine -- one big sunspot and one day we will all be broken!

I read with interest this Vanity Fair update on the Mia Farrow/Woody Allen/Soon-yi Previn and the other childrens' story.  I don't usually read celebrity stuff but this is more about how society treats celebrity and men; vs women and girls and sexual abuse within families etc.

I saw the story where Rob Ford was late for a lunch speech to the Economic Club of Canada yesterday.  My mother and I were having a laugh about it on the phone, and she said "why would they invite him to speak, anyway?"  and I thought yeah -- who is the Economic Club of Canada when it's at home.  To my surprise (assuming it had something to do with economists or the economy)  I found out is is just a glorified Canadian  speakers bureau.  They say of themselves:

Since 2003 The Economic Club of Canada has earned a prestigious reputation as THE Podium of Record. Uniquely positioned as the only national non-partisan organization capable of staging events across the country, our mission is to bring our members and guests face-to-face with the most important, relevant and influential leaders of our time. The Economic Club has grown in stature and reputation as the most respected and influential platform of its kind.

Each year, more than 100 key policy makers and business leaders seek out The Economic Club of Canada to make major keynote addresses.  In past years, our guests have included such high-profile figures as Senator John McCain; Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Victor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine; Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California; the Premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba; a number of Federal and Provincial Cabinet Ministers, including the Minister of Finance for a post-Budget address; and many others.  The coming months will see us continue to host sessions featuring many of Canada’s - and the world’s - leading newsmakers.

Our audience members are drawn from the most senior levels of Canadian business, industry and government. Our sessions provide accessibility to our speakers and the opportunity to pose questions, direct and unfiltered.  Membership is open to all who share a passion for the great issues of the day, and whose responsibilities require insight and information, experts and exchange.

So they just "sound prestigious" and sell tickets to whatever they think will draw a crowd.  LOL.

I thought that this was (unfortunately) amusing.  But it may have been the caption: Our local does not believe in putting our members at risk for frost bite, we just had cake, something we are very good at.     

I assume that this means that they are not on the street demanding fairness but just have a cake.  Hope the mediation works out:

I was quite excited by this latest organizing win by UFCW because every time a new sector gets unionized, and gets a first collective agreement,  it can give hope to a whole lot of people that they can unionize as well.
 . .    

Can you guess who got a union?

And last but not least and just for fun:  Buzzfeed has a list of "12 Historic Bars Every Book Nerd Needs To Visit: Channelyour inner literary lush by drinking where the greats drank."

I have only been to those in NOLA and Havana and found them both insanely expensive.   Please comment below on anything you find interesting.

RCMP in NS Purchase drones. . . what else could we do with that money?

The Halifax Chronicle Herald recently ran a story about the purchase of 4 drones for Nova Scotia.

In a province with a relatively low crime rate (outside of the violence when the bars close in Halifax) what else could the $165,000 they will spend on drones be used for?

Here's my list, I hope you will add to it in the comments!

1. One time funding to allow E-Fry to hire an ED, or fundraiser, so that they can keep providing services to very vulnerable, marginalized women;
2. Fund the start up of a worker's action centre; especially to assist temporary foreign workers and those without unions.
3. Increase daycare subsidy for a couple of public/non-profit daycares;
4. Send some unemployed/precarious workers to school/training;
5. Pay for an office and phone for a year and two people to be a commission into the home for coloured children;
6. Fund a bunch of community festivals or fund their ability to do some advertising to get more people to drop some bucks in small towns all over NS; 
7. Provide recreation facilities (sports or music) or expertise for some area in rural NS;
8. Fund over 600 kids to be able to attend sports, go swimming, or buy equipment;
9. Go ahead and buy the drones but give them to four volunteer search and rescue groups -- having that single piece of technology might help them find someone lost in the woods. With four you can put one in each part of the province, and train an operator.
10. Fund a social enterprise start up for a charity that is struggling or wants to expand --
11. Provide free university tuition for over 20 students from the poorest families.
12. Fund the Atlantic Powershift 2014!
13. Fund some "people's press - like the Media Co-op!

What I said, What the Globe and Mail said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/household-finances/your-say-are-todays-20-somethings-worse-off-financially/article2441072/?from=2445245

  
The Globe and Mail ran an article, a few days ago, in which they asked: From the Quebec student protests to reports of youth unemployment, there are no shortage of stories suggesting young people are facing tough financial times in Canada. But are things really worse, or are young people today spoiled? We asked readers of all generations to weigh in. 

So I have two sons 32 and 28, and, I work with, and try to change the world with, a lot of young people, and so I thought I would weigh in -- I even sent a picture.   Apparently though (I should have known) they were not interested in real answers,  just superficial info -- they said nothing about length or editing for length but they completely changed the tone of my submission and published it along with my picture (I am number 13) 

My submission, as published, is at Number 13 -- I tried to keep it personal assuming that was what they wanted -- Here is what I actually submitted.  The bolded parts are what they printed.



From what I can see people in their 20's have it harder than previous generations, at least back to the 40's.   The golden age ran from the 40's to about 1980 and I am a boomer, and old enough to have benefited.  But,  my children, and their children (I have 2 grandchildren) will be worse off than my generation, AND one of my children is a lawyer. The other has a good job at a high tech company.  Still,  they are more severely limited than my generation.

When I was young,  I went to College and then University and, although both my partner and I had student loans, we were able to pay them off (living on our own and not with parents) along with (eventually) having two kids, before we were 40.   We went to university with a baby, and later two,  and had daycare subsidy that covered most of the cost.  With two people working at minimum wage in NS, today, daycare subsidy is very low, making it hard for two people to work without family support.   (we provide the family support!)  You cannot really expect to get anywhere today without a university degree, but if you have a baby when young, ever being able to afford to go slips away quickly -- how can one find $6000 a year for tuition (and that is not counting the kind of tuition that my other son paid at a professional school - $17,000 a year in tuition alone!) and more for living costs -- student loans will not cover the costs - one is expected to pay on their own.

 When I was young, most work was full time and permanent if you wanted it. Much work these days is part time or casual (my daughter in law drives a school bus, and although the pay is not bad - she only works around 4-5 hours per day) The rest is shift work – when I was young,  people in heath care, fire and police worked shifts;  and the guys who worked at the car plants,  and they got paid very well to make up for it.   Today almost all work from Tim Horton's to retail, to education, is shift work, making childcare and transportation difficult, as we have not apparently kept up with the fact that people need childcare and transportation at all hours, and it is simply not provided – one has to figure it out on one's own through one's own expense/provision.   

 I have no idea how this generation makes it at all!  I am going to get OAS at 65 (and I am already tired) - waiting an additional two years means that there is pressure on young people to save for retirement , but they cannot even pay the rent so they will just be poor, with certainty,  when they get old.  More than 40% of Canadians have no pension but CPP, last time I checked.  With  the employer cuts in pensions, to feed profit in the private sector, and pressure to match those cuts in the public sector, soon far fewer people will not have a retirement plan.   I am worried about the future for my children, and grand children.  

 Although I am a boomer,  I am not to blame for these drastic changes, elimination of the safety net and increasing costs from speculation (land and energy) and the investment casino.  I have fought the inequality in society all my life - the concentration of wealth at the top eating up all of the productivity increases of the last thirty years means that my children will not be better off than their parents.   In fact, they are worse off than any generation post war, because they have no hope for the future.  I have no sense that they have opportunity, or hope.  

The jobs are being held onto by the old who have no pensions, and cannot retire,  and soon will have no OAS for an additional two years, keeping them from giving up their jobs.   Then, although there is a labour shortage (so they say) there are no jobs for the young.   The unemployment rate among young people is 20%+ and keep in mind that the rate wouldn't change if everyone of them was doing their best to find work.    The economy theoretically woks like this -- if there is a shortage of labour the price of labour would increase, but this we see, does NOT happen.   To ensure it doesn't happen, employers, instead of raising the wage,  or improving working conditions to attract workers, now just import under new federal rules, which allow it,  those who have no rights (temporary foreign workers) and will work cheaply under bad conditions.   For example, In Guysborough County N.S. a fish plant advertised for workers at about .30 over minimum wage (there is about thirty percent unemployment rate) and there was no shortage of takers.  However when they offered the job to locals they were offering a 6 day,  48 hour work week, every week of the year, with no benefits or sick pay.  It was not the work itself but the fact that one had to completely devote one's life to the job – a job with no room for promotion – that put off the Locals (assuming as the employer claims that no one local would take the work) maybe locals were interested but the plant went for temporary foreign workers - 9 Phillipina's who have no rights, don''t mind working 6 days a week (or who are desperate enough for the cash to send home) They should be allow to properly immigrate and bring their families - but more to the point why is this employer allowed to set wages and working conditions so far from the norm in Canada and then import workers to do it instead of providing decent jobs for people already here?  Just one more nail in the coffin of my children and grand-children's future.   They are worse off than the generations before – they will also inherit a planet that is about to create hunger and refugees due to climate change and an economic system that sees North Americans better off than others, especially in the south, and the 1-10% able to meet all crises while leaving the average worker in the dust.  The twenty somethings have plenty to complain about.

Occupy Our Food Supply

On this Global Day of Action, called Occupy Our Food Supply, a day about our food and food sovereignty, food supply, and food and planet devastation -- I had the privilege of hearing Vandana Shiva (and guests) speak in person, in Halifax, NS.  The morning was called "A Feast of Conversation about Women , Men and Food".  Sponsored by the EAC, Oxfam and Mount St. Vincent University.



I heard today about the  need to organize to take back our food, our seed and our soil.  I heard that our food system is part of a global system that is hurting the planet and hurting women, in particular.  A system that puts profit, mono-culture and dead seed (terminator seeds) before the needs of people and the planet.  I heard Vandana Shiva be inspiring and call us to action - not necessarily large planet-changing action - but things that we can do here at home.  She did warn us, at the same time,  not to think small! We can take on even the largest corporations and win.

The morning began with a presentation by Marnina Gonick, a Women's Studies professor at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax.  She talked about sex and gender - that sex is about biological characteristics, and that gender is socially constructed.  She spoke briefly about how we sometimes think we are past gender inequality, in the "west" , but that much inequality remains - women, for example,  still do most of the housework and childcare even while working fulltime.  Men still dominate in business, religion, sports and still make significantly more money than women.  

As we heard later from Dr. Shiva this is a problem in most of the world.   So as we went through the speakers and conversations,  in the morning,  we were asked to think about "what difference does gender make?  And what difference does difference make"  especially when thinking about food.   The overarching question was "How does putting Women's Rights and Gender Justice at the heart of food system conversation help mobilize change?"  and that is what we spent the morning thinking and talking about.

Dr. Shiva spoke of the following, and although not in her words, I am doing my best to paraphrase and precis what she said:  

80% of food worldwide today comes,  not from large agri-business,  but from small farms/plots,  and the majority of them are worked by women.   Women's work though is generally invisible.      Why, Dr. Shiva asked is that work invisible?   Because,  Global Capital assumes that that nature is dead and that women don't work!  The challenge is to make that work visible.

Several times Dr. Shiva mentioned the violence of the green revolution, and the book that she wrote about it, The Violence of the Green Revolution: Ecological degradation and political conflict in Punjab, 1992, Zed Press, New Delhi.  That was about the punjab in 1984 - always described as religious strife but was in fact about land and water and debt.

She mentioned the violence of Union Carbide and the Bhopal criminal disaster that still has meant no justice,  especially for the women that primarily carry on the fight.  Dow bought union carbide and says that they have no liability for the Bhopal disaster - but when you buy a company you buy not just their assets but also their liabilities - but still there is no justice for the victims of Bhopal.  There is a campaign now to remove Dow as a sponsor of the London Olympics as they have refused to actually negotiate (though the Indian gov. is also culpable by accepting, on behalf of the victims, a paltry settlement)   This, Dr. Shiva pointed out, was just a part of the violence perpetrated on the planet by the fertilizer and now giant food production companies, like Cargill.   Fertilizer comes out of munitions research - It is war chemicals used in agriculture and their names reflect that like Roundup- and Dr. Shiva rhymed off others that I cannot recall. . .

Monoculture,  she went on to say, is like war - it is conformist, highly regimented and not at all chaotic, like life. 

She had us imagine the picture of many combines going across a field at once - looks like tanks massing on a battle field. 
 
On the contrary - living soil can only be handled by living hands.

 

She talked about how corporations are given the status of people - but they are NOT people!  They do  not have minds, they cannot think, they don't have ideas and they should not be able to patent life.  As they have no intellect - they cannot have intellectual property.

She talked about not just the sexism, and how women are the ones that have protected the seed, and nurtured the soil, even in the face of monoculture,  but the racism in the multi-national food industry that they call the less nutritious white rice superior and the dark coloured, highly nutritious  millets traditionally used by women in India, inferior.    She went on to talk extensively about the vocabulary of seed and the implications.

She then made several excellent points about productivity.  I have thought a lot lately about how we move to a sustainable economy - how do we stop the insistence on "growth" to be productive?   in this vein Dr. Shiva mentioned that if you consume what you produce it is not considered "productive" - so there is a tendency to want to move to monoculture and exporting food as this is then rated as an improvement in productivity,  though people may have gone from feeding themselves to starving!  In addition, these days a lot of "food" is grown to make bio-fuels and run cars and/or to feed animals.   It is totally untrue, she insisted, that large scale agriculture produces more food, in fact, as she put it:  TLC (tender loving care) produces more yield than NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium- the ingredients of chemical fertilizers - you know the kind that you can use to make bombs)  Monoculture is NOT more productive. We just count it that way.  (See Who's Counting by Marilyn Waring - just my suggestion,  not mentioned by Dr. Shiva)

So the food system is occupied by the corporations and we need to re-occupy our food. Food should be for people not for profit.   Not just food, either but other agricultural products - as Dr. Shiva said, 95% of all cotton grown in India is BT cotton and the seed is owned and controlled by Monsanto.  The seed once planted cannot be used to gather seed - it must be purchased every year and cannot be saved.  In order to buy the seed, you need to get into substantial debt.   This is a major reason for the increase in the number of farmer suicides in India in the last ten years - 250,000!

The boundary between reality and spin, Dr. Shiva said, has dissolved and we have to work very hard to see reality.   We need to support diversity and women and she drew our attention to a group - Diverse Women for Diversity. - part of her organization - Navdanya for which there were several fundraisers during her visit to Nova Scotia.

Dr, Shiva returned later from some Q & A - but in the meantime there was a presentation about the Local situation by Dr. Patti Wiliams.  She spoke about the  N.S. Participatory Food Costing project.   She talked about how food is too expensive for families that earn a low income (just fyi - almost 30% of Nova Scotians earn minimum wage) - not that food costs too much, she reassured us as farmers have to make a decent living, too.  But that income inequality in society means that women (who earn less) and especially single mothers do not have enough income to feed their children nutritious meals.

She showed a video that is worth taking in - spoken word and typography. . .   It is only a minute long and worth watching. . .


Tim Merry - Kinetic Typography from Jeff Harper on Vimeo.


In Nova Scotia there is a LOT going on -- time to seize the moment - we have a wave of people wanting to buy local,  an explosion of farmer's markets and lots happening with the N.S. Food Security Network.

When Dr. Shiva returned after we had "conversations at our table" I seem to have recorded what sound like a lot of aphorisms -- all of them good - but she was answering questions which I did not record and all of this is great stuff.  So here it is, as well as I could record it:

Silence is not neutral.  It mans that you are taking the side of the oppressor if you do not speak out.

Life is about meaningful work, and serving the community, not about money.

I am part of the web of life - think of us all as microrhizome fungi - (I think I have that right?) spreading out as a network below ground but all networked together - a great picture (and made me want to find out more about it!)

Corporations claim intellectual property - stealing the knowledge from indigenous peoples and then profiting from it.  There is no intellectual property in this area - it is piracy - and is in fact called bio-piracy!

We can fight the corporate control of food - we do not need the billions that they have to win against them - we need solidarity and networking and we can beat them [Hey - we can be like the fungus!]

Through most of history we have eaten food that is good for us, now we are eating food that is a curse for us.  High fructose corn syrup should NOT exist.

The knowledge of sharing is where we create abundance.  the culture of sharing is what we need to build.

Everyday Ghandi said "make me more womanly" .  Women have relationships to each other and to the soil and seed. . . men need to nurture a relationship soil, seed, the eath that is more like women.  To be non-violent is a cultivated trait - men need to be partners, and it is a benefit for them. . .  Men, who have got used to the system of dominance, will ind life more joyful if they engage in partnerships with women.

Conservation can become the basis of production.   (In answer to a question about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault)  We need to keep seed adapting while the climate changes - we need to turn to the women to the soil and the seed, and away from monoculture and chemicals and nurture the soil - that will keep seed and the food supply secure.

Centralized systems of corporate control (a few companies control the world's food, a few companies are the world's retailers etc.) create hunger - not our inability to grow enough.

Monoculture produces commodities, not food. You can have more and more of may or few commodities but still have hunger.  Food distribution systems are driven by subsidy and profit.  50% of the food in the world is wasted - monoculture and shipping long distances creates waste.  Shipping means breeding food for long shelf life instead of taste, quality and nutrition. (breeding for rocks!) "fresh" means that you can eat it right away - not bred for shipping long distances.

Soil organisms are what feed us.

Asked what she recommened that we do/action we should take Dr. Shiva said:

No monoculture of the mind!  We do not all have to take the same action.   We need local activists, people working for organics, to create and nurture farmer's markets, we need research - how can we overcome monoculture and the practice of making high cost, low quality food, cheap?  We need to make corporations pay the real cost of what they produce and sell.  We need to protect seed and soil and build a global seed campaign.

So ends my notes on a talk by Vandana Shiva and others on the Day of Action on food - Let's re-occupy food!

Musings on Valentines Day but not about it.

Have a number of unrelated things to talk about but feeling like a blog post anyway. . .

First the Federal Cons who have today tabled  Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend theCriminal Code and other Acts that will let the police (and maybe the government and/or its agencies) get information about your web identity and data about you WITHOUT A WARRANT.  What the hell is this?  As an excuse they are suggesting that if you have nothing to hide it won't affect you (where have I heard this before?   And in addition, yesterday the Minister Vic Toews suggested that if you oppose this act you must be some sort of pedophile/pornographer.   Sheesh . . .  Stand for Civil Liberties and stand  accused of heinous crimes.  Good article in the Globe and mail -- "Stand with Us or with the child Pornographers".

Or this article by John Ibbitson that asks - why  do the Cons supporters want the Long From Census and the Gun registry gone because they are such an invasion of privacy but want to allow such invasive surveillance of citizens on the internet?

You can sign a petition to oppose this bill and "stop online spying"  at: http://openmedia.ca/mp

Then of course we have the so-called "omnibus crime bill" - coming soon to a court near you.  We have a few mandatory sentences already though the new bill expands that -- so judges are bristling about losing their discretion based on the facts of the case, and one has refused to impose a minimum sentence. 

"An Ontario Superior Court judge has refused to impose a mandatory three-year sentence on a man caught with a loaded handgun, putting the courts on a collision course with the federal government’s belief in fixed sentences that provide judges with little discretion."

And from an article by Armine Yalnizyan -- CCPA Senior Economist -- in the Globe & Mail -- comes an analysis of corporate taxes and the issues it raises, along with the list of workers being attacked and asked to take less across the country:

Newly aggressive demands that workers give up income join the decades-old demands that governments give up revenue. The implicit deal is that lower taxes create more investment and competitive cost structures create more demand. Both supposedly create more (good-paying) jobs. Lower taxes, check. Lower payroll costs, check. More good-paying jobs here at home: Insert sound of crickets chirping.

In case that's not clear - the government reduces taxes for corporations so that they will invest in Canada and "create jobs" .  They also attack workers and collective agreements, and support private firms doing so,  so that there is a better "business climate" so that the companies will invest in Canada and "create jobs" but no matter how low the taxes, how educated and reliable and productive the workforce, even how profitable the company -- waddya' know - no jobs - just increasing shareholder profits - and in Canada lots of money flowing to parent corporations in the U.S. and other countries.

If new economic and political realities are not enough to bum you out on this Valentines Day , then think of the planet (not sure why I want you to be bummed out - just finding it hard to be optimistic myself this morning)  graphically - a reprise of the 1972 Big Blue marble photo was taken in January and NASA says:

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years. As Jeff Masters, the web's most widely read meteorologist, explains, "The US and Canada are virtually snow-free and cloud-free, which is extremely rare for a January day. The lack of snow in the mountains of the Western US is particularly unusual. I doubt one could find a January day this cloud-free with so little snow on the ground throughout the entire satellite record, going back to the early 1960s."

We are in deep doo-doo. . . Lots of extreme weather data in the article on Al Jazeera quoted above and then this:

In the face of such data - statistics that you can duplicate for almost every region of the planet - you'd think we'd already be in an all-out effort to do something about climate change. Instead, we're witnessing an all-out effort to... deny there's a problem.

And so it goes. . . Have a great day. 

Letter from Hendsbee Re: Occupy Eviction

Below is the text of an email I received Sunday, Nov. 13th  from David Hendsbee.  I wrote to him on the 12th after the events of the 11th.

I believe that there are at many factual errors in his response.

I have  my own eyes to observe 1) there WAS brute force used on the protesters, I witnessed it myself, (there are a myriad of sites with video and photos - I will try to add some when I have more time.)
2) they were not given enough time to plan to go elsewhere or re-locate.   When I got there at 12:45 (app), tents had already been taken down, by police;   and 3) a suggestion that occupiers had been "bought off" -- all I can say is -- "I wish" and I doubt it - they certainly got some financial and other  support - I took food (hot baked potatoes) and winter jackets down there. . .   but I don't think I was "buying them off. . . !
4) last night, just after the 5:00pm  update on 95.7,  Mayor Kelly said that there was "definitely a vote, at an in camera meeting - and any councillor that says otherwise could have been out of the room - but that there was a vote. . .  Hendsbee says that there was not. . . that councillors, he says,  were simply "informed" that there would be an "enforcement".
5) Mayor Kelly also said last night, on 95.7FM  that they Occupy were not told that they could not  return but that they were not told that they could.  Hendsbee says that they were told that they could NOT return.  I cannot find any evidence of this in the media,  as he suggests.

and I'll just quickly add an objection to a sixth - "their indebtedness to the unions that have co- opted this movement for their own means to rally against the private sector."   I have not seen a "rally against the private sector" - even Jim Stanford (CAW Economist) does not deny that "we need a market".  Auto workers and ship builders rely on the private sector for their good union jobs - why would they "rally against the private sector".

text below is all from an un-altered email from David Hendsbee received by me on Nov. 13th.


________________________________________________________________________________
Margaret Anne - HRM Council did NOT vote to pass nor enact a new bylaw. The Parks Bylaw P-600 has been on the books since May 1999 and only amended twice since then in 2003 & 2006. We were just advised that it was going to be enforced.

The Occupiers camping is in violation of section 8 subsection 1 & 2. When the protest first started we needed clarification of whether or not the Grand Parade is considered 'parkland'. That legal clarification was sought and later confirmed. We offer them ( with municipal permission ) an alternative site of the Commons but they refused. HRM wanted a peaceful relocation prior to Remembrance Day ceremonies to ensure that event went off as planned and uninterrupted. And the Occupiers were also told that they were not welcome back afterwards. That was well reported in the madia too. The Grand Parade is needed for 4 more civic events in the next few weeks : Holiday Parade of Lights, HRM Xmas tree Lighting, the Menorah Candles / Hanukkah festival of Lights, and the New Years Eve celebration. So why should we allow illegal encampments that will dispel other public events that are intended for the greater enjoyment of the general citizenry.? Who is trampling upon whose rights and freedoms ?

After the Remembrance Day service was over, HRM officials provided notice to the occupiers that they are in violation of the Parks bylaw. After the service of the notice, police met with the protesters and asked them to start making preparations to leave. After several hours, HRM saw no effort on their part to start taking down tents. We had sincerely hoped they would abide by the bylaw. Unfortunately, some chose not to comply which required police to begin dismantling and removing the tents. Initially things were going quite well and a number of people took down their tents and left. A small group of people, however, attempted to prevent police from taking the tents down. In the end, 14 people (12 men and 2 women) were arrested for obstruction of justice. Brute Force was not used.

Halifax Regional Police has received over 50 public complaints of every nature regarding the protesters, including noise complaints, drug use, minor assaults, medical emergencies, aggressive and threatening behaviour, and defecating in the bushes. In the last week, we’ve had other citizens refused access to Victoria Park, including a woman in a wheelchair who wasn’t allowed to pass through, another woman who was spat on, and a family who wasn’t allowed to bicycle in the park. That type of conduct is also in violation of the Park Bylaw P-600 Section 3 - subsection 1 (a), (b), and (d). HRM staff cleaned up the garbage left behind by the protesters which is another violation under section 7 . HRM is not infringing on their charter rights. They still have the right to assemble, to demonstrate and to protest at will. However, they do not have the right to camp on municipal public park property unless otherwise designated as a 'campground' or duly granted permission to do so.

May I ask you why don't they - the Occupy NS take up residency on the south lawn of Province House ?. Be at the statute of Joe Howe who won the right of speech and Freedom of the press from his infamous libel case. Also the HRM Parks Bylaw does not apply to provincial property. Take the protest to the level of government that has the direct ability to address corporate greed through taxation and regulations. Also they can address social injustice through welfare reforrn, income assistance, wage parity, rent controls, etc. Etc.

Perhaps the Occupiers have been bought off and lost their moral justice to be a true voice of reform due their indebtedness to the unions that have co- opted this movement for their own means to rally against the private sector. And as you know Democracy is not always pretty or perfect. We still have the rule of law to that needs to be observed too. Best regards - David