My two cents on Calgary's Peace Bridge

It's finally done. Over budget and overdue, but it's done. One of the most controversial pieces of infrastructure in Calgary's history, the Peace Bridge, a pedestrian walkway over the Bow River, is finally open for traffic.

I am a strong supporter of the compact city as a more efficient city, both financially and economically, and that means I am a strong supporter of promoting pedestrian traffic and public transit use over cars. But that doesn't mean I support any and all pedestrian amenities, and the Peace Bridge I do not.

In the first place it is, as so many people have pointed out, a bridge from nowhere to nowhere. At the north end it launches itself from a bicycle path in the middle of a block. The local alderman is now desperately consulting with her constituents to figure out how to get pedestrians safely across the busy 4-lane street (Memorial Drive) that borders the path—an exercise rather late in the day. As for who will use the bridge, the Sunnyside embankment limits the source of commuters to a very small area.

And that brings me to my next point. Only two blocks west, there are three pedestrian bridges—one on either side of the Louise Bridge and one under the C-train overpass. In other words, the Peace Bridge is quite unnecessary. A number of locations in the city offer a much better opportunity for a bridge or crossover that would encourage pedestrian traffic and public transit use.

Aesthetically, the bridge is alien to its environment. It reflects none of the forms, colours or materials of the Bow River Valley in its design. It is a pretty, sparkly thing in its own right but it is out of context—a sort of magpie architecture. It manifests one of greatest sins of the architectural profession. Architects design structures that are handsome in themselves but don't fit into their neighbourhood. This bridge has been defended on the basis that it is a work of art that will help make Calgary a great city. Perhaps, but it tends more to make Calgary look like a city with insecurities, desperate to prove it is in the big leagues.

The bridge doesn't just sin against its environment, it sins against the citizens of Calgary. With cavalier disregard for the taxpayers' dollar, and in violation of city policy, the design was selected without a competition. Although Calgarians may not have the refined artistic sensibilities of transportation department officials, it is their bridge after all and they might have been offered an opportunity to express their views.

This sort of arbitrary process undermines peoples' faith in their government. Government-bashers have been offered a very big stick to beat City Hall with and they are taking full advantage. Almost every rant about big government and high taxes you hear in Calgary these days starts off with the Peace Bridge. I fear the bridge will make it more difficult to provide truly worthwhile pedestrian amenities in the future, doing a great disservice to our city.

Some of the points supporters of the bridge have made, I heartily agree with. For example, that the $25-million spent on this bridge would hardly have earned a whimper of protest if it had been spent on a freeway or an interchange. I agree also that public infrastructure should have aesthetic appeal. Of course it should. But these are general considerations—they don't justify an ill thought out piece of infrastructure.

In any case, it is done and we are stuck with it. Now we must consider what we can learn from it. A number of things actually. First, always, except in exceptional circumstances, subject projects to competition. Second, consult the public early, not after the fact. Third, design for the context. And finally, don't be governed by our insecurities—Calgary doesn't need baubles to make it a great city.

If we are to build the compact city, we must be jealous guardians of the public purse. The public will not be dissuaded from urban sprawl if they see amenities for pedestrians and public transit users linked to financial recklessness.

Co-op beats Spanish recession

As one of the PIGS, the four (or six) European countries whose dysfunctional economies are much in the news these days, Spain is perhaps not the place you would expect to find a thriving economic enterprise. But one such enterprise is in fact flourishing, weathering the financial storm quite nicely. I refer to the Mondragon Corporation, the world's largest co-operative. Although it suffered from the recession, it bounced back nicely in 2010 with a profit of $240-million, triple that of 2009. It also added jobs and new products and services.

Founded in 1956, Mondragon is now one of Spain's largest companies, employing over 80,000 people in 256 companies that have expanded into 18 countries. The co-op includes supermarkets, travel agencies, service stations, manufacturers of everything form refrigerators to industrial components, business consultancies, architecture and engineering services, language and graphic arts services, and many others. Mondragon has its own savings bank and university and technology park. The companies are owned by their worker-members and power is based on the principle of one person, one vote. Bosses are not allowed to make a wage more than nine times that of the lowest paid worker. (In the European Union's top 100 companies, the ratio is as high as 200 to one.)

In a world where corporations are increasing their power over democratically-elected governments and the disparity between rich and poor worsens, Mondragon offers a highly successful alternative to the conventional competitive enterprise. It offers a model that is competitive yet advances both democracy and equity. For a future that demands much more co-operation among people and among nations if we are to avoid economic and environmental collapse, there is no better model available.

Joseph Lister, climate change and the arrogance of ignorance

Reading about the assassination of U.S President James Garfield recently, I encountered yet another example of the power and persistence of ignorance in the face of facts. Garfield was infamously killed not by his assailant's bullets but by his doctors. He died not from his wounds but from the massive infection of those wounds caused by his doctors appalling lack of hygienic practices. Even as the president lay on the floor of the railway station where he was shot, the doctor who presumptuously took over his care was probing his wound with unwashed fingers and unsterilized probes. After 80 days of this benighted treatment, Garfield died horribly of massive infection.

The ignorance displayed by his doctors was of their choosing. The great British surgeon Joseph Lister, picking up on the discovery of germs by Louis Pasteur, had been preaching the process of antiseptic surgery for years. The results were dramatic. His methods reduced the incidence of death from gangrene in surgeries from the 50 to 80 per cent common in hospitals at that time to zero. The facts were overwhelming.

Lister's methods were well-known and had spread throughout Britain and the Continent. He had made a presentation to American doctors and surgeons at the Philadelphia World's fair in 1876, five years before Garfield's assassination. He was not well received. Most of those present dismissed his claims, some angrily, ridiculing the notion of "invisible germs." They refused to abandon their filthy practices and spoke fondly of the "good old surgical stink" that pervaded operating rooms and hospitals of the day. Lister's methods were methodical and time-consuming—simply too inconvenient for busy surgeons who could do many surgeries per day unencumbered by hygienic procedures.

This kind of arrogant ignorance in the face of scientific knowledge, even among intelligent and well-educated men when their cozy little world is threatened, led me to think of climate change. Here, too, science is threatening people's comfortable ideas about how the world works, just as heliocentricity did in the time of Galileo and evolution in the time of Darwin. And now as then, many people are reacting adversely, some angrily, to the news—the facts be damned.

Unfortunately, this time the stakes are much higher. U.S. surgeons tenacious ignorance killed many thousands of Americans. An equally tenacious ignorance of climate change may kill many thousands of entire species and bring down Homo sapiens' civilization as well.

And as the stakes are much higher, so is the resistance. Vested interests of great influence and wealth conspire with the ignorant to undermine the science. Lister's truth eventually won out, as did Galileo's and Darwin's—at least among the educated. Whether the truth of climate change will win out in time to avoid catastrophe is still very much in doubt.

Alberta universities make illegal donations to Conservatives

Oh my, even the universities are doing it. According to the CBC, a number of Alberta's post-secondary institutions, including Athabasca University and the University of Lethbridge, have been donating to the provincial Conservatives. They have joined those municipalities and counties that have been donating to the Tories for years. All of this is, of course, illegal. It is against the law in this province for publicly-funded institutions to make political donations.

The Conservatives appear to have been alone in enjoying this generous use of the taxpayers' money. The CBC investigation revealed that a variety of colleges and universities have maintained close ties exclusively with the ruling Tories, and that their governing boards and senior executives have actively supported this relationship. These same boards are, of course, appointed by the Conservative government.

The Conservatives were quite aware of what was going on. Tory fundraisers solicited university executives and boards directly. Carol Lund, as head of Athabasca University’s secretariat responsible for administration of its policies and procedures, personally signed off on several requisitions for Tory fundraisers and actively recruited university executives to attend these functions. Lund is also president of the Athabasca-Redwater Conservative riding association.

One obvious question is, why do they need to break the law? They receive more than twice as much legal funding as all the other political parties combined, so it can't be for campaigning. Can it be a subtle, or not so subtle, reminder to these institutions where the money comes from and who appoints the board members? Can it be that Conservative municipal counselors and post-secondary board members believe their party rules by divine right and therefore is owed fealty? Has the Conservative Party been in power for so long it is now synonymous with government? Or is it a simple matter of never enough?

Whatever it is, arrogance or greed, it suggests it's time for a change in Alberta. Or is that blasphemy?

Americans primed for Iran attack

According to recent surveys, Americans are in a dovish mood on Syria and Afghanistan, but that mood is tempered by a hawkish attitude toward Iran.

Two-thirds say the United States does not have a responsibility to interfere in the Syrian conflict. There is also strong opposition to bombing the Syrian military or providing arms to the opposition. A solid majority also want American troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible.

However, their attitude toward Iran and its nuclear potential is quite different. Almost 60 per cent say it is more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action, than it is to avoid a military conflict. Fifty-four per cent are concerned that the U.S. will take too long to act while only 35 per cent are concerned it will act too quickly. About two-thirds believe sanctions won't work.

On the other hand, a majority believe the U.S. should remain neutral if Israel attacks. Furthermore, it isn't an issue to which a great deal of attention has been paid. Thirty-eight per cent of Americans say they have heard a lot about it, 39 per cent have heard a little and 23% nothing at all. Maybe the reluctance to support an Israeli attack and an increased knowledge of the risks would modify the belligerent mood. Maybe—but there is clearly a lot of fuel for a fire.

The new capitalism—reward without risk

Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Peter Voser earned more than $15-million in pay and bonuses in 2011, more than double his remuneration for 2010. Last year also saw Shell increase its oil spills to 207, substantially more than the previous year.

The two are not related of course, but the coincidence is interesting. Voser wasn't penalized for his company's oil spills, presumably because he wasn't considered responsible for them, however he was lavishly rewarded for something that he wasn't responsible for either. His extraordinary pay increase resulted from Shell's strong operating and share-price performance in 2011—annual earnings were up 54 per cent over 2010. The impressive financial success was not, however, Mr. Voser's doing, but rather because of high oil prices and surging demand for natural gas.

Being rewarded when things go right but avoiding consequences when things go wrong seems to be typical of the new capitalism. For example, when American banks were selling huge amounts of questionable securities at escalating prices, they made billions, but when their shady practices caused the market to crash and they were faced with massive losses, the government, i.e. the American taxpayer, bailed them out. Exhibiting the inflated sense of self-worth characteristic of modern CEOs, their executives continued to collect fat bonuses. Under the old capitalism, entrepreneurs reaped the rewards of doing things right and paid the consequences of doing things wrong. Reward was tempered by risk. Under the new capitalism, only the first half of that equation seems to apply.

The new capitalism is selective of course. It only applies to members of the "Too Big to Fail" club. Smaller companies still have to labour under the strict rules of the old capitalism: do well and you are rewarded, do badly and you are penalized. Life is not fair.

The Alberta Advantage—for men only?

It seems the famous Alberta Advantage doesn't apply to women. Alberta lags all other provinces except Newfoundland and Labrador in women's wage parity with men. According to a report issued by the Parkland Institute and the Alberta College of Social Workers, in Canada as a whole women's wages for full-year, full-time employment in 2009 were 78.4 per cent of men's. In Quebec—the parity leader—they were 85 per cent. In Alberta they were only 68.1 per cent.

Even more disappointing is that progress toward equality is also slower than in other provinces. In 1976, Alberta's wage gap was 62 per cent, on a par with the Canadian average. While other provinces have seen double-digit gains, Alberta has only closed the gap by six per cent.

Women make up the great majority of Alberta's low-wage workers. Almost half of working women earn less than $25,000 while only 30 per cent of men do. On the other hand, while almost 40 per cent of men earn over $60,000 per year, only 16 per cent of women are so blessed.

The most recent boom in Alberta was principally a boom for men while both men and women shared the ensuing bust. Median incomes for men increased 32 per cent from 2005 to 2008 but only 18 per cent for women, while in 2009 the median income for both fell 7 to 8 per cent. In the economic upswing of 2010, unemployment decreased for men but increased for women.

Alberta's women are disadvantaged in part at least because of the province's conservative nature. Alberta is the only jurisdiction in Canada without a minister or advisory council responsible for the status of women. It is not surprising, therefore, that men in Alberta are much more likely than men in other provinces to disproportionately share the fruits of economic wealth.

Rare earth metals—the plot thickens

In my post of March 12th about peak everything, I mentioned that China, which produces 97 per cent of the rare earth metals, elements critical to the production of many hi-tech products, is becoming increasingly skittish about exporting these valuable commodities. Yesterday the CBC reported that the United States, the European Union and Japan have filed complaints with the World Trade Organization about China's limiting of these exports, charging it with unfair trade practices. The U.S. claims the export restrictions give Chinese companies a competitive advantage by providing access at a cheaper price while forcing American companies to manage with a smaller, more costly supply.

The Chinese defend their quota system on the basis of conserving scarce resources and limiting environmental damage. Mining, refining, and recycling of rare earths have serious environmental consequences if not properly managed and have caused major environmental damage in parts of China.

The rare earths occur in many parts of the world (China only has 30 per cent of the known deposits) but are often too dispersed to justify economic mining. Nonetheless, we can expect to see a scramble to discover new deposits and open old mines elsewhere. As is the case with new oil sources, such as the tar sands, these new rare earth sources will quite likely be more expensive to exploit and more environmentally destructive. Such is the race to the bottom of resource supply.

In this case, the battle for scarce resources may be resolved peacefully through the World Trade Organization, but ultimately, as resources deplete ever further and nations become ever more desperate, we may begin to see less civilized ways of settling such disputes.

Peak oil? How about peak everything?

We are all familiar with the concept of peak oil. Oil is a non-renewable resource therefore at some point global production will reach its maximum capacity and then decline, creating an urgent need for alternate energy sources. Peak oil has already occurred in the United States, in 1970 in fact, as the accompanying graph shows.

What is discussed much less is that all non-renewable resources will eventually reach peak production. In the Untied States this has occurred for many commodities, including bauxite in 1943, copper in 1998, iron ore in 1951, magnesium in 1966, phosphate rock in 1980, potash in 1967, rare earth metals in 1984, tin in 1945, titanium in 1964 and zinc in 1969.

The United States is the most richly endowed nation that ever existed and only a few short centuries ago its resources were virgin, yet it is now seeing one resource after another decline and the country become increasingly dependent on other nations. The global supplies of these resources have not yet peaked, but with the U.S., the world's largest economy, requiring ever more of other people's resources, and with nations such as China and India increasing their vast economies at eight or nine per cent per year, we can expect to see what is happening to the Americans happen internationally.

For example, China produces 97 per cent of the rare earth metals,  elements critical to such hi-tech products as catalytic converters, color TVs, flat panel displays, batteries, petroleum refining, missiles, jet engines and satellite components. But China can't keep up with demand and it is getting skittish about exporting what it increasingly needs itself.

Even what we tend to think of as renewable resources are depleting. For example, every year significant areas of agricultural land are lost to desertification, salinization, erosion and development.

As resources deplete we might expect substitution and efficiencies to make up for some of the losses, but they can hardly make up for all of them. Unless we want a future where humanity is like a pack of dogs fighting over the last bone, we are going to have to change our ways, and change them dramatically. We must start planning for a steady-state global economy where renewable resources are exploited at a rate lower than the Earth's ability to replace them; where non-renewable resources are used at declining rates and extensively recycled; and where human population is constrained to a level consistent with the above. We must start thinking of growth in ways that increase human happiness without increasing consumption, ways that are far more cooperative and far less competitive. And we must start now.

We can transition peacefully into a new economy or we can allow chaos to precipitate us into a new economy. The choice is ours.

Happy birthday, Douglas Adams

Today is Douglas Adams' 60th birthday. Or it would be if he hadn't been thoughtless enough to die in May of 2001, thereby depriving us of yet more of his insanely eccentric humour. I owe Doug a quite considerable debt. For his TV series "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a delightfully lunatic romp through the universe which I enjoyed many years ago, and for his equally delightful and equally lunatic detective stories "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" which I just recently read. I haven't yet ventured into "The Meaning of Liff" and some of his other brilliant stuff and won't until my funny bone has healed.

I would wish him well wherever he now is, but he was an atheist so would have known he wouldn't be anywhere, just his molecules returning to the universe that so fascinated him and out of which he made such great sport. I can only agree with his friend and fellow atheist, Richard Dawkins, who dedicated his book "The God Delusion" to Douglas and lamented on his death that science had lost a friend and literature a luminary. Indeed.

So thanks for the laughs, Doug, and now I will get back to contemplating 42—The Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.

Iran under siege ... for 2,500 years

David Cameron hoisted himself onto the world stage once again, as he is wont to do, and declared Iran an international threat. This is rich coming from a British PM. The Brits have been harassing Iran since the days of the Great Game. They invaded the country in the 1940s and were instrumental in destroying Iranian democracy in the 1950s. And while Iran hasn't invaded another country in centuries, the British, like their anti-Iranian allies the Israelis and the Americans, haven't seemed able to keep their troops within their own borders in living memory. And Cameron says Iran is the threat?

If any country is justifiably paranoid, it is Iran, not the U.K. The Iranian people have been able to maintain their national integrity for 2,500 years but not easily. They have been invaded by the Romans, the Arabs, the Mongols (who slaughtered three-quarters of their population), the Russians, the British and the Iraqis.

And threats continue. The U.S. has largely replaced Britain as Iran's imperial nemesis, denying it the right to be an equal player in its home region. The Americans surround Iran with at least 15 military bases, and three U.S. allies in the region—India, Pakistan and Israel—possess nuclear weapons. As of course does the U.S. itself. And the Americans provide massive military aid to hostile Sunni neighbours of Shia Iran, such as Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has also had great success in rallying other nations to impose sanctions on the beleaguered Iranians. And if all this isn't enough, Iran is subjected to interminable threats from Israeli and American hardliners such as Benjamin Netanyahu and the contenders for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination.

Iran could escape the current peril by submitting to American hegemony, but it is apparently unwilling to do that. Another alternative of course would be to develop a nuclear weapon thereby achieving military parity with its antagonists, but it claims it doesn't intend to do that either. The siege, it seems, will continue.

Women win one, lose one ... and so it goes

The good news is that the European Union is considering mandatory quotas to get more women on corporate boards. They have tried the voluntary approach and, as is so often the case, it hasn't worked. Currently only one in seven board members at Europe's biggest companies are women despite the fact that 60 per cent of university graduates are now women. The percentage of women chairing major companies has even fallen slightly in recent years, to barely three per cent.

More—many more—women are needed in corporate management for at least three reasons: to provide equal opportunity for women; to bring a more collegial, sympathetic approach to decision-making in organizations that now hold disproportionate power over people and the environment; and to create more successful companies (studies show that gender balance contributes to better business performance).

Despite the advantages of a healthy gender balance, women have trouble making inroads into the old-boys' clubs of business, just as they do in government. The macho atmospheres of these institutions create an often unspoken bias against women. If the EU takes affirmative action to reduce the bias, everyone, except perhaps a few undeserving men, will benefit.

Such progress is not to be made in Afghanistan, at least not if the mullahs have their way. The country's top clerics have declared in a statement that women are subordinate to men, should not mix in work or education and must always have a male guardian when they travel. The clerics denounced the equality of men and women enshrined in the Afghan constitution, saying "Men are fundamental and women are secondary."

An ominous note was that the statement associated the restrictions on women's rights with peace talks. MP Fawzia Koofi claims the two are being linked "all over the country" and warns the new rules are a "green light for Talibanization." Particularly disturbing is that the rules, while not legally binding, have been endorsed by President Karzai.

So while European women look forward to progress, Afghan women face a return to the status of chattel. Thus the world turns.

Conservative war on truth escalates

The Conservative government made another assault on the gathering of facts with its announcement that it is closing the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab (PEARL) in Canada's High Arctic.

Its timing was impeccable. A climate scientist, Dr. Richard Peltier, has just been announced this year's winner of the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, our country's highest scientific award. PEARL is one of the sources Dr. Peltier relies on for his data and one of only three stations in the world that keep track of activities in the atmosphere around the Pole, that part of the world where changes are happening more quickly than anywhere else on the planet. Now one-third of the data from the High Arctic will be gone and models of climate change built by scientists such as Dr. Peltier will be less precise, a development that will make climate change denial a little easier.

The Conservatives have done well in their war on the truth, perhaps their greatest victory being the termination of the mandatory long form census, but opposition is growing. A few weeks ago, the Canadian Science Writers' Association, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada and the World Federation of Science Journalists and several other groups sent Prime Minister Harper an open letter calling on him to unmuzzle federal scientists. Now Nature, one of the world's leading scientific journals, has stated in an editorial that it's time for the Canadian government to set its scientists free. It pointed out the role reversal that has taken place between this country and the United States—as scientists in the U.S. free themselves from the repressive regime of George W. Bush, Canadian scientists are gagged by the Harper regime.

PEARL and Dr. Peltier, working as they do with climate science, are perhaps particularly dangerous in Harper's view. Canadian scientists were, after all, part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007.

It is sad indeed, in this day and age and at time when climate change makes science more important than ever, that scientists in the free world have to beg a government to allow their colleagues to speak freely.

Baroness Tonge, Israel and the pain of political correctness

Of all the various catalysts of political correctness, perhaps Israel is the most powerful. Anyone who seriously criticizes Israel or seriously supports the Palestinians is seriously in danger of being accused of such wickedness he or she must be dismissed from public discourse. Such was the fate of Jenny Tonge, Baronesss of Kew, recently a Liberal Democratic member of the House of Lords. Lady Tonge, during a heated debate at Middlesex University made the following remarks:

Israel is not going to be there forever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70-billion a year to Israel to support what I call America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East—that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough.

The "not going to be there for ever" phrase miffed a host of Britons, including the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, who called the remarks "dangerous, inflammatory and unacceptable," and Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg who demanded she apologize. She refused, resigned as party whip, and Clegg then ejected her from the party, an act neither liberal nor democratic.

The irony of course is that Israel itself has no intention of being there forever in its present form. It continually accretes more land—taken illegally from the Palestinians—and Israelis have stated they are willing to swap land for peace in a two-state solution to the hostilites. Indeed many people, including according to recent polls a third of Palestinians and a quarter of Israelis, increasingly believe in a single, secular state covering modern-day Israel and the occupied territories. In short, Lady Tonge's expression was a reasonable, indeed factual, contribution to the debate.

And are these British critics forgetting their own recent history. The UK is itself in a different form from what it was a mere century ago. Most of Ireland has departed and the rest will surely follow, and Scotland is getting very itchy feet. Or perhaps they could take a look across the Atlantic. Three hundred years ago, the most powerful country in the world today didn't exist, and the nations that had occupied the western half of North American for millennia are now entirely gone except for scattered remnants. Change in the form of nations is an immutable law of history.

In Canada, things are not much different than in the UK. If a Canadian politician suggested that Canada wouldn't be around forever in its present form, no one would blink an eye, simply because we live with that possibility every day. But if the same politician suggested, as Lady Tonge did, that Israel wouldn't be around forever in its present form, he or she would be enveloped in a storm of protest similar to that suffered by the Baroness. And they would quite likely be tossed from whatever political party they were a member of. Our political and media elites are immersed in the same fog of political correctness on this issue as the Brits.

The insidious nature of this censoring was illustrated by Britain's Labour Party leader, Ed Milliband, who said there is "no place in politics for those who question the existence of the state of Israel." Chief Rabbi Sacks went further, saying, "Views such as those expressed by Baroness Tonge have no place in civil public discourse." In other words, if you contradict the politically correct view of Palestine, you are to be dismissed not only from the political arena but from public discourse. You are to be silenced.

Israel is a nation based on race and religion, a foundation inimical to the principles of Canadians. Questioning the justification of such a state does not make one a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or an Adolf Hitler, yet this is what the defenders of Israeli policies would have us believe. Questioning Israel's form is part and parcel of thinking seriously about the Middle East's, and possibly the world's, most toxic political problem. The last thing we need is for the discussion of this most dangerous of issues to be restricted by the biased boundaries of political correctness.

Americans prefer small government ... or do they?

It is a practically a cliche that Americans prefer small government. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center would seem to confirm this. When asked if government regulation did more harm than good, 52 per cent of Americans agreed while only 40 per cent felt regulation was necessary for the public good. Cliche proved.

But wait a minute. When Pew when on to ask about specific regulatory bodies, the response was often quite different. For example, 53 per cent said regulations on food production and packaging should be increased and 36 per cent said they should remain as they are. Only seven per cent said they should be reduced. Fifty per cent said environmental regulations should be strengthened, 29 per cent said they should remain the same, and only 17 per cent said they should be reduced. Furthermore they felt some groups, including large corporations and banks and financial institutions should be regulated more. While Americans may view federal regulations negatively in the abstract, solid majorities want to maintain or even strengthen them in certain specific areas. Clearly, sometimes they want more government, not less.

Nonetheless, one thing is not in doubt. They are unhappy with government. When it came to the effect various institutions were having on the country, they ranked government at the bottom—only 20 per cent felt their federal government was having a positive effect.

So what does this mean? Do Americans really support smaller government, or are they just very unhappy with the government they currently have, or is government just a convenient scapegoat for a deeply troubled country? The answer is obviously a lot more complex than size alone.

Are political donations and Alberta's persistent condo problems related?

Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done. — Lord Hewart, Seventh Lord Chief Justice of England

The same might be said about governing. Governing parties should not only govern justly but should be seen to be governing justly. That is difficult when they receive large political donations from vested interests. To the impartial eye, they might understandably be seen to favour those interests. 

Such is the case in Alberta and the government's action, or lack of it, regarding problems with condominium construction. As more condos were built during the heated economy of the last decade, their construction has often left a lot to be desired. Hundreds of Albertans have been forced out of their condominiums because they were too unsafe to inhabit. Thousands of others have had to spend millions of dollars to repair crumbling buildings, many less than a decade old.

Last year, 300 residents of the Penhorwood complex in Fort McMurray were hastily evacuated in the middle of the night because officials feared the nearly new building would collapse. The owners voted to borrow $35-million to rebuild the entire project.

Owners in Bella Vista condo in Calgary, a building less than 10 years old, face bills between $77,000 and $189,000 each for repairs to the roof, eaves, balcony and parkade in a building where some of the condos are only worth $200,000.The owners are pursuing legal action against the developer.

Earlier this month, about 150 residents of the high-end Bellavera Green Condos in Leduc were given an eviction order because of serious fire-code issues. Fire chief Ernie Polsom reported that the one-year old complex contained “serious Alberta Fire and Building Code violations."

The provincial government has been promising action for some time. Last year, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs said the government is implementing changes such as a new home warranty program, better training for safety codes officers and increased fines for building-code violations. “It’s been a long process," she said, "but we’re getting to the end.”

The question is why the end hasn't been reached. A government committee, led by Conservative MLA Thomas Lukaszuk, issued a report in December 2008 which found Alberta’s system of construction and inspection was inadequate to protect home or condominium owners. Over three years later, nothing has been done and the woes continue.

Perhaps this is just a case of the mills of the gods grinding slowly, but an observer might be excused for wondering if he wasn't seeing an indebted political party hesitant to offend a major benefactor. Indeed, in the case of the Alberta Conservative Party, its major benefactor. The biggest donor to the Conservatives is not, as most would guess, the oil industry, but the construction/real estate industry. In 2009, for example, the Conservatives received 69 per cent of their funding from corporations and 26 per cent of that came from the construction/real estate industry. Does the government's caution, at the expense of homeowners, result from an obligation to a very generous friend, or does it only look that way? In any case, this is a circumstance that fails to meet the standard of integrity laid down by Lord Hewart.

How Wall Street buys Washington

Oh, those fickle Wall Street bankers. In 2008, Barack Obama was their man for president. They lavished $71-million on the Democratic candidate, $10-million more than on his Republican rival. Goldman Sachs was Obama's major contributor. In the current campaign, they are laying out the largesse again, outspending all other special interest groups. So far, however, they have switched horses, investing twice as much in Mitt Romney's campaign as Obama's.

Romney holds a certain attraction for the bankers, of course. He is from their ranks, and he has promised to return Wall Street to the good old days of untrammeled greed. But, not to worry, Obama will get his share. That's how the bankers play it. They really aren't that concerned with who wins; their goal is to control the agenda and frame the debates. This means that, while they have their favourites, they are generous to both sides. No matter who wins, the winner is obligated to the bankers.

After all, they have little reason to be unhappy with Obama. Oh yes, he spoke out disapprovingly about the "fat cat" bankers and promised legislation to rein them in, but that was rhetoric for the rabble, designed to allay the righteous anger of the masses. The bankers understand that politicians have to display their populist side from time to time. All the while Obama was railing about fat cats, he was bailing out the banks with bundles of boodle and hiring the guys who had caused the problem as his economic advisers and chiefs of staff. Legislatively, all his administration has produced to control the excesses of Wall Street is the anemic Dodd-Frank Act (which Mitt Romney has pledged to repeal).

And then there's the tax issue. Back in the 50s and early 60s, The top marginal tax rate in the U.S. was 91 per cent. Today it's 35 per cent. Yet unemployment today is much higher and economic growth slower—pandering to the "job creators" clearly isn't an economically productive strategy. Nonetheless, seriously raising taxes is off the table, just where the bankers want it, even though the country is running massive deficits. Americans are, it seems, getting the government Wall Street pays for.

Al Jazeera's Bahrain doc wins another award

For a definitive record of the 2011 protests against the kleptocratic Al Khalifa family, rulers of Bahrain, one cannot do better than the Al Jazeera documentary "Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark." The courage and spirit of the uprising is well laid out as is the grim and sickening detail of its repression.

The film has now won the 63rd annual George Polk Award in Journalism. One of America’s most coveted journalistic honours, the award memorializes George Polk, a CBS radio correspondent slain in 1949 after writing critically about the fascist government while covering the Greek Civil War. Other winners, who are chosen from newspapers, magazines, television, radio and online news organizations, include Edward R. Murrow, Carl Bernstein, David Halberstam, I.F. Stone, Morley Safer and Walter Cronkite. The film was also awarded the U.K. Foreign Press Association Award for Best Documentary in November 2011.

The title is fitting as indeed the protesters were "shouting in the dark." Little attention was paid by the Western press compared to the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and now Syria. Nor did Arab countries who supported opposition to other Arab regimes such as Ghaddafi's or Assad's, show support for the Bahrainis. Indeed, quite the contrary. Saudi Arabia, with the support of other Gulf states, aided in the brutal repression of the protesters.

The documentary is of special importance to Western audiences, not only because Saudi Arabia, good friend of the U.K. and the U.S., helped in the oppression, but because the U.K. and the U.S. continue to supply arms to both the Sauds and the Khalifas.

Al Jazeera was in a unique position to bring this story to the world, as they often are in the Middle East. As the crackdown in Bahrain deepened, it was the only international news provider to remain in the country. The documentary can be viewed here.

Rick Santorum—an Antichrist?

Rick Santorum is a disturbing man. The candidate for Republican nominee for president has said things that if I were an American, I would find offensive if not frightening. For instance, he has suggested that people who don't live according to what he refers to as "God's law," have no claim to equality, making it clear he is referring to the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," i.e. the Jewish and Christian God. He has further insisted that "our founders said so."

Santorum would apparently deny fellow Americans equality because they don't think like him, because they don't accept his religious beliefs. This is more than devout, this is zealotry, this is creeping into Osama bin Laden territory.

He is wrong, of course, about the founders of his country saying so. Rather, they said, in the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal"—all men, no caveats. Nor is he right about the concept of equality somehow emerging from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To my knowledge, the first group to explicitly state that all human beings are equal by nature were the Sophists of Ancient Greece, a pre-Christian group of atheists and agnostics.

Santorum ought to have a sound knowledge of the Christian God. He is a devout Catholic, was once listed as one of the 25 most influential evangelists in America by Time magazine, and he and his wife were conferred with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an award accorded to Catholics who have displayed exemplary chivalry, nobleness or service to the faith. But how does one actually know the laws of the Christian God? Unless Santorum has a direct line, he must rely on the Holy Bible, specifically the New Testament, the testament of Jesus Christ. And there he goes off the rails.

Santorum supports capital punishment, is a firm advocate of a citizen’s right to bear arms, supports the assassination of scientists working on Iran's nuclear program, supports the torture of prisoners, and believes the U.S. should pursue the Afghan war to a successful conclusion. In summary, he supports torture, murder and war against one's enemies—a very bloody-minded philosophy indeed.

This is all in violation of the laws of the Christian God, at least as expressed by Jesus Christ. It is more Antichrist than Christ. The prophet Himself had a lot to say on the matter. In Mathew 5:38-39, He advises, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." In Mathew 5:43-44, He adds, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Many passages in the Bible are ambiguous, but these are abundantly clear. Christ considered the point so important, He expressed it in two different ways. Nonetheless, not enough ways, apparently, to convince Santorum.

And Santorum is not alone. His competitor New Gingrich said he would do with America’s enemies what former President Andrew Jackson advised: "Kill them.” Even Barack Obama, who also claims Christian credentials, said that anybody who disagreed with the murder of Osama bin-Laden should "have their head examined." How odd that a Christian should in effect say that Jesus Christ should have his head examined.

Being a Christian is hard, at least in the sense of following Christ's (God's) teachings, and I have chosen a particularly tough command to obey, one I certainly couldn't. But then I'm not a Christian and therefore I'm not obliged. Those who claim to be Christians are obliged to at least try. Santorum, Gingrich, et al. don't seem to even be aware of these inconvenient commands, almost as if Christianity were unrelated to Jesus Christ. They are Old Testament believers—an eye for an eye. I know atheists who are better Christians than these guys. Mahatma Gandhi was an infinitely better Christian, and he was a Hindu.

What would Jesus do, indeed.

Syria and the reluctant alliance between al-Qaeda and the West

Al-Qaeda and Western nations agreeing on a policy of critical importance may seem strange, yet such is the case with Syria. Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaeda, has publicly thrown his organization’s support behind the Syrian opposition. Al-Zawahiri called on Muslim fighters from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to go to Syria and join a jihad against Bashar al-Assad’s “pernicious, cancerous regime.” “Continue your revolt and anger, don't accept anything else apart from independent, respectful government,” was the al-Qaeda leader's message to the Syrians.

Neither the West nor the Syrian opposition welcomed the message. After all, Assad has long smeared the opposition by claiming they were tools of terrorist and foreign influences, while the protesters have insisted their goal is a secular democracy, quite antithetical to the goals of al-Qaeda.

Nonetheless, the call is being answered. According to Iraq's deputy interior minister, Adnan al-Assadi, jihadists are moving from Iraq to Syria and arms are also being sent across the border. "In the past, Syrians were fighting in Iraq," he said, "and now they are fighting in Syria." A pair of recent suicide car bombings that killed 28 people in Aleppo had the mark of al-Qaeda. So, the Syrian rebels, and the West, have an ally in al-Qaeda whether they want it or not.

Other Islamic groups have also voiced their support for the opposition, including Jordan’s increasingly powerful Muslim Brotherhood, who said it was an Islamic duty to support Syria’s rebel army.

The West has had strange allies in the past, most notably perhaps the collaboration with the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis. An alliance with al-Zawahiri is hardly more unsavory than an alliance with Joseph Stalin. Not that there will be comradely meetings between the parties as there were during WWII. Al-Zawahiri has made that clear, warning the Syrians against dependence on the West.

The co-operation with the Soviets worked out well for the allies in WWII—the Soviets inflicted almost ninety per cent of the casualties suffered by the Germans. However, the East Europeans, who suffered for decades under Communism, may have been less grateful for the Soviet presence. We might expect the same result here. The Islamists will be fierce allies in the fight to overthrow Assad, but when the job is done Syrian democrats will still wish they hadn't come.

News flash—country rejects Olympic Games!!!

Hard to believe, but true—a country has rejected the possibility of hosting the Olympics. Rome had intended to bid for the 2020 Summer Games, but the Italian government has nixed the application. Italian Premier Mario Monti said it would be irresponsible to use taxpayer money to fund the Olympics with a guarantee that the government would cover any deficit, as required by the International Olympic Committee. How refreshing. If the Greek government had exercised the same sense of responsibility toward the 2004 Games, a project we now know it couldn't afford, the country might not have dug itself into such a deep economic hole.

Greece had estimated the cost of the 2004 Games at $6-billion and wound up paying $15-billion. And this is the drift into financial never-never land the Olympics tend to experience, cost overruns being a major part of the Olympic legacy. Canadians have some experience with this—the 1976 Montreal Games cost 12 times the original budget and weren't fully paid off until 2006. The 2010 Vancouver Games only cost four times the original budget.

With Rome out, five cities are left in the race: Madrid, Tokyo, Istanbul, Doha (Qatar) and Baku (Azerbaijan). Can their governments afford it? Spain is in a more fragile economic state than Italy and Japan's economy has been stagnant for years, so there's certainly doubts there. Turkey, on the other hand, is booming, while Qatar is petro-rich and rapidly getting richer, as is Azerbaijan. So some of these countries can afford the lavish demands of the International Olympic Committee; others—and, yes, I'm pointing a finger at Spain here—would be well-advised to adopt a little of Premier Monti's sense of responsibility.

2012—International Year of Co-operatives

 "Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility." — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

I heartily agree with the Secretary-General. Indeed, I believe that if we are to develop the culture of international co-operation that will be necessary to deal with climate change, to say nothing of other global problems, building more of our local, national and global economies with co-operative enterprises must play a major role. 

In seeming agreement, the United Nations has declared 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives. In the UN's own words, "The International Year of Co-operatives is intended to raise public awareness of the invaluable contributions of co-operative enterprises to poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. The Year will also highlight the strengths of the co-operative business model as an alternative means of doing business and furthering socioeconomic development." Information on events planned throughout the year, as well as suggestions on how to get involved and participate, can be found here. More than billion co-op members around the world will celebrate the Year.

Competition has its place, but co-operation is a higher human value and therefore a more moral basis for economic enterprise. And in the competitive world order we find ourselves in, as the UN has said, co-ops offers a real alternative. We are relentlessly subjected to the mantra, "we must compete in the global marketplace." It is time for a new and more civilized mantra. I suggest, "We must co-operate in the global society." May the International Year of Co-operatives help bring such a change about.

Stephen Harper and the triumph of ideology over reason

Why did he do it? Why did Stephen Harper suggest we had a public pension funding problem when we don't? And why did he proclaim his concern at an international conference of all places?

Let's all repeat slowly: there ... is ... no ... funding ... problem ... with ... our ... public ... pension ... plans. Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, has made very clear that the Old Age Security (OAS) program is sustainable and affordable given the federal government's projected revenues and economic growth. And a recent OECD study found that "Canada does not face major challenges of financial sustainability with its public pension schemes." Page predicts that the OAS will rise from its current 2.2 per cent of GDP to 3.2 per cent in 2036, the baby boom peak, and decline thereafter. In other words, it will remain a minor part of the GDP for the foreseeable future. The other instrument of public pensions, the Canada Pension Plan, is fully-funded and actuarially sound.

And yet Human Resources Minister Diane Finley hysterically insists that, "We know there's a coming crisis, that's in Old Age Security, that's why we're taking steps now before it's too late because we do not want to burden future generations with massive, massive tax increases," and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty called Page "unbelievable, unreliable, incredible." It's true that Page indicated concern about sustainability last year but that was before the government reduced its projected health care funding.

So why is Mr. Harper's government making an issue out of something that has no business being an issue? I see two possible reasons. One, they don't speak to their Parliamentary Budget Officer or, two, they are manifesting yet again one of their defining characteristics—not allowing facts to get in the way of ideology.

We see this time and again: the building of prisons when the crime rate is falling; promoting dirty oil production in the face of climate change; spending billions on a technically suspect fighter plane to face a nonexistent threat; and of course abandoning the mandatory long form census to make sure facts don't clutter up policy-making.

Nonetheless, sometimes the facts will have their way. On the pension issue, for example, Finance Minister Flaherty seems to be backing off, reassuring the country on Friday that any changes to Old Age Security won’t take effect until at least 2020. And while Mr. Harper, the most ideological prime minister we've ever had in this country, once refused to attend the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics on a point of principle, he is now schmoozing the Chinese like a reincarnated Jean Chrétien. Even he is not immune to realpolitik.

Ontario shows greatest population growth

Per cents are not people. Per cents don't hold jobs, buy products or pay taxes. People do. Yet it seems that most of the conversation about the 2011 census report revolves around per cent growth, not people growth. The per cent growth is interesting, and much more simple to illustrate and discuss, but it's deceptive. It overlooks the real growth, the growth in residents: working, consuming, tax-paying human beings, i.e. the proper basis for policy-making.

Because of the emphasis on percentage growth, the focus of the discussion has been in the West where Alberta racked up the greatest percentage growth among the provinces. Indeed, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia all grew at a faster percentage rate than the national average. However, when it comes to population growth, over the census period (2006-11) Ontario grew more than all the western provinces combined. Even Quebec grew by more people than Alberta.

Alberta may be growing rapidly but only in smaller amounts from a smaller base than Ontario. Only when it is increasing its population at the same rate as its eastern sister, can we talk meaningfully about a demographic revolution. That won't be for a long time, if ever.

Yet another concern about the discussion surrounding the census report is the persistent assumption that population growth is a good thing—another fallacy that needs correcting. But that's fodder for another post.

Supreme Court Justice says U.S. constitution is dated

This will set the teeth of right-wing Americans on edge. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in an interview on Egyptian television, said she wouldn't recommend using the U.S. Constitution as a model for Egypt's new constitution.

When asked where the Egyptians should look for a model, she advised them to look around, particularly at constitutions written more recently, saying "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the Constitution of South Africa. ... It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done." She even mentioned our Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a more contemporary example.

This will no doubt be considered heresy in certain circles in the U.S. but it is really just sensible. All she is saying is that there are other models, possibly  superior ones, certainly more modern ones, that could serve Egypt better than the U.S. model. After all, the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 (albeit with later amendments tacked on), a time when the country still practiced slavery and "all men are created equal" meant just that—all men.

Of particular importance is that the American Constitution omits the most essential rights of all—as does ours for that matter—rights to the basic necessities: food and shelter, and in a modern society, health and education. (It does a citizen little good to have freedom of speech if he is starving or dying of a curable disease.) The South African Constitution goes a long way to providing these basic guarantees. Section 27 ensures: "the rights to food, water, health care and social assistance, which the state must progressively realize within the limits of its resources." It also includes a very modern right indeed in Section 24: "the right to a healthy environment and the right to have the environment protected."

Lacking such provisions, the U.S. Constitution is indeed showing its age. Perhaps the Americans should join the Egyptians in checking out some more up-to-date models.

Alberta and Saskatchewan vie for pollution title

Alberta is generally considered to be Canada's pollution champion. And it deserves the honour. With 11 per cent of the country's population it contributes 34 per cent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, Saskatchewan can also make the claim. It only produces 7 per cent of the country's emissions, with 3 per cent of the population, but it is the big winner in per capita emissions with 71 tonnes of CO2 equivalent to Alberta's 64.

Industrial Ontario isn't even in the running. Despite having 40 per cent of Canada's population it produces a mere 24 per cent of the country's emissions. And its per capita emissions are an embarrassing 13 tonnes.

Alberta and Saskatchewan's advantages in the pollution sweepstakes include burning coal to provide 60 per cent of their electricity. Ontario, by comparison, relies on coal for only 7 per cent of its power, obviously a losing strategy. Alberta also owns the country's big ace in the hole—the tar sands. The tar sands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country and will no doubt allow the province to eventually overtake Saskatchewan as per capita leader.

As for future prospects, my money is on Alberta all the way. With the tar sands in its corner, the province is already a world class competitor. In fact, if Alberta were a country, its per capita greenhouse gas emissions would be higher than any other country in the world. A champion indeed.

The real radicals revealed

The word "radical" is being thrown out a lot lately, particularly from the mouths of certain federal ministers. Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver garnered a great deal of attention when he published a rant about opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline in The Globe and Mail. He has backed off a bit since then, saying he was referring not to all environmentalist but only to those who wanted to kill tar sands development entirely.

Well, I would like to kill tar sands development entirely and if that makes me a radical, so be it. But let's be absolutely clear about one thing: the most radical behaviour in this whole affair is what is being done to the environment in northern Alberta. When the scars caused by a behaviour can be seen from outer space with the naked eye, that's radical.

Extracting resources from the planet faster than it can replenish them—that's radical. Polluting the planet faster than it can absorb the pollution—that's radical. And we are doing both of these things. It would appear that our whole damn species is radical. And in the wrong way.

If Messrs. Harper and Oliver are opposed to radical behaviour they should, as our elected leaders, be leading us away from this folly, toward a sustainable, no-growth economy. Instead they passionately support what is perhaps the world's most savage assault on Mother Earth while denouncing those who oppose it. The Prime Minister has called the tar sands “an enterprise of epic proportions akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s Great Wall, only bigger.” And, he failed to add, much, much dirtier.

Rather than enterprises of epic proportions, we might limit ourselves to enterprises of more modest proportions that respect the planet. A radical idea too, perhaps, but in the right way.

Anti-American or anti-American empire?

Americans are a militaristic people. That, I suspect, is why President Obama made praise of the military a major theme in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. He began his speech by praising the military and he ended by praising the military. And in between he practically boasted about murdering Osama bin Laden and made it clear he would wage war on Iran if it doesn't come to heel.

Furthermore he stated, with due humility, that "America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I’m President, I intend to keep it that way." In other words, he will maintain the empire.

No doubt Obama felt this appeal to American jingoism is necessary for success in this election year. Unfortunately, it also displays the arrogance that leads many to criticize the United States, criticism that in itself leads to accusations of anti-Americanism. I have been the target of such accusations myself from time to time.

And yet, I am a great admirer of much that is America. I love their respect for the individual, perhaps their greatest strength. I love what their culture has given the world: the blues, Hollywood movies, baseball—my cup runneth over. And I love their irreverence: I love Michael Moore, and Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, and I adore the Montana Supreme Court which recently contradicted the U.S. Supreme Court by ruling that their state's laws limiting corporate donations for political purposes would stand.

But I am anti-American something. Not anti-America the country, but anti-America the empire. I am anti the misguided, self-righteous, violent and all too often hypocritical behaviour the U.S. habitually imposes on the world. I am anti their efforts to dominate the world in their interest.

And I will continue to speak out against the empire. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world and as such deserves, as most liberal Americans would no doubt agree, the closest attention. As for accusations of anti-Americanism, that kind of name-calling simply means someone has run out of arguments ... and it isn't me.

Rivers drying up in England?

When trout waved lazy in the clear chalk streams, Glory was in me …

So wrote poet John Betjeman about his beloved River Kennet. Sadly, the trout have had trouble waving lazy in the Kennet lately. The river, like many in southern England, ran dry this past winter, a victim of high water demand and below-average rainfall. Brown trout and grayling had to be rescued by officers from the Environment Agency, and one fish farmer lost three tonnes of trout.

"When I started here 32 years ago, 60 per cent of the trout were wild fish," said the fish farmer. "Now I reckon it's down to 10%. The whole of the upper river has been destroyed. The lack of water flow means that we've lost almost all the ranunculus weed that holds lots of invertebrates and produces cover for the fish. This is unprecedented."

Alan Crook, an 80-year old who has lived by the Kennet all his life, remembers swimming in the river as a boy: "There were hatches to control the flow of water for the mills. The water there was 10 feet deep. We used to jump in from the bank and have a whale of a time. Now the river's so low that children could never do that. Those days are gone for good." The river is mentioned by Izaak Walton in his seminal work on the art of fly fishing, The Compleat Angler, published in 1653.

With millions of litres being pumped from the Kennet every day for municipal water supply combined with declining rainfall, those carefree summer days of swimming and fishing may indeed be gone for good. A recent report by the Environment Agency starkly warns that rivers across the country are at risk.

What is happening to England's rivers is an example of both sides of our assault on the planet: Our insatiable demand for resources combined with the dumping of our waste into the atmosphere. Declining rainfall, a result of climate change, robs the rivers of their life source while increasing demand for water depletes them.

As even England's green and pleasant land faces a future a lot less green and pleasant, we have yet another warning to mend our profligate and destructive ways.

Bully for you, Minister Baird

John Baird has never been one of my favourite politicians. There is too much of the bully about him. Nonetheless, I applaud him for his speech Monday in the UK in which he criticized other Commonwealth nations for denying fundamental freedoms to homosexuals and others. "Dozens of Commonwealth countries currently have regressive and punitive laws on the books that criminalize homosexuality," he said, referring to the unfortunate fact that homosexuality is illegal in 41 of the 54 member states. His position is particularly welcome at a time when gays are increasingly under attack in a number of African countries.

Last November, Baird condemned legislation in Nigeria that toughened anti-gay laws and made same-sex marriage punishable by 14 years in prison. The legislation also targets anyone who supports or even witnesses such unions or those who form gay-rights groups. In the 12 Nigerian states that have adopted Sharia law, same-sex sexual activity is punishable by death by stoning. Baird's view of all this was unequivocal. "The government of Nigeria must protect all Nigerians, regardless of sexual orientation," he said at the time. "Through the Commonwealth and other forums, Canada will continue to make this point in the most forceful of terms."

One suspects that there are more than a few members in the Conservative core that are not impressed by the government's stand on gay rights. That makes Baird's forceful views all the more commendable. In any case, he also criticized discrimination against those practicing their faith, emphasizing attacks on Christians, so the core is by no means overlooked. And then there is the new Office of Religious Freedom which should also ensure the core that Christians are firmly in the government's mind.

"For we cannot be selective in which basic human rights we defend," Mr. Baird said in his speech, "Nor can we be arbitrary in whose rights we protect." We can but agree.

One pipeline down, one to go

So Obama has sunk the Keystone XL pipeline—at least temporarily. He has said Trans Canada can apply again, so perhaps he's just being an election-year tease. Nonetheless, it's a victory against the tar sands monolith. And that's what it's all about, not just shutting down a pipeline, but shutting down the tar sands. James Hansen, one of the U.S.'s foremost climate scientists and the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said about tar sands development "Essentially it's game over for the planet."

With Keystone currently stymied, the next proposed "fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet” is the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline through B.C. to the coast. If the tar sands are to be strangled, one pipeline at at time, one market at a time, Northern Gateway is next up on the list.

Everyone who puts the environment first, who wants to help make sure it isn't "game over for the planet," can contribute to stopping Northern Gateway. National Energy Board hearings on the pipeline by a Joint Review Panel are underway and you can participate by writing a letter to:

Secretary to the Joint Review Panel
Enbridge Northern Gateway Project
444 Seventh Avenue S.W.
Calgary AB  T2P 0X8

or you can use the online form here. The deadline is March 13, 2012.

Gingrich drives Christ out of the room

During the latest debate by the candidates for the Republican nomination for president, Newt Gingrich declared, “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: Kill them.” He got a standing ovation. Andrew Jackson was, of course, the president responsible for the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States to the West. 

For a party whose members ceaselessly declare allegiance to Christianity, Gingrich and his standing ovation would seem to heap more than a little contempt on their Lord and Saviour. Christ, after all, had quite a different idea about how to treat your enemies. In Mathew 5:43-44, He says, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." In Mathew 5:38-39, He says, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Christ's advice, it seems, is not welcome in the Republican Party. It's all an eye for an eye there.

A premiers' meeting with a significant feminine presence ... finally

The premiers' meeting this week in Victoria had a new look. Normally an assemblage of men in suits, this one had a definite feminine presence with four of the 13 premiers being women. These include host Christy Clark of B.C., Alison Redford of Alberta, Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Eva Ariak of Nunavut. Only four women have held premierships in Canada prior to the current group and now we have four all at once.

We have a powerful need for more women leaders in the modern world. Although human characteristics are distributed among both genders, those that involve caring are, on average, more predominant in women and those that involve aggression are, on average, more predominant in men. Perhaps when we were nomadic hunter-gatherers, male aggression was of evolutionary value, but in the highly complex, high-tech world of today, replete with nuclear weapons and massive assaults on the environment, it is not only redundant but dangerous. If we are to avoid catastrophe, we must have more caring, for ourselves and for our environment, and that means more of the feminine characteristics in leadership, i.e. more women.

Unfortunately politics, created by men for men, is an extremely aggressive business, violent in word and often in deed, unattractive to a feminine sensibility. Even those relatively few women who thrive in politics are often of a masculine nature—a perfect example being Margaret Thatcher who was once aptly referred to as the only man in her cabinet.

A lot can be done to create a more civilized and balanced politics, and one way is to get more women into the game. So I salute our four women premiers, may they herald a much more feminine future.

Harper—the prime minister of oil

In the paranoid corridors of Harperworld, opponents of tar sands development are radicals. And the most dangerous among the radicals are those who receive funding from foreigners.

This is a rather curious accusation coming from Stephen Harper. After all, he faithfully serves the oil industry, much of which is foreign-owned. And it was Mr. Harper who insisted we should join the Americans in their invasion of Iraq. I would not pretend to delve into the recesses of the man's mind, but I suspect he supported the U.S. simply because they are our friends and he believes we should always support our friends even when they are invading other countries. At the time, he claimed, "They are our biggest asset in this very dangerous world." But the world wasn't dangerous in the way he thought. He was conned by the claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and of course they didn't.

But there is no doubt that climate change is creating a very dangerous world. And "world" is the operative word—pollution cares little for borders. So Americans who believe that tar sands emissions are contributing excessively to climate change are obliged to help those Canadians who are working to reduce the threat. Harper was willing to use taxpayer dollars—your money and mine—to help his American friends, and to risk Canadian lives in the bargain, and he now resents Americans helping their Canadian friends with their own money—the hypocrisy reeks.

Nonetheless, Harper's hostility toward tar sands opponents is perfectly understandable. He is the oil industry's man—the prime minister of oil—and therefore anyone who attacks the oil industry attacks Harper.

Those who recognize the need to put the environment first deserve all the help they can get. They certainly can't expect much from "their" government.

Corporate chiefs beginning to see the dark side

The world's capitalists are worried. The World Economic Forum, an organization composed of 1,000 of the world's most powerful corporations, is concerned that the financial crisis gripping the global economy may be leading us to a "dystopian future."

In its report Global Risks 2012, the Forum warns, "a society that continues to sow the seeds of dystopia—by failing to manage aging populations, youth unemployment, rising inequalities and fiscal imbalances—can expect greater social unrest and instability in the years to come." It went on to say, "Two dominant issues of concern emerged from the Arab Spring, the 'Occupy' movements worldwide and recent similar incidents of civil discontent: the growing frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment, and the rapid public mobilization enabled by greater technological connectivity."

Although we may quarrel with the Forum's priorities and their business bias (for instance, they had little to say about the undermining of democracy by corporate power, a major concern of the "Occupy" movement), they at least seem to recognize that "rising inequalities" is now a serious problem contributing to "frustration among citizens with the political and economic establishment." We must give the capitalists a little credit—they are learning.

Peacekeeping—"Canada can and should do more"

Sometimes a graph is worth a thousand words. A good example is a graph depicting Canada's contribution to U.N. peacekeeping that appeared in the December 2011 edition of Mondial, the newsletter of The World Federalist Movement. The graph, attached, shows Canada hovering around number one in the early 90s and then declining to 53th today. Out of almost 99,000 peacekeepers serving in 2010, we contributed the grand total of 198, mostly police.

We were a leading contributor under a Conservative government led by Brian Mulroney, our contribution declined under the Liberals, and then collapsed in 2006 under a very different Conservative government commanded by Stephen Harper. For a country that very nearly invented peacekeeping, and at one time had a reputation in the world as an honest broker, this is a sad development.

Author of the peacekeeping article, Michael Byers, points out that the United Nations is now deploying more peacekeepers that at any time in its history, yet some missions remain understaffed. In other words, we are needed. And as we have been boosting our military recently, and as we are finally pulling out of our misadventure in Afghanistan, this is an opportune time to meet that need. As Mr. Byers concludes, "Canada can and should do more."