A national disaster, made for TV
Toronto Star March 22, 2008
As we speak, Canada is quietly negotiating away rights to our water. The cloak-and-dagger dealings mirror the subject of a critically acclaimed CBC series that was dropped late last year. Coincidence?
The last we had a glimpse of weed king Jimmy Reardon, he was sinking to the ground in front of his Vancouver club, Chickadee, shot multiple times and bleeding.
Did he bleed out? Was that it for Reardon and Intelligence, the gritty CBC street drama that had fans hooked for two seasons, ending abruptly last December?
Before the show was dropped recently from the network’s upcoming fall lineup, there was buzz the CBC first buried, then killed Intelligence, because the storyline hit a nerve in corporate ranks. It’s about the mass export of Canadian water to a thirsty U.S. amid the overall threat of economic integration.
As one theory had it, new CBC brass under Richard Stursberg, head of English-language operations, was worried enough about the spectre of privatization under the federal Conservatives without making it worse with a show about one of Ottawa’s most secret operations: the sale of Canadian water.
Sure, everybody at CBC loved, loved, loved the show, but it still ended up as collateral damage.
Fantastical, maybe. Still, there’s a strong case to be made that, however else director Chris Haddock irritated the mucky-mucks, his storyline was dangerously close to real events happening in Canada, including secret talks about water that could leave this country facing shortages in times of emergency.
Indeed, Haddock was ahead of the curve. The point can be made that political journalists could get a truer sense of the wheeling and dealing around water from this show than the stonewalling of officials involved in the hush-hush, behind-closed-door negotiations for what’s called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.
Time was, only nationalists took on the cause of Canadian resources. During the 1988 election over free trade between Canada and the United States, we heard from, among others, the Council of Canadians, Maude Barlow and a host of ecumenical groups across the country.
They continued to march as the deal grew into the much more comprehensive 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and became a prototype for talks at the World Trade Organization, as it was always meant to be by its corporate sponsors.
How things have changed.
Today, the water issue is so critical, the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto – hardly seen in its inception as a hotbed of Canadian economic nationalism – has morphed into one of our fiercest champions for water rights, to the point of urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to pass clear protection policy.
The problem is water is not protected in Canada, and most Canadians are blithely oblivious.
The Munk Centre sounded the alarm with a 2007 report that warned:
“While there are many well-publicized statements and written documents indicating Canada’s water is not for sale, experts believe these have little or no legal force.”
Added the report: “We need federal legislation preventing the bulk removal of water from Canada’s drainage basins in the event that any province is unable or unwilling to do so.”
The Harper government has rejected attempts to implement a national strategy to protect water, whether from bulk export or large-scale diversion. In 2007, members of the standing committee on international affairs proposed talks with the U.S. and Mexico to exclude water from the scope of NAFTA. Conservative members rejected the plan.
As well, New Democratic Party MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park) failed to get a motion through the Commons to recognize water “as a fundamental right” of Canadians, as well as prohibiting bulk export and imposing restrictions on new diversions.
“What’s really scandalous,” said Nash, “is this lack of stewardship over our water is occurring even as the government is negotiating a continental water policy in secret that offers up water as a fait accompli.”
She’s referring to talks for the euphemistically named Security and Prosperity Partnership, which by all expert accounts includes major sectors like water. The Munk Centre, among other institutions, has called for these talks to be made public.
And these pleas come in a world bracing for further drought even as the United Nations marks World Water Day today. The Organization on Economic Cooperation and Development recently predicted climate change could leave half the world’s cities without sufficient drinking water within 20 years. And growing shortages in American regions – the southwest, the Midwest farm belt and the southeast – are well documented.
“By 2015, something like 35 per cent of cities within the continental U.S. will be undergoing serious water shortages,” said Tony Clarke, director of the Polaris Institute, an Ottawa-based think tank. Many experts, including Clarke, fear it’s already too late for Canada to control its water reserves.
They argue that since water is not covered by NAFTA, it is unprotected and indistinguishable from any other commodity, service or investment and can be treated as such.
Clarke lays out a chilling scenario: All it takes to set a NAFTA precedent is for one province to allow bulk export and various NAFTA clauses – those dealing with “national treatment” and “proportional sharing” – kick in.
“Once the taps have been turned on, they can’t be turned off,” said Clarke. In essence, no future Canadian government could legally provide water to its own citizens until American needs had been met – even in times of national emergency. Worse, environmental lawyer Steven Shrybman has pointed out that “water export controls are prohibited” under NAFTA and the WTO.
Referring to the treaty’s “national treatment” provision, Shrybman argues: “Canada is also precluded from denying U.S. investors and service providers the same access to Canadian water it allows Canadian companies, communities and residents.”
It’s not hard to see why Haddock was drawn to the issue of water. The irony here, at least for those Canadians who like their water, is real life is as scary, if not scarier, than anything he could dream up for his show.
Intelligence had Reardon (Ian Tracey), the flawed protagonist, working as an informant for Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), ultra-cool Pacific Coast boss for CSIS. He provided her with intel about a scheme involving badass politicians and sleazy tycoons aiming to get rich on the sale of Canadian water.
In the show, integration with the States is so deep, Spalding is about the only thing standing between Reardon and the U.S. spooks trying to kill him.
Director of the multi-award-winning Da Vinci’s Inquest, Haddock won a directing Gemini for Intelligence – the show pulled in 11 nominations overall – at the awards last fall in Regina.
“Water is such a basic issue for Canadians,” he told the Star recently from Vancouver. “Our water is part of our heritage and we have this myth there’s a limitless supply. I knew Canadians would relate to the idea it could be threatened.”
He added: “People were telling us they loved it, but there was always something in the air at the CBC the show was doomed.”
At the Mother Corp, apparently everybody loves the show. Jeff Keay, CBC media director for English television, scoffs at the notion of self-censorship, noting: “We all love the show and there’s been tremendous critical acclaim.”
He was asked whether the CBC brass, and the Stursberg crew in particular, pulled it over fears of privatization or angering the Tory government. Keay replied he’d checked with corporate headquarters and could report that wasn’t the case. He added that Stursberg wouldn’t be available for an interview because he wouldn’t say anything different.
Keay pointed to The Border as an example of the public broadcaster not being afraid to pull its punches with the Americans. A fine show, no question. Yet it’s one thing to have Canuck border guards occasionally getting testy with Americans in TV-land – but selling off the nation’s birthright?
CBC spokesperson Kathryn Heath, who’d spoken earlier in Keay’s absence, said the numbers weren’t there for the show – 312,000 viewers in its first season and 267,00 last year (two other recently cancelled but critically acclaimed CBC shows, MVP and jPod, had comparable numbers).
About promotion, she said: “We don’t share details of promotional strategies…but we did not try to bury (it). Some shows make it and some shows don’t. That’s the way it works with television.”
However, Haddock, who began expressing frustrations with the show’s treatment in media interviews last fall, has always been puzzled by the lack of promotion.
Globe and Mail media critic John Doyle, long suspicious Intelligence would be chopped, shared his concern. Wrote Doyle last December: “As anyone with eyeballs can conclude, The Tudors and Little Mosque got tons of promotion while Intelligence got little.”
When the axe fell, Doyle accused CBC of having “simply swapped stupidity for Intelligence.”
Fans, take heart.
Ultimately, it may not be over for Intelligence.
“We all love the show, we’re all fighters and we’re determined to keep it alive,” said Haddock, who’s negotiating with American and other international interests, as well as unnamed Canadian networks. Could be, he said, Intelligence will be back on Canadian TV this fall.
If so, anything can happen. Mary Spalding, bless her complicated heart, could uncover the whole dirty mess and Canadians could rise up against the export of water.
In real life? Well, that’s a different matter entirely.
If we’re going to ferret anything out of those secret meetings on water, it looks like we may have to depend on Chris Haddock’s imagination for our intelligence.
Linda Diebel writes on national affairs. She can be reached at ldiebel@thestar.ca
With permission from Linda Diebel
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on April 17th, 2008 at 10:26 am:
Canadians should be concerned about the demise of Chris Haddock’s TV Series Intelligence. It was drawing international interest, and was critically acclaimed. Haddock is the most important artist working in Canadian Television today. His track record includes the series Da Vinci’s Inquest, and Haddock is somebody that Canadians can feel proud of. Intelligence was touching on issues that the Corporate Overlords and their cronies in Government don’t want out there in the light of day. Like the American interest in Canada’s water, and the increasing merger, both militarily and economically between Canada and the USA, which threatens Canada’s Sovereignity and unique identity. We have only to look at the History of the USSR to see who was silenced first, when the oppressive and fascist regime took over. It was the writers and poets, and not even the composers, like Dmitri Shostakovich, were strong-armed into submission, and had to produce Hail to the Chief stuff if they wanted to go on living. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 pm:
The Canadian Government has just quietly killed the Co-ordinated Access to Information Requests System. That system had served to make the Government processes more open to view. They have now shut the door on transparency and accountability. Alarm is spreading and petitions are being circulated…..In the above paragraph I made a typing error in the third to last line. The word not should be erased before the word even.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 5th, 2008 at 11:18 pm:
Guess what’s coming up next folks! There is a serious plan afoot to privatize Canada Post. People who live in rural areas will have to pay a whole lot more. And do you think the average Canadian Citizen had any input into this desecration? Not bloody likely. The time to start screaming and yelling to keep Canada for Canadians is now. Canada was built by hard, honest work, not by money lenders and bureaucrats and governments who don’t allow honest debate in parliament, or in the media. Canadians can band together and not use any cashregisters at all for a day or two and show them we mean business. It’s what we want, it’s not what they, the corporate elite and their government cronies want. Thousands and thousands of homeless people are hungry on the streets of Canada. For shame. We are a rich country, and all our labour is going into the hands of a very few at the top.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 7th, 2008 at 8:13 pm:
Whoops! All my commentaries about Intelligence have been removed from CBC Websites, where they have been for months. Everybody else’s commentaries are still there. I have obviously stepped on somebody’s toes.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 9th, 2008 at 12:07 am:
There is a radio blog on the Chris Haddock “New Job” site, via CBC, which is supposedly about the demise of the long-running Royal Canadian Air Farce. The “interview’ gets quickly taken over by chatter about a book by Bill Brioux about American TV. It is very boring and crass talk, too. Brioux actually suggests, several times, that RCAF do a satire on the American election. He seems to have no inkling that this is a Canadian show, and the point of the interview is that the show is ending after a run of many years. I had planned to listen until Chris Haddock came on, but it was just so boring and crass that I couldn’t stand any more. When I wrote in what I thought of that interview, all 27 of my commentaries dissappeared off the CBC Chris Haddock Website, and 2 comments off the CBC Sluggish Ratings Site. Some of my words are still up on Google, about those 2 topics, under my name, Madeline Bruce. .
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 9th, 2008 at 10:44 am:
The CBC Ombusman, and also the moderator Sharon Mullholland cleared up some confusion. That radio blog, and that website, are not from the CBC but from someone named Diane. Sites run by CBC will have the CBC logo in the top left corner - cbc.ca, and include http://www.cbc.ca in the web address URL.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 14th, 2008 at 3:01 am:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not embody the values of the average kind, decent, peace-loving Canadian. We do not have his ear, and he seems fine with that. This week he announced that Military spending is the top priority, “If Canada wants to be taken seriously on the world stage”. To this end, he has pledged 30 billion dollars of tax-payer’s money. This, when there are now an estimated 300,000 Canadians who are homeless, and working families are lining up at Food Banks in increasing numbers. Candians did not sign up to be part of President Bush’s World Domination Plan, but eveidently Stephen Harper did. Canadians don’t want this increasing merging with the USA. That is indeed a spectre that strikes terror in our hearts. There are huge swaths of the earth that loathe Americans, and that’s a dangerous thing.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 14th, 2008 at 3:05 am:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not embody the values of the average kind, decent, peace-loving Canadian. We do not have his ear, and he seems fine with that. This week he announced that military spending is the top priority, “If Canada wants to be taken seriously on the world stage”. To this end, he has pledged 30 billion dollars of tax-payer’s money. This, when there are now an estimated 300,000 Canadians who are homeless, and working families are lining up at Food Banks in increasing numbers. Canadians did not sign up to be part of President Bush’s World Domination Plan, but evidently Stephen Harper did. Canadians don’t want this increasing merging with the USA. That is indeed a spectre that strikes terror in our hearts. There are huge swaths of the earth that loathe Americans, and that’s a dangerous thing.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 19th, 2008 at 10:48 am:
The Canadian Federal Government has brought in a Closure Motion so that the Opposition will not be able to debate many of the Bills that will be passed, in the final few weeks of the Spring Session. What is happening to Democracy in Canada is so horrible that it is sort of unthinkable. The TV Series Intelligence was bringing some of this out, and garnering international interest and critical aclaim, when Phhhhht! it disappeared from the air-waves. Wake up Canadians, for the love of Canada. The very reliable Stats Canada has found that our incomes are down, and the wealthiest British Columbians are getting wealthier, the middle class is shrinking RADICALLY and the numbers of poor are increasing significantly. In Nanaimo, B. C. growing numbers of working families are lining up at the Food Bank.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 20th, 2008 at 8:14 am:
According to the reliable Stats Canada, the richest top 5% of Canadians have become obscenely rich, and are getting richer by the minute. The bottom 5% are homeless and hungry, as can be seen on all our city streets. Democracy is no longer functioning in Canada. The middle class is shrinking rapidly, and the working poor are increasingly lining up at food banks. Those in control of our country are no longer taking responsibility. Prime Minister Stephen Harper eludes confrontation on these issues by cutting off dialogue, both in parliament, and in the media. CBC has become a toothless, banal shadow of it’s former self, thanks to Stephan Harper. Since Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are QUITE PREPARED TO WATCH CANADIAN CITIZENS STARVE IN THE STREETS Volunteers are handing out sandwiches and clothing as they can. Meanwhile Stephen Harper struts around and plays war games with the moronic President Bush. Enough. It is the people who are doing the work who rightfully own this country. We have power, if we will just use it. For example, if they go too far, we can simply stop using all cash registers for a few days to bring the Corporate Bullies who are running the government into line with what we want for OUR country.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am:
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is saying, and doing nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are now homeless on the streets, as welfare rates and the lack of affordable housing are making it less and less possible to survive. A large percentage of these forgotten are physically and mentally handicapped. But Harper is full of policies when it involves stomping down his hob-nail boot. For centuries Canada has had a tradition of WELCOMING Americans who disagreed with policies like SLAVERY and the VIETNAM WAR. It is reported that there are possibly hundreds of American Iraq War Resisters in Canada, and they are being refused asylum now. They are going to be deported. As is usual with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadians have not had a choice in these policies. If you value democracy, and you love Canada as we have known it, vote Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party out of office. The Liberals don’t look much better, with their history of corruption, and sliding along after the Conservatives, so it’s time to go with the NDP.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on May 25th, 2008 at 10:54 pm:
I tuned into CBC News: Sunday, tonight, and they were doing a review of the American Sex & the City. I feel angry about this, and betrayed, and ripped off as a Canadian Citizen.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 1st, 2008 at 8:31 pm:
CBC News, Sunday again. CBC means the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is supposed to be informing Canadian Citizens about the truth of the world they live in, in case this is being forgotten. Some of the lead stories: A quite lengthy segment about the new autobiography by the wife of the former British Prime Minister, Cheri Blair. The death of American clothes designer Yves St. Laurent, a fire in Las Angeles, something on the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Prince William’s Army activities. Thankfully there was a piece on the imminent issue of American Iraq Army deserters living in Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to send them back to the U.S. to face possible torture or death. (surprised?) There will be a vote on this next week. Stay tuned. Do we want to live in a country that condones, and actively abets torture? Next on the program was the Passionate Eye, a supposedly Canadian program. The subject: The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. I get the feeling that the Canadian Government, and the CBC, care nothing about Canada as a nation, and care nothing for Canadian citizens. The wealthy elite is running this country for themselves.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 am:
This morning I am trying to find something Canadian to listen to on AM radio. This is what I am getting: more chatter, which has been going on for weeks on CNN TV, about the polygamous families in Texas. Now, I learn that Barbara Walters is in Toronto, Canada, and she is being interviewed about her new book. Our nation of Canada, our identity, our voice, the will of the people, is slipping through our fingers. And just try to get a letter to the editor of a newspaper published that is against the policies of the Conservative Government.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 7th, 2008 at 9:55 pm:
I feel very suspicious that the Hockey Night Song has disappeared from CBC. It has been an emblem of our very identity and spirit. This is more evidence of the creeping giveaway of the Canadian Nation, the Canadian identity, and the will of the Canadian people.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 8th, 2008 at 2:26 pm:
My 27 commentaries about each episode of Chris Haddock’s TV series Intelligence were taken off the TV eh? What’s up in Canadian Television site when I complained about a radio blog which was supposed to be about the Royal Canadian Air Farce show, and was also supposed to have Christopher Haddock on it. Instead, some American takes over to plug his book about American television. For one thing, he was an extremely boring, rude, and crass person, and for another thing I was not interested in some American plugging his book on our airwaves. Now I have learned that CBC staff are coached to soften Anti-American attitudes. The other commentaries remain up on that site, and they don’t make much sense, because the other writers keep referring back to what I have said in my commentaries. This is all part of the plan for deep integration with the U.S. and this is taking place behind closed doors. Canadian nationalism, and the Canadian identity is being eroded by those in power. This is not the will of the people, but a secret, elaborate scheme by the power and money elite of the continent. The loss of the Candadian Hockey Night Song is just one example of it. I recall the scene in the movie Casablanca, where the Nazi Officers sing a marching song in Rick’s nightclub, and the French customers respond by drowning them out with the Marseillaise, the French National Anthem. And the movie The Sound of Music, when the Von Trapp Family Singers lead the audience in the song Edelveiss. These anthems are about national identity, someting that we all hold precious, because it is a matter of one’s soul.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 14th, 2008 at 2:01 am:
Turned on CBC late tonight. Barbara Walters is being interviewed about her book, particularly the part about her affair with a married man. Who cares? Canadians do not want this rot on our airwaves. STOP with this pandering to Americans! It’s not even interesting. It is just stupid.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 15th, 2008 at 12:52 am:
It was good to see the Canadian TV movie The Quality of Life on CBC tonight - a Chris Haddock production. In my mind I’m turning that title around to The Life of “Quality”, since it was the governing elite of Vancouver, plus the Mayors of other Canadian cities that were being portrayed - the top of the heap, so to speak, and a key location was a mansion in the posh, old-money Shaughnessy district of Vancouver. As is typical with Haddock productions there is far greater complexity than there is in American productions, and the workings of government, power, influence, and the role of the media are analyzed and taken seriously. There was no glaring black or white here - Haddock is too subtle for that, but I was left with a good feeling - that Mayor Dominic Davinci did the best he could with a lousy situation, but didn’t martyr himself, so that he can continue to fight the good fight for the most vulnerable people in our society. What good is power for it’s own sake, and what does unlimited greed (and lust) do to the human personality? You can have all the brains and money and power in the world, but your life would be a banal, useless and meaningless exercise unless you did some good with it. Lord Canrad Black would be one example. Orson Welle’s movie masterpiece Citizen Kane is another example. It was great to see some of those terrific actors from Davinci’s Inquest and from Intelligence. Let’s keep this dynamite team in Canada, where it belongs.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on June 28th, 2008 at 2:44 pm:
I tuned into CBC’s the Hour this week, and found that the American actor Alan Alda was plugging his new book. This is a Canadian show. There is no excuse for allowing superannuated American actors, who have already made their bundle anyway, to use us, and our airwaves for their own ends, while Canadian talent goes hungry and unrecognized. No excuse.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on July 1st, 2008 at 8:41 am:
Tuned into the CBC show The Hour (I live in Hope) and it was a re-run of Barbara Walters plugging her new book. The conversation centered on her affair with a prominent married man…….Wow, how enlightening. Let me write this down - what was that again? ZZZZZZZZZZ Huh? Oh, sorry, I fell asleep. Guess if you make the CBC so boring, so irrelevant, nobody will care what happens to it. Part of the hollowing out process, the selling off of Canada, the deep integration with the world dominators, the corporate gangsters, to the South.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on July 3rd, 2008 at 3:31 pm:
What’s the plan for the mentally ill in Nanaimo? The Canadian Mental Health Association is planning to buy the old Balmoral Hotel, on Haliburton Street, which is in the seediest, most drug-infested area in the city, to house and provide services for this vulnerable population. They want to have a drop-in centre for the homeless within this proposed facility. Do you think they would plunk down a Cancer facility, or a surgical unit, down on skid row? And do you think they would attach a drop-in centre for the homeless in one of those facilities? Some of that homeless population, in that particular area, is drug-addicted. Mixing the two populations is a reciped for disaster. But it’s become de rigueur. The downtown Salvation Army New Hope centre in Nanaimo already has some beds for the mentally ill. What happened to the old concept of Milieu Therapy? Waking up in the morning beside a drug-addicted homeless person is not good for morale or mental health. Society is accepting these disgraceful conditions, when the wealthiest strata are becoming wealthier, the middle class is disappearing, and the poorest Canadians, including 1 in 7 children, are suffering. This government does not care about Canadians. Time for a change.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on July 4th, 2008 at 1:26 am:
Television is a powerful cultural instrument and the vehicle of our national identity. CBC Television is being hollowed out and gutted, and it’s time Canadians put a stop to this. We are all paying money for the CBC. The CBC show the Hour is a waste of Canadian’s time, irrelevant, and an insult to our intelligence. Tonight they had on the foul-mouthed London England based Chef Gordon Ramsay plugging his new book. Host George Stroumboulopoulus is not funny. Canada produces the best comedians in the world, and then gives them away to the U. S. This is all wrong.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on August 28th, 2008 at 6:23 pm:
I watched the CBC show This Hour Has 22 Minutes last night. I noticed that they did a skit on the American election - zzzzz - who needs it. Also there was a supposedly (???) funnny (?) skit about Canadian Military Helicopters. There is nothing funny, or nice, about War, and killing. War is about murdering people - children, women, and men. Murdering people.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on August 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am:
I think that everybody has seen the great war film Apocolypse Now, which shows the horrific slaughter of Vietmanese villagers from machine-gunning and bomb-dropping American Military Helicopters, with background Trombone music by Wagner. That is the reality of what military helicopters do. Showing Canadian military helicoptors on a supposedly comedic Canadian TV show smacks of Wartime Propaganda to me.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 5th, 2008 at 9:34 am:
Wow. Things are looking up in Nanaimo. The brilliant filmaker (Sombrio) Paul Manly is running in the next civic election. Paul is the brave young man who took bootleg film footage of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership Conference that was held in Montebello, Quebec. This was a closed door, secretive meeting of the richest, most powerful elites of the U.S. Mexico, and Canada. The streets around this enclave were lined with armed Riot Police with big hard plastic shields around their heads and upper bodies. Ugh! Horrible! Like something from a science fiction movie. But their it was, in Canada, captured on film for all to see. Some Riot Police donned disguises and masks, and infiltrated some peaceful protestors there, who included the great author and thinker Maud Barlow. These imposters were seen to be carrying big rocks in their hands. They were unmasked by the protestors, and scurried back to their colleagues. Paul Manly is the kind of leadership material that Canada needs. He is the hope of the future.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm:
The local newspaper printed misinformation about Paul Manly running for Civic Election. I have been informed that they will print a retraction tomorrow, September 6/08.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 10th, 2008 at 11:19 pm:
There is information surfacing that internet communication will be increasingly controlled and censored. With that in mind, I want to voice my opinion of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Government. I think they are promoting hatred of a class or group of people, the most marginalized segment of society, the addicts and the criminals. Let us never forget that it was a criminal who hung on a cross beside the crucified Jesus Christ, and that Jesus forgave him. Not everyone is a Christian, I realize, but the antiquated, punitive penal system in the U. S. is not working. The prison system there has been privatised, and is becoming increasingly dehumanized. Human beings being treated little better than dogs. Being fed something that barely resembles food, and is just enough to survive on. There is a group of Nanaimo Christians that visits prisoners in the U. S. regularly. For some reason, Canadian Prsons will not allow them to set foot on their premises. Why? There are different laws for the rich and the poor. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney is suspected of receiving $100,000 under the table from a shady source, and then not reporting it for income tax for a lengthy period. The Hell’s Angels building and assets were seazed because it was suspected money came from the result of crime. How come nothing was seized from Brian Mulroney? I’m not saying the Hell’s Angels are perfect, but where is the justice here? The Jesus said that he loved justice even more than he loved mercy. That was quite a statement. Quite a statement to ponder.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 12th, 2008 at 10:40 am:
I am receiving material in the post on a daily basis, sent by Stephen Harper and his Conservative Government. It is targeting what appears to be young Canadians who commit crimes. It speaks of the cost to Canadians of car thefts. This petty crime is peanuts compared to the vast increase of wealth to the richest segment of Canadian society over the last few years. Many working families can no longer make ends meet, while the richest are stuffing their pockets and eliminating social programs. The gist of the written material is trumpeting punishment of the young who have lost their way. Without rehabilitation and vocationl training, these young men will become more hopeless and brutalized. Stephen Harper does not represent the average, decent, kindly, merciful, and hard working Canadian. This smacks of hate mongering of a target population, not far removed from anti-semitism. I say stick it to the corporate pigs who have strangled freedom of speech in the media in Canada.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 12th, 2008 at 11:06 am:
And these young men are somebody’s sons, brothers, maybe husbands, and fathers. Canadian songwriter Burton Cummings wrote a very, very beautiful song about one of these young men. Burton Cummings, where are you when we need you?
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 12th, 2008 at 2:56 pm:
The name of the Burton Cummings song that I mentioned is Break it to Them Gently. In this song Cummings imagines the pain and tenderness that a criminal might feel towards his grandmother, and “baby sister” and other loved ones.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on September 15th, 2008 at 9:24 am:
Well-meaning Christian Volunteers are not allowed to enter Prisons in B. C. A group of Nanaimo Christians is regularly visiting the “Hard-Timers” and the “Lifers” in Washington, USA. They are welcomed with open arms by both the prisoners and their wardens. The Cell Blocks that receive these visits become less violent and disordered. Prisoners receiving these visits are now being kept in a separate block, the good block, as it were. Exactly the same thing is happening in Brazil, according to a Reuters newspaper account. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s plant for punishment and more punishment for convicts is hogwash.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on October 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 am:
I watched the debate between the Federal candidates, en francais, on TV tonight. God, what an educated, sophisticated country we live in, where all 5 candidates are speaking fluent French! A country to be proud of, and one worth preserving from American influence. The most telling moment for me was when Stephen Harper was confronted with the fact that he does not reveal to Canadians how much of their money is spent on war. He wriggled out of it like a teflon man. I hope Canadians were watching closely. He showed his true colours, I thought, and his ideology, which is, as I see it “I’m here to govern, not to listen to Canadians.” Jack Layton aquitted himself well, and is the real alternative to Harper. He stated categorically that if elected, the NDP would pull the troops out of Afghanistan immediately and use that money for aid and peacekeeping, which is Canada’s traditional, and much respected role in the world.
Comment by Madeline Bruce, writing from Canada on October 3rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm:
During the all candidates debate that was in English, Jack Layton confronted Stephen Harper with the fact that there is a very high percentage of First Nations people in jails, and the natives’living conditions are often abominable - without even clean water to drink. Harper did not respond to those words, instead he spoke of the need for tougher prison sentences. There was a complete disconnect. Do we want to go further in this direction, and become ever meaner and colder as people? In Nanaimo the homeless people are shuffled out of the downtown area, told to move along - to WHERE? Recently the small bundles of belongings that belong to the homeless, hidden away, are being confiscated by the authorities. This trajectory is getting worse. What comes next? Tasering them? Kicking them?