Showing posts with label B.C.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label B.C.. Show all posts

Friday, February 18, 2011

Flathead Lake Monster



It seems BC conservationists have run into a less than reluctant if not outright hostile BC government when it comes to saving Flathead Lake, part of the Waterton National Park system, from resource development. So in a variation on P3 funding, they have put up their own money to save the valley.....

Conservation groups put up $9.4-million to save Flathead Valley

Cryptozoologists should be concerned as well since Flathead Lake is home to Ogopogo's cousin the Flathead Lake Monster. And even if it is an ancient fossil fish, they too are endangered. Except in Wisconsin apparently

Slow start: Sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Another Croc


Another crocodile tale, except this monster turned out to be a bearded lizard. And proving once again that so called eye witness testimony is the flimsiest form of evidence, for science or justice.

Of course while relatively small the bearded lizard is commonly called a 'dragon'.

And as usual you can find out more about
dragons, sea monsters and die vurm.
on my blog.


Sometimes a crocodile is just a lizard

Vancouver -- A reported "15-foot crocodile" that drew a half-dozen police cars to a Vancouver backyard on Sunday night after panicked 911 calls from a resident turned out to fit easily into a shoe-box-sized enclosure when brought before the media yesterday.

Animal-shelter staff were looking after the bearded lizard thought to have wandered away from his owners' home.

"Sometimes they can be hard to handle, and will bite, but this guy's pretty gentle," said Paul Teichroeb, chief licence inspector for the City of Vancouver, holding up the sandy-coloured creature yesterday during a police news conference.

Police say they got a 911 call from a panicky homeowner who claimed there was a five-metre-long crocodile in his back yard.

Six officers were sent in, only to discover a 30-centimetre-long reptile called a bearded lizard.

Chief licence inspector Paul Teichroeb displays Bud a bearded dragon lizard found in a backyard on 14th Avenue.

Chief licence inspector Paul Teichroeb displays Bud a bearded dragon lizard found in a backyard on 14th Avenue.
Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun

Monday, August 13, 2007

North American Union (SPP) Protests In Alberta


The Three Amigos are in Montreal this coming week-end to discuss their secret corporate pact to create a single EU style market place on the North American Continent.

Teach Ins are planned across Canada including in Alberta. Home of Petro Powers That Be. Organizers are to be congratulated for focusing on making these protests Teach Ins rather than the usual street protests that follow the G8, WTO, etc.

Since most folks have no clue as to the nature of these binding yet secret corporatist-state agreements, the point is to inform them.

We did a Teach In in Edmonton during the APEC Energy Conference. Since few people knew anything about APEC or this corporatist state model for global governance.

The annual APEC meeting was held in Vancouver which resulted in the first RCMP Attack on protesters, which was to become national and international state security policy in dealing with anti-globalization protests.

August 19

Edmonton, Alberta
Protesting the SPP in Edmonton! Help preserve Canada’s sovereignty, join the protest.
Host: Protest The S.P.P.
Time: 10:00am - 2:00pm GMT
Where: Legislative Assembly of Alberta Street: 10800 - 97 Ave. Edmonton, AB

Calgary, Alberta

Protesting the North American Union
Host: Lindsay Ross and other concerned citizens!.
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 3 p.m. GMT
Where: Calgary City Hall, 800 Macleod Trail SE, Calgary, AB, then marching to the U.S. Consulate at 615 Macleod Trail for more speeches

For cross Canada protests see Verbena-19


See:

Free Labour = Free Of Unions

Derek Burney Voice of America

Deep Integration

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada

Time For A Canadian Steel Workers Union

Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?

Cold Gold

Mittal Plays Monopoly


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,,,,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,,

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Censorship is Political

As all libertarians know political correctness is the basis of censorship. Morality is just an excuse when it comes to censorship. Sex, violence and obscenity are the social justifications for the thought police.
Censored: From Mickey Mouse to the Marx Brothers

Mr. Fox says a common misconception is that censorship activities were focused primarily on sex. He says B.C. censors cast a wide net and employed loose interpretation of the act, censoring for not only sexual morality and political content, but for social and even artistic reasons.

From movies to murals to FOI, censorship lives on

We might think porn was the main concern, but we would be wrong. Porn pretty much kept its knickers on back in the early 20th century.

Instead it was felt necessary to shield British Columbian moviegoers in the 1920s and 1930s from political controversies in the newsreels that used to precede feature films.




http://www.drooker.com/graphics/images/Censorship.jpg


See:

Gore Kulture

Cops and Robbers Video

Life Is A Video Game

Canada Censors Cartoons


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Privatizing Healthcare

The Law is an ass. In this case the flaws of Canada's Health Accord act are used to get around the principle and spirit of the law. In fact while saying they are not costing the public system a loss of doctors, they are in fact doing just that. But not from B.C.'s jurisdiction, but from the public health care systems in Alberta and Manitoba, where doctors are just as scarce. Which shows why a decentralized provincial system which allows competition for the same human resources is joke when if comes to equalization of services in a federalist state.

Private BC clinic to reopen

The False Creek Urgent Care Centre, which was criticized by some as a direct assault on Canada's public health-care system, agreed to stop admitting B.C. patients within days of its opening last December. Now, after obtaining legal advice and rounding up a roster of out-of-province doctors, the clinic is on stronger legal footing, Chris Freimond said.

And Health Minister George Abbott said this time it appears the private clinic is operating within the law.

The Canada Health Act and the province's Medicare Protection Act prohibit doctors or clinics from billing patients for medically necessary services that are covered by publicly funded medicare.

To get around this legal barrier, Dr. Godley has recruited a team of emergency physicians from outside the province, Mr. Freimond said.

Mr. Abbott said if the clinic hires doctors from outside the B.C. Medical Services Plan, then no laws are being broached.

Mr. Abbott said he was told the clinic has hired two doctors from Alberta and one from Manitoba.

By bringing doctors from out of province, Dr. Godley said the clinic will not be raiding the public system. He added that the clinic will relieve pressure on hospital emergency rooms and help reduce waiting times.


See:

Medicare

Healthcare


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , ,

Thursday, April 05, 2007

TILMA Made In Alberta NAFTA

Accidental Deliberations points out that the NDP Government in Saskatchewan will be holding public hearings on the Alberta/B.C. TILMA pact, which is an agreement to homogenize provincial standards with NAFTA.

TILMA is being is being promoted Canada wide as the model for bilateral and multilateral agreements to end trade restrictions between provinves across the country.

The fact that like NAFTA and other international corporate government accords, this one was conducted in secret, with no public input.

Saskatchewan will allow the first public hearings on TILMA. This will allow a full discussion and disclosure of this internal NAFTA style pact. And thus it will allow labour, community, and others concerned with the pact to challenge it.

Like the MAI accord and other such multilateral and bilateral corporatist state trade agreements, public exposure will show that once again those who decry the State and call for less government really mean that they oppose transparency and responsibility to the citizens, preferring to do business with business behind close doors.

TILMA is a perfect example of the Alberta democratic deficit, which is the real politiks of the the Republicanadian right when they speak of wanting smaller or less government. It really means less political responsibility to the citizens.

See:

TILMA


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, April 01, 2007

No Joke

The Alberta B.C. Free Trade agreement; TILMA came into effect today! It is modeled on NAFTA.

The Council of Canadians has denounced the pact as an intrusion on provincial political rights. It warns, for example, that it could stymie B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell's ambitious new environmental plan.

The agreement gives businesses and individuals the right to sue either province if they find that any regulation or government policy "restricts or impairs" investment.

Governments in the two provinces see the deal as a blueprint for other provinces wanting to remove interprovincial trade barriers.

The council is also warning that a trade, investment and labour agreement between B.C. and Alberta could negatively affect municipalities.

It says school boards and health and social service agencies could also be stripped of protection by private investors wanting to put profit before regulations.

Pickard, the council's regional organizer for B.C., says that unfortunately, TILMA is not an April fool's joke.

The B.C. and Alberta governments are selling the agreement as a way to erase trade barriers.

But Pickard says it was signed without public consultation or legislative debate.

"TILMA has very powerful provisions that will allow companies to challenge and overturn important municipal bylaws," Pickard said in a statement.




See

Labour

Unions

Temporary Workers


NAFTA

AFL






Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

The boom that is bringing thousands of temporary foreign workers to Alberta is also attracting recruiters hoping to profit from the demand. Some recruiters may be breaking the rules by charging foreign workers for the privilege of earning a paycheque in Alberta.

It's called Padronism and it's the soure of old world Immigration to North America in the fin de sicle of the 19th Cnetury and the early years of last Century.

Rules? Rules? What rules, in Alberta we have no stinking rules for business. That's why the government got out of the business of regulating business.


We got into a situation where just anybody hangs up a shingle and calls themselves a consultant, simply by virtue of the fact they may know some people abroad and think that they can link them to employers," said Edmonton Castle Downs MLA Thomas Lukaszuk.

Even worse, says the Alberta Federation of Labour, no one is enforcing the law, creating a situation ripe for exploitation. "It's like the Wild West," said AFL president Gil McGowan. "We need a sheriff to bring some order to the situation. Unfortunately, neither our federal or provincial governments seem willing to put on the badge."

And we wouldn't be having a labour shortage if we did not have an unregulated, unplanned development boom in Fort McMurray.

Unlike his counterparts in Ottawa and Victoria, Stelmach doesn't see the political potential in going green. On the contrary, he's using the issue to titillate the NEP base, a la Ralph Klein. Speaking in downtown Calgary this week, Stelmach said Alberta is not prepared to make any grand sacrifices or interventions to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "My government does not believe in interfering in the free marketplace," he said.

In Alberta and BC the new internal Labour Immigration agreement (TILMA) opens up both provinces to influxes of workers not just from their respective provinces but from across North America because it is NAFTA compliant.

And with our new Federal Minister of Immigration and Human Resoucrces being pro-temporary workers, is allowing an extension of two years to work in Canada.

While the move was applauded by stressed western Canadian businesses desperate for foreign workers, it was panned by labour leaders worried about Canadians' jobs and workers' rights.

"Employers shouldn't be put in the driver's seat when it comes to who gets into the country, because their interests aren't necessarily in line with the broader Canadian public," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

The new temporary worker extension was announced the same day that the Business Councils of North America met with Mexican, Canadian and American politicians in Ottawa to discuss the North American Security and Prosperity treaty. Meetings which were held in secret.

This exploitation will continue until these workers are unionized.

It is forward to the past, backwards to the future.


Montreal's King of Italian Labour: A Case Study of Padronism

Robert F. Harney

Abstract


"Montreal's King of Italian Labour" concerns the activities of Montreal padrone, Antonio Cordasco, who served as an intermediary between Canadian big business and Italian migrant labour during the early part of the century, in relation to the nature of padronism itself. The padrone's activities extended both along the communications network between European labour and North American industry and into many aspects of Italian life in Canada. Although the dishonesty and corruption of the padrone are clear, it is also clear that it was not the migrant labourers who objected to his work, or indeed, when it suited them, the Canadian government itself. Big business in Canada, backed by the government, needed transient labour and it was the actual immigrant policy of the Canadian government, the wish to make use of Italian labour but to prevent it from turning into permanent immigration, which made Cordasco's role possible. The migrant labourers, looking for means to make money and then return to their hometown, were happy with the padrone as long as he supplied the jobs promised them. It is shown then that the padrone came under attack only when the needs of Canadian big business did not satisfy the requirements of migrant labourers. Cordasco was destroyed, in the end, not by the Canadian government's concern for migrant labour, but by a more practical dilemma, that is, the existence of hundreds of labourers caught in Canada without work and without means of returning to their homeland.

Captive Workforce: Human Trafficking in America and the Effort to End It.


Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, “human trafficking” in its modern
sense was referred to by a wide variety of terms, from “Padronism” to “White Slavery.”
In the present day, “human trafficking” has not only been used to describe a wide range
of activities with respect to the commodification of humans, but other terms, from
“modern-day slavery,” to “involuntary servitude’ have been loosely used to describe
situations that qualify as “human trafficking” under the United Nations’ definition. Thus
because the terms “human trafficking,” “slavery” and “forced labor” have been and
continue to be used with enormous variation, any study on the subject has a tendency to
be enormously confusing. For my part, I attempt to be as clear and consistent as possible
in the application of terms throughout my work. However, readers should be aware that
there is a great deal of over-lap between each of these concepts, and thus any discussion
of the subject is bound to contain semantic slippages and blurred conceptual boundaries.

Rural Work, Household Subsistence, and the North American Working Class

This essay examines seasonal rural work as part of the survival strategies of rural and urban households and individuals in the Midwestern United States. Using workers' memoirs and data from government investigations, the lives of so-called “hobo” workers are examined in relation to communities, labor markets, gender and sexuality, and class formation. “Hobo” was a colloquial term for seasonal migrant workers; most were young, immigrant and US-born men of European ancestry employed in crop harvesting, logging, mining, railroad construction, and other short-term jobs. The seasonal labor market drew together a heterogeneous workforce including farm owners, farm laborers, displaced industrial workers, and young men seeking adventure, as well as criminals, marginally employable drunkards, and disabled men. The essay traces the lives of individual workers, explains labor market structures, and places the mostly-male seasonal workforce in the context of families and communities. The history of rural work in the Midwestern US confounds notions of class formation that posit a one-way trip from peasant to worker, and suggests the ways in which theories of class formation have leaned too heavily on an unexamined image of rural life.

JSTOR: Reinventing Free Labor: Immigrant Padrones and Contract

Reinventing Free Labor: Padrones and Immigrant Workers in the North American West, 1880-1930. By Gunther Peck (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xiii plus 293 pp. $54.95/cloth. $19.95/paperback). In this rigorous and readable study, Gunther Peck provides a new perspective on an archetype of immigration history--the padrone, the immigrant labor contractor who held great power over his workers by controlling their employment. Early twentieth century reformers and some historians have viewed the padrones as villainous Old World relics, corrupt throwbacks to feudal hierarchy and deference trying to retain their power and stature amidst the rapid dynamic of modern industrial capitalism. Peck's padrones emerge as "entrepreneurs of space," providing critical links and a variety of functions in the volatile transnational labor markets that spread out across the North American continent.

See

Temporary Workers

Labour

Unions

NAFTA

AFL






Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Free Labour = Free Of Unions

Critic howls over trade agreement Note the headline.....It's from the Edmonton Sun of course......And you know there is trouble when the Fraser Institute says its a good deal....This is the latest ne0-liberal/neo-con attack on workers and their unions.

Alberta's highly touted free trade agreement with B.C. is "a wolf in sheep's clothing," says the head of the Alberta Federation of Labour. Gil McGowan is warning other provinces that the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, dubbed TILMA, "is not all sweetness and light."

But McGowan says union lawyers fear the deal will give companies the right to sue municipal and provincial governments and school boards that try to bring privatized services under the public umbrella.

He's also concerned the deal will result in a "dumbing down" of Alberta rules for trades training.

Liberal critic Bill Bonko says the deal should have been debated in the legislature if it was so good, rather than being negotiated behind closed doors.

But Jason Clemens of the Fraser Institute raves about the deal, saying the Yukon, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces are keen on it.

"This really could be a domino effect across the country to remove or dramatically reduce trade barriers," he said.

Also see: Legal advice on TILMA

For more on the TILMA go here and here

This is a provincial agreement that was drafted to meet the open corridor polices of NAFTA and the new North American Union proposed under the
Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) which will be discussed by the Three Amigos this summer in Kananaskis.

And it fits in with the agenda of the Harpocrites in Ottawa and their business cronies who are promoting this policy as well as the increased use of temporary workers.

The $10-billion plan to help manufacturing compete globally
Expand the temporary foreign worker program to make it easier to hire non-Canadians when there are no domestic citizens available.

Although governments can only influence manufacturers' success to a certain degree, the industry believes Ottawa could be doing much more to help.

The sector's wish list includes lower corporate income taxes, the elimination of provincial trade barriers, more investment in skills, and broader tax credits for industrial training and corporate research.
And let's not forget who Harper put in charge as Minister of Human Resources.

And there is a Conservative former MLA and anti-union candidate running in former Conservative MP John Williamson's federal riding here. After all Alberta has the worst labour laws in Canada. And is home to the Right To Work Movement which was once headed by Conservative MP Rob Anders.

As Jean Charest once said, back when he was leader of the Federal PC's, "Alberta sets the agenda for Canada."


See

Labour

Unions

Temporary Workers


NAFTA

AFL






Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
, , , , , , , , , , , ,