Canada Celebrates Star Wars

Gee it was only two weeks ago that Star Wars celebrated its 30th Anniversary. And long time Trekkie; Stephen Harper celebrates by quietly changing Canada's Space Program to a Space War program.

As usual with the Harper Humpty Dumpty Government, what they have done in secret they deny in public. With Foreign Minister MacKay in the house denying that Canada has any interest in Ballistic Missile Defense. After all their other broken promises how can anyone believe anything Peter says.

Hon. Peter MacKay (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member, and I thank for her concern, that clearly there has been no ask whatsoever to revisit this issue. We are not pursuing missile defence.

While claiming to be broker Harper was out maneuvered by Putin who offered Bush a base for his missile defense system in Azerbaijan if as the Americans claimed their BMD was for protection from Iran.

PM backs 'Star Wars': Critics

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is quietly throwing his weight behind the U.S. missile defence program while he's at the G-8 summit, even though Canada officially opposed the controversial scheme two years ago, opposition leaders say.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said yesterday he's concerned over the way Harper has stepped up to defend U.S. President George W. Bush and the missile-defence scheme in an ongoing showdown with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Harper is to sit down with today.

Weston: Space program morphing

Less money and more military

By GREG WESTON -- Sun Media

Just for fun, we dug out the space agency's three-year "report on planning and priorities," presented to Parliament in March 2001 by the then Liberal industry minister, John Manley.

The documents boasted Canada's ability to use its orbiting satellites to help monitor the environment and manage Canada's natural resources.

But nowhere in the entire 42-page document did we find a single mention of using the space program for anything remotely military.

Everything referred to the "peaceful use of space" and meant just that.

Six months after Manley's report on Sept. 11, 2001, the world changed and the Canadian space program was apparently no exception.

At first, the use of space-based surveillance systems for national and international security was not touted publicly, presumably for fear of embroiling the largely apolitical space program in the very political debate over George Bush's proposed ballistic missile defence proposal.

Alas, times have definitely changed. As Sun Media's national correspondent Kathleen Harris reports elsewhere in the paper today, military applications of space technologies are now simply a fact of life, if not a primary reason for public funding.

Reviewing a substantial compendium of official space agency documents Harris obtained under the Access to Information Act, it is difficult to go more than a few pages without finding words such as "sovereignty and national security," and "supporting the implementation of foreign policy."

SPY SATELLITE

Translation: Canada has an extraordinary seeing-eye satellite called Radarsat that would fit very nicely into the Bush missile defence system for North America, and a new version about to be launched that could probably spot an enemy convoy in Afghanistan.

Let's Talk about Creeping Canadian Militarism

Only Stephen Harper has a clear long-term strategy -- an ever-increasing military and a far more "engaged" foreign policy, which means likely participation in more American-sponsored wars. And that likelihood in turn justifies enlarging the military.

On both the material and ideological fronts, this militarization is well under way. The overall Department of National Defense budget has increased from $13 billion to $15.1 billion in the past two years, with a $1.1 billion rise over the next two and $5.3 billion in the next five years. Additional security costs -- paramilitary border guards and increased internal counter-espionage, all elements of modern militarism -- will go up another $1.5 billion in the next two years.

The military has embarked on an expensive expenditure program for transport planes, helicopters, supply ships, tanks, trucks and missiles, as well as more troops.

Planning for the next two decades, the Canadian military command has called for more than doubling the military budget to $36 billion by 2025, not to mention attendant security add-ons, which could double that figure to $72 billion if accelerated at the current pace. General Rick Hillier frequently trumpets the need for massive increases to the Canadian military establishment, and he does this in a public and politically partisan way that is radically contrary to the traditional public stance of Canadian commanders in chief. He, not the Minister of National Defense, is the vocal point man for militarism.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper is really leading the charge. Not only is he tailoring his budgets to substantially increase the military each year, he is the chief ideologue of speeded up militarization.

US space first strike program well underway

Disguised as "missile defense" the Pentagon's Star Wars program is all about offense and global control and domination. The planned deployments in Europe are just one more piece in the military space architecture that would give the U.S. "full spectrum dominance." Last October the Bush administration released its new National Space Policy that essentially gave the Pentagon a green light to move ahead with deployments of space war-fighting technologies.

The Air Force Space Command's Strategic Master Plan: FY06 and Beyond says, "Air Force Space Command will deploy a new generation of responsive space access, prompt global strike, and space superiority capabilities.....Our vision calls for prompt global strike space systems with the capability to directly apply force from or through space against terrestrial targets."

The Globalization of Military Power

The military projects being propelled by the United States, several NATO allies in Europe (namely Britain, Poland, and the Czech Republic), and the Japanese for the establishment of two parallel missile shield projects, threatens both Russia and China. One missile shield will be located in Europe and the other missile shield in the Far East. These missile shields are being elevated under the pretext of hypothetical Iranian and North Korean threats to the United States, Europe, South Korea, and Japan.

“This [meaning the missile shields being planted on Russia’s borders] is a very urgent and politically important issue, and could drag us into a new arms race,” Colonel-General Yuri Solovyov, a commander of the Russian military has commented in regards to the facilities that are part of the missile shield project that are going to be set up near the Russian border in Eastern Europe.

There is also discussion of another missile shield being erected in the Caucasus, or even possibly in the Ukraine. The Republic of Azerbaijan and Georgia are potential candidates for housing the missile shield project in the Caucasus.

“Our analysis shows that the placing of a radio locating station in the Czech Republic and anti-missile equipment in Poland is a real threat to us [Russia],” clarified Lieutenant-General Vladimir Popovkin, Commander of Russia’s Space Forces, and additionally explained, “It’s very doubtful that elements of the national U.S. Missile defence system in Eastern Europe were aimed at Iranian missiles, as has been stated [by U.S. officials].”

The U.S. missile project in the Czech Republic is also opposed by the majority of the Czech population. The wishes of the Czech people are being ignored, just as the wishes of the American, British, Italian, Canadian, and Japanese people are continuously being ignored by their respective governments. In other words, these so-called democratic governments are extremely undemocratic when it comes to military planning and foreign wars.

The borders of Russia and China are being militarized by NATO and the broader network of military alliances organized by the United States. Surprisingly, Turkey which is a Middle Eastern member of NATO, Iran’s direct neighbour and a logical choice for any missile shield facilities meant to protect against an alleged Iranian ballistic missile threat, has not been selected as a location for a missile defence shield. The fact that the missile shield project is being positioned in Poland and the Czech Republic rather than Turkey and the Balkans suggests that the project is not directed mainly against Iran, but against Russia.

Putin offers joint missile shield

But after the meeting on the fringes of the summit in Germany, the Russian leader said the threat to re-target Russian missiles could be withdrawn if Washington agreed to use the former Soviet radar base at Gabala in Azerbaijan.

This will make it possible for us not to change our stance on the targeting of our missiles Vladimir Putin

"This will make it possible for us not to change our stance on the targeting of our missiles," Mr Putin said. "On the contrary, this will create the necessary grounds for common work."

"This work should be multi-faceted with the engagement of the states concerned in Europe."

Mr Putin added that if Washington and Moscow co-operated transparently on missile defence, "then we will have no problems".

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Bank Union

Banks and credit unions need unions. Especially those credit unions that were created by unions. But even then being unionized does not mean that the management and democratically elected board that runs the credit union will act differently than any other boss when it comes to the union. As the ongoing strike in Hamilton by credit union workers shows.

We are reminded of the exploitation of tellers and other bank workers by Karen a contributor to the Progressive Bloggers.TD Bank Needs A Union for underpaid Workers - by poor teller

And by the latest class action suit which while successful in the U.S. may not be as successful in Canada which does not have tort law.

Teller launches CIBC lawsuit

CIBC facing class-action suit over unpaid labour

Such class action suits would not be necessary if bank workers were unionized.

And once upon a time in Canada we had the beginnings of a bank union drive organized by SORWUC in the lower B.C. mainland amongst credit unions and later the CIBC.

The success of that drive in the 1970's emboldened the labour movement, but instead of supporting SORWUC which was an independent Canadian union organized by rank and file women, it saw SORWUC as a competitor. So instead the old style business unions tried their hand at bank organizing in Toronto amongst the big five banks, and failed. Never to try again.

In light of this new class action suit, SORWUC tried to organize CIBC branches as did the CLC affiliates. But they were defeated by legal battles and the deep pockets of CIBC. Which is why this class action suit faces a dubious future.

The resulting defeat of SORWUC led the banks to aggressively reduce their workforce of tellers replacing them with ATM's, the one armed bandits that rip us off with their monopolistic surcharges.

The irony is that thirty years later women workers in banks are still unorganized, while the labour movement has changed embracing the social unionism of SORWUC. Bank workers need a union, and the labour movement in Canada needs to organize these unorganized workers. It has been done, it can be done, it must be done.

1972 Association of University and College Employees (AUCE) and the Service, Office, and Retail Workers’ Union (SORWUC) are formed as feminist unions in response to the resistance of mainstream, male-dominated labour to organize traditional women’s jobs, or to bargain for issues of importance to women. They also applied feminist principles to collective decision making and action. Neither
exists today.

GENDERING UNION RENEWAL:
WOMEN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO LABOUR
MOVEMENT REVITALIZATION
Paper prepared for the Union Module of the Gender and Work Database
Jan Kainer
April 18, 2006

Many new and independent women’s organizational structures emerged in the seventies because of a lack of support for feminism within labour movements. In Canada, feminist women who supported labour struggle and wished to unionize women, formed their own women-centred structures to overcome the obstacles they experienced from organized labour. In 1972 the Service, Office and Retail Workers of Canada (SORWUC), a self-described “grass roots, feminist union” (Lowe, 1980:32) was formed by women labour activists to unionize workers in service sectors where women predominate. Despite a weak commitment by the Canadian labour movement to SORWUC, the union certified 26 units in the banking industry. Eventually limited resources and an important legal decision restricting certification (i.e. unionized) units to bank branches in small, scattered locations, undermined the momentum of the campaign, and the union was unable to continue its organizing efforts. While SORWUC was relatively short-lived, its alliance with the women’s movement sustained, and informed, other organizing achievements, as this activist explains: (Jean Rands cited in Rebick, 2005:91) We got our confidence from the women’s movement. We were intimidated, but we supported each other and kept reminding ourselves that organizing was our right…we believed that workers should be the ones negotiating, rather than trade union leaders. Collective agreements should be readable by workers too – short and well indexed and written in plain language.

Bank Book Collective An account to settle; the story of the United Bank Workers (SORWUC).Illustrations and cover by Pat Davitt.

Press Gang Publishers Vancouver 1979 127p., wraps, illus. "In 1976, a group of women bank workers decided to organize their workplace. The banks were enraged. When they decided to do it themselves, the big unions were upstaged. Over the next two years, nearly a thousand bank employees in western Canada participated in a unionizing drive that challenged not only the banks but organized labour's approach to a workplace they had long considered beyond their range of union activity."

Thinking Through Labour’s Organizing Strategies: What the Data Reveal and What the Data Conceal

Efforts to organize women in the Canadian private sector are not new. One of the most important campaigns took place in the mid-1970s and involved an attempt to organize chartered bank workers. The Service, Office, and Retail Workers Union of Canada (SORWUC) made an important breakthrough in organizing predominantly female bank tellers in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. At the height of the organizing drive, more than one thousand workers were signed up.

SORWUC was a small, avowedly feminist union dedicated to implementing a nonbureaucratic democratic process. It perceived itself to be a movement of women workers, but the CLC and the Canada Labour Relations Board (CLRB) took a different view.

SORWUC’S connections to the women’s movement and the political Left were regarded with suspicion by both organizations. Marc Lapointe, head of the CLRB, expressed skepticism that a feminist group could be considered a legitimate trade union. Indeed the Banks, the Labour Board, and the CLC declared SORWUC to be irresponsible, not acting as a legitimate trade union, and unable to play by the rules of the game because its leaders were naive, incompetent, or linked to subversives.

Prior to SORWUC’s efforts to organize bank workers, the Canadian Labour Congress
(CLC) had established an organizing fund through a levy on its entire membership. In response to SORWUC’s campaign the CLC, using this fund, established the Bank Workers Organising Committee (BWOC) with the purpose of enlisting all of its affiliates to contribute organizers and union support to the Committee. Several of the affiliates, however, refused to participate, arguing that bank workers were part of their jurisdiction so they should be the ones to organize the banks, not the CLC.

To this day, this stance on the part of many affiliate unions blocks the possibility of a coordinate response to organizing the unorganized. It is a discourse of ownership. Unions in a particular jurisdiction perceive that they own the workers; if those workers join a union, it must be their union. The lack of solidarity among unions over who should organize bank workers and how it should be done contributed to the failure of the BWOC. There were other important reasons as well, including the very aggressive anti-union campaign conducted and coordinated from the headquarters of the chartered banks.

As well as placing nails in the coffin of a coordinated, solidaritistic approach to
organizing the unorganized, the failure to organize chartered bank workers also enforced the discourse that women were difficult to unionize.

Feminism as a Class Act:
Working-Class Feminism and the Women’s Movement in Canada
Meg Luxton

The 1970s in particular was a period of women’s organizing activities in unions. For example, at the 1970 United Auto Workers convention, union women called for "full equality now." 34 The fight for affirmative action started with struggles to get women hired into so-called non-traditional jobs or all-male preserves at workplaces such as Stelco and Inco or in the trades; such initiatives demanded union support for challenges to employers. 35 Union women formed organizations to help them fight inside the labour movement to improve women’s situations; for example, in March 1976 Organized Working Women (OWW) was formed in Ontario, with Evelyn Armstrong as its first president, with a membership restricted to women already in unions, while in September 1979 Saskatchewan Working Women (SWW) formed with its membership open to all women who agreed with its objectives. Frustrated by the lack of support for women in the existing unions and outraged by the failure of the union movement to organize in predominantly female workplaces, a group of socialist feminists in 1972 formed an independent union in BC, the Service, Office and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada (SORWUC). 36 Unable to sustain their efforts in the face of employers’ hostility and the reluctance of the union movement to support them, they collapsed after a few years but their initiative prodded the union movement to pay more attention to predominantly female sectors of the labour force.


Responding to increasing pressures from their members, unions began to take up union women’s issues. 38 They held conferences, educationals, and training programmes. Many unions from locals to national organizations developed women’s committees or caucuses intended to help women identify their concerns, develop the strategies and tactics to advance their issues, and strengthen their capacities to intervene in the male-dominated culture of the union. In 1965 the Ontario Federation of Labour set up its first women’s committee, which was chaired by Grace Hartman, then a Vice-President of CUPE. In 1966 that committee organized a conference on Women and Work. 39 In 1976 the CLC held its first conference for women union activists. Unions developed new structures and new positions. In 1977 the Ontario Public Service Employees Union hired its first full-time equal opportunity co-ordinator. Recognizing their failure to get women into leadership positions, some bodies developed affirmative action measures. In 1984 for example, the CLC designated a minimum of six women vice-presidents. They recognized that when competent women leaders are visible, more women are likely to participate and more men and women are able to accept women in leadership positions. Even more important were the positions unions adopted both in contract negotiations on, for example, maternity and parental leave or same-sex spousal benefits, and in union policies such as providing child care at conventions. Finally, unions were also part of, and supported the activities and organizations of the women’s movement. They co-sponsored specific activities such as International Women’s Day demonstrations and joined coalitions to work on campaigns such as those for employment and pay equity, access to abortions, and quality child care.

What makes an Approprite Bargaining Unit?

The appropriate bargaining unit sets the initial constituency within which a trade union must gain employee support for collective representation. The right to collective bargaining set out in labour statutes should not be illusory, so labour boards resist creating such large and diverse bargaining units that they are impossible to organize. The B.C. Board put the proposition this way in one of its leading cases:

It is an absolutely fundamental policy of the Code that the achievement of collective bargaining is to be facilitated for those groups of employees who choose to use this procedure as the means for settling their terms and conditions of employment. (...) If bargaining units are defined too widely, or a number of separate groups are put into one unit, it is unlikely in the department store industry that the employees will agree on union representation. In these circumstances we will not deny collective bargaining to those small pockets of employees who, by reason of their own special needs and interests, have.

That does not mean the Board will carve out totally artificial units, based solely on the extent of organization by the union (and sufficiently to give the latter a majority). We will require some reasonably coherent and defensible boundaries around the unit over and above the existing, momentary preference of the employees. (...) However, we will not reject applications for small bargaining units on the basis that a large unit is a more rational structure for hypothetical collective bargaining in the distant future, where the result will be the denial of actual bargaining rights now.

Woodward Stores (Vancouver) Ltd. [1975] 1 Can. L.R.B.R. 114

This approach is especially prevalent in industries that are historically hard to organize. See, e.g. SORWUC v. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce [1977] 2 Can.L.R.B.R. 99 (Can.L.R.B.); CUBE v. Canada Trustco Mortgage Company [1977] 2 Can. L.R.B.R. 93 (Ont. L.R.B.). In each of these cases the board found a single branch of a financial institution an appropriate bargaining unit.

Jonas Gifford – December 2004

· Kitimat CIBC (20 yrs earlier) – board rejected application of Kitimat branch, saying ABU was all CIBC branches in CDA – de facto denial of CB for bank workers

· SORWUC and CIBC (1977)

· Held: branch is the ABU

· Comments: BUT note that board recognized this as a variant of foothold – eventually wanted to rationalize

iii. Comment

· Pluralism cares about negotiation of CAs, not about organization

· Bank EEs in CIBC got ability to unionize, but lost a lot of bargaining power b/c restricted to branch

· This especially b/c CIBC really didn’t want to be unionized

· Used protracted litigation – applied for judicial review for EVERYTHING

· Effect – serious $$ impact on SORWVC

· Effect – delayed CB process w/ significant $$ implications – union just couldn’t afford the whole process, also EEs wouldn’t want to keep paying dues for nothing

General Barriers to Women's Trade Union Participation

Women's Unions: Many unions in which women form significant sections of the membership (like banking and retail) are still not recognized as legitimate by employers. Two examples are the Canadian banking system (SORWUC; CUBE), and Eaton's Dept. Store (RWDSU; UFCW)

Costs more burdensome for union than employer (e.g. organizing small workplaces; 1 reason for SORWUC self-decertification)


Saskatchewan Working Women (SWW)

The SWW was a grassroots, feminist organization of female wage earners which operated from 1978 to 1990. SWW was formed by an alliance of trade union women and community-based feminists. Members of SWW came from many different political backgrounds, including the Waffle, the New Democratic Party, various Communist, Trotskyist and Marxist-Leninist parties, the women’s movement on university campuses and women’s centres, and the trade union movement. Some SWW women were also involved in the organizing drives of the Service, Office and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada (SORWUC), a feminist trade union active in Saskatchewan and BC. SWW originated because an increasing number of women were joining the workplace and becoming both unionized and mobilized.

Vancouver History Timeline 1987

Local 1518 of the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers Union), with 23,000 members, began representing 57 home care workers when the Service Office and Retail Workers Union (SORWUC) merged with it.

Sisterhood & Solidarity: Feminism and Labor in Modern Times - Google Books Result

Janet Mary Nicol, " `Unions Aren't Native': The Muckamuck Restaurant Labour Dispute Vancouver, B.C. (1978-1983)," Labour/Le Travail, 40 (Fall 1997), 235-51.

"IN THIS SOCIETY," explained First Nations union organizer Ethel Gardner to a skeptical First Nations community, "being in a union is the only way we can guarantee that our rights as workers will be respected." (1) Ethel was an employee at the Muckamuck restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia when its First Nations workers decided to organize into an independent feminist union in 1978 and subsequently struck for a first contract against white American owners. The dispute allied First Nations people with predominantly white trade unionists and made an even wider community aware of their circumstances. The union picketed the restaurant for three years, discouraging customers from entering, while the owners kept the restaurant functioning with the use of strikebreakers, many of them from the First Nations community. When the owners closed their operation in 1981, the union ceased picketing and both parties waited a further two years for a legal ruling from the Labour Relations Board. Finally in 1983, the owners were ordered to pay remedies to the union, but sold the restaurant and pulled all their assets out of Canada, refusing to comply with the decision.

Songs For Ourselves, Revisited:

Most Friday evenings for the last couple of months, a group of women has appeared near the corner of Davie and Denman in Vancouver, unpacked guitars and tambourines, and started singing. The scene is the SORWUC [Service, Office and Retail Workers' Union of Canada] picket line at the Muckamuck, a Vancouver restaurant, and the strike is into its ninth month. We pass out song sheets to the other people on the picket line and spend two or three hours picketing and singing together about our goals and our struggles. They are feminist songs; at the same time they are songs for all working people. The strikers and their supporters on the picket line are both female and male and we all bellow out Working Girl Blues, the Secretaries' Song or Solidarity Forever.

Helen Potrebenko, one of Vancouver’s most uncompromising feminist writers, was born on June 21, 1940 in Grand Prairie, Alberta. After arriving in Vancouver to attend university, she documented the struggles of a female cab driver to earn a living in her novel Taxi!. “It just never occurs to them we’re people and not zoo animals to be stared at,” the narrator writes, “and that we have feelings and don’t like being prodded and mauled by thirty different guys in one day.” Potrebenko’s second book, No Streets of Gold, is a social history of Ukrainians in Alberta. Her collection of fiction and other writings, A Flight of Average Persons voiced her pride in the dignity of working class lives, particularly women disadvantaged by a patriarchal society. Potrebenko marked the second anniversary of her participation in the strike to earn a first contract for SORWUC workers at the Muchamuck restaurant on Davie Street in Vancouver with the publication of Two Years on the Muckamuck Line. The owners of Vancouver’s first restaurant to exclusively serve West Coast native Indian cuisine ultimately left Vancouver in the strike’s third year. Six workers had been fired upon the union’s application for certification and the owners had refused to negotiate. “The Muckamuck hired scab labour and tired to keep the restaurant open,” says Potrebenko. “Sometimes they were assisted by outside goons. When the owners finally left town, the Labour Relations Board bestirred itself to order the Muckamuck to pay a token $10,000 because of its illegal activities. This could never be collected. We’ve never officially called the strike off.” The restaurant became the Qualicum Restaurant, operating with the support of the union, but the restaurant eventually closed.

LOU NELSON X10-34
Patricia Lucille Nelson was born in Montreal on December 12th, 1953. Although
both her parents are from the West, Nelson and her four siblings grew up in
Laval West and St-Eustache (Québec). She studied the humanities and
languages at Vanier College in Saint-Laurent, printing at Ahuntsic College in
Montreal and worked at Classic Books before moving to the West in 1974.
Nelson quickly settled in Vancouver and started working in a screen printing
shop, a coop house and, in 1975, she joined Press Gang. Here she worked on a
voluntary basis and she became a press operator. This is also the time when
she came out as a lesbian and decided to change her name to Lou, a shortened
version of her middle name, in honor of the occasion. It is also when she
became involved more actively in the feminist, socialist and unionist movement
that prevailed in Vancouver in those years. For example, she joined the NDP in
September 1974. The following year, she participated in the occupation of the
Vancouver Canada Manpower Centre Office to pressure the Canadian
Government to make real changes regarding women and work. She supported
Press Gang by involving herself in numerous fundraising activities and helped
organize the 1979 Conference on Women and Work. “In order to sustain
herself”, she ran Simon Fraser University Student Society’s printshop for four
years. While working at SFU, she also got involved with the feminist union
Service Office and Retail Workers Union (SORWUC).

See:

Feminizing the Proletariat

Whose Family Values?

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Alberta Deja Vu

The tired old Tories in Alberta can only repeat one message and one message only since 1995 and that is restraint. Prepare to tighten your belts.

Having created the chimera of a mythical debt and deficit dragon that they so boldly slayed they now have nothing else to plan for. And so having failed to plan for the past decade they once again return to the tried and true.

I am having a Deja Vu flashback.

Alberta's education minister is warning the province's school boards not to expect large funding increases in the future.

Ron Liepert told a meeting of Alberta school board trustees in Edmonton Monday morning that the government needs to rein-in spending because Alberta's booming economic growth may start to slow down.

"I believe we have a potential revenue wall coming at us and it's not nearly as far out as some people think it is."

Alberta's Progressive Conservative government has decided to pump up the volume on this message, with Oberg appearing Tuesday on a radio talk show and Education Minister Ron Liepert telling a meeting of school board officials Monday that they should curb their funding expectations. Liepert says it's time for Albertans to face up to this reality as drilling is down 50 per cent from last year and corporate tax revenues are also expected to decline.

Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier keeps saying nasty things about the provincial government.

He's saying the Tories broke their word about stable funding for the future of this city which, in case nobody noticed, is the economic engine that makes the province run. Also, in case nobody noticed, it has started to come apart at the seams because of the boom that our provincial government, in its wisdom, apparently didn't see coming, and did not have a plan to deal with even after being roused from slumber.

Premier Ed, sounding somewhat steadier this day, responds to the cage-rattling of Ron Liepert, his tough-talking supremo of schools, who tells school boards Albertans shouldn't expect big dough from the province.

Ron warns the public coffers could lose a billion or more from the rising loonie. Oh my. A "potential revenue wall" is "coming at us." Ouch.

Big surpluses are done. Double ouch.

If the province doesn't hold tight to the purse strings we could one day end up in a deja vu disaster, like the early days of Ralph and his axe-swinging Ralpholution with all the cuts, to say nothing of all the nights of drinking to forget. Double vision ouch.

Seriously, Ron's Apocalypse Soon is hard to swallow.

A survey shows growing numbers of Calgarians already feel the quality of life is tanking and aren't hopeful of better things to come in the next five years.

The gong show of too many people and too little of everything is beyond rage. It is eroding psyches.

Despite this year's cash for construction from the province, including big bucks just to cover costs going through the roof because they are playing catchup at the height of the boom, there is still a huge backlog in building the province could have started on earlier by spending some windfall bucks of years past.

Alas, they didn't.

No, now is not the time to chatter about a scarcity of cash. People are not in the mood for a lecture on austerity, especially those of us who went through the '90s, paid the price, bought all the bull about sacrifice and are still waiting for the victory parade. Unfortunately, one reason you couldn't hold a parade is the streets are too clogged.

Of course, if the province wanted to give us a break and did think they'd run out of coin, Big Oil in the oilsands could pay more than a penny on the dollar in royalties.

Of course Ron could be just waving the red flag of lower expectations and budget doom and gloom to avoid paying the governments share of the Teachers Pension fund.

The task force will review options to address the teachers' portion of a pre-1992 unfunded pension liability. Since it started in the 1930s, the teachers' pension fund has been underfunded by both the government and the ATA. The liability currently totals $6.4 billion. Under a deal struck in 1992, the provincial government is responsible for two-thirds and teachers for the rest.

And while he cries the sky is falling the reality is; Centuries of oil left in Alberta



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State Sponsored Terrorism

Looks like one of those States that sponsors terrorism and gives succor to terrorists is none other than the good old U.S. of A.

Another case of do as I say not as I do.

Rainbow Warrior ringleader heads firm selling arms to US

The French intelligence officer who led the 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace ship protesting against nuclear tests in the Pacific, now lives in America where he heads an arms firm selling weapons to the FBI, Pentagon, and the department of homeland security, the Guardian has learned.

The presence in America of Louis-Pierre Dillais and the sensitive nature of his dealings with the US government has led to calls from Greenpeace for his deportation.

But the Bush administration's record in enforcing its own regulations is inconsistent. Washington has consistently resisted demands from Venezuela for the extradition of Luis Posada, a Cuban exile who is accused of blowing up an airliner with 73 people on board. He denies the charge.

Documents show Luis Posada link to terrorism

A Venezuelan employee of Cuban exile and indicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles conducted surveillance on targets "with a link to Cuba" for potential terrorist attacks throughout the Caribbean region in 1976, including Cubana Aviación flights in and out of Barbados, according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive.

Miami Herald Publishes Evidence Incriminating Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles

The Miami Herald published an article, just last Sunday, which commented on declassified FBI and CIA documents revealing the participation of the notorious terrorist in the plane sabotage.

Prison sentence cut for Cuban-American in illegal weapons case

A U.S. judge reduced the prison sentence Wednesday for a prominent Cuban-American businessman with connections to anti-Fidel Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles after an arsenal of weapons and high explosives was turned over to the U.S. government.

A U.S. District judge cut 16 months off the sentence of Santiago Alvarez, who pleaded guilty in September to a conspiracy charge after the FBI seized a cache of military arms, including a grenade launcher and machine guns. The judge also reduced by 13 months the sentence of Osvaldo Mitat, an Alvarez employee.

India: Lawmakers Urge Washington to Extradite Luis Posada Carriles

The lawmakers reminded Condoleezza Rice and Nancy Pelosi that Posada Carriles is a confessed criminal that masterminded plans which resulted in the murder of nationals of different countries. They recalled that he is being accused in Venezuela for several terrorist crimes, including the 1976 bombing in mid air of a Cubana jetliner off the coasts of Barbados, which killed 73 innocent lives.

The Indian parliamentarians expressed their deep concern for the release of Posada Carriles and they expressed their full support of the resolution signed by Non-Aligned member nations, which denounces the double standard of the George W. Bush administration in its proclaimed "war on terror."

See:

Venezuelan Contras

'El Comandante' Fidel Spoils Party

State Security Is A Secure State

Paranoia and the Security State


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Humpty Dumpty Conservatives

So who speaks for this Gnu Government. When statements are made in the house, do they really mean what is said.

39th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 154

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Hon. Peter MacKay (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, what I suspect Nova Scotia and Atlantic MPs will do is support the budget because it is good for Nova Scotia. It in fact allowed the government of Nova Scotia to balance its budget this year.

However, I can tell the member opposite what we will not do. We will not do what the Liberal leader did to the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North.

We will not throw a member out of caucus for voting his conscience.

There will be no whipping, flipping, hiring or firing on budget votes as we saw with the Liberal government.

Or like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland do they merely mean what government means them to say to be popular from day to day.

“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”

The Humpty Dumpty Government was on the hook yesterday for flip flopping on that promise.

Casey booted from Tory caucus

Ousted from Tory caucus, MP can't access computer files

Renegade Tory MP from NS says he's the victim of dirty tricks

And when caught out on a lie once again they acted like Humpty Dumpty. Of course after a year and a half in power we should realize that nothing a Minister in this Government says is worth anything unless it comes out of King Stephen's mouth.

Atlantic MPs target Tories over Casey ejection

The MPs said the removal from the Conservative caucus of Bill Casey went against a statement by Foreign Minister Peter MacKay, who had told the House of Commons that the Tories would not be "whipping, flipping, hiring, or firing" any of their members for opposing the bill.

"He stuck to that comment as well as he did the David Orchard agreement and the Atlantic Accord," Nova Scotia Liberal MP Scott Brison told reporters Wednesday.

39th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 165
Wednesday, June 6, 2007

The Budget

Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, last month the minister responsible for Atlantic Canada through ACOA said:

We will not throw a member out of caucus for voting his conscience. There will be no...firing on budget votes as we saw with the Liberal government.

Not only does the government break its promises to the people of Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, it breaks its promises to its own caucus members.

How can any Canadian have any faith or trust in the word of the government?

The member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley has it right, and he has been very dignified in expressing it. The government should apologize to the people of Atlantic Canada. When will that happen?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Speaker:

Order, please. The hon. government House leader.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Hon. Dominic LeBlanc:

That's the wrong Peter.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Speaker:

Order, please. I know the hon. government House leader is tremendously popular with all hon. members but we must be able to hear the answer he is about to give. He has risen to answer and we will have a little order, please, so we can all hear the answer.

Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, they have somebody by that name answering the question.

Canada's new government has kept its commitment to Atlantic Canada and Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador. They are getting 100% of what they were promised in the accord.

If the leader of the NDP believes in what was in the budget, if he believes it is important for us to have things like $225 million for the preservation of environmentally sensitive land, $1.5 billion for clean air and climate change to the provinces, $400 million for the Canada Health Infoway and $612 million to the provinces for the patient wait times guarantee, why did he vote against those last night and why is he against those things that Canadians want?

Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, I want to hear an Atlantic minister, with a straight face, tell Atlantic Canadians that they are not getting a bad deal.

Last night's vote killed the Atlantic accord. Only one MP had the decency to vote against breaking the promise.

Is there one Atlantic minister with the guts to tell his constituents that he will do everything in his power to fix the mistake? Will the Minister of Foreign Affairs admit that last night his government broke a promise to Atlantic Canadians?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Speaker:

I know it is Wednesday but members would not want to waste time with excessive noise. The hon. government House leader has risen to answer what I believe was a question from the member for Halifax. I could hardly hear a word. We will now hear from the government House leader and will have a little order, please.

Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, I will tell the member what the members from Atlantic Canada did. They fought hard for the best possible benefits for their province and the result was the following: For Nova Scotia, under the fiscal balance package, more than $2.4 billion and $1.3 billion for equalization; $130 million for offshore accord offsets; $639 million on the Canada health and social transfer; $277 million under the Canadian social transfer; $42.5 million for the environment; and there is more and more.

Those members are delivering for Nova Scotians and for Atlantic Canadians. They are standing up in the way the Liberal Party always refused to do.

Hon. Robert Thibault (West Nova, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, when I first asked the member for Central Nova to honour the Atlantic accord he said that he would see the Province of Nova Scotia in court.

Last night one brave Conservative member voted in favour of Nova Scotia and was kicked out of that caucus.

On May 15, the minister said in the House:

We will not throw a member out of caucus.... There will be no whipping, flipping, hiring or firing on budget votes....

Is the minister from Nova Scotia misleading the House, or is he simply a buffoon or is he a misleading buffoon?

Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, that question comes from a member of a party, the leader of which says that fiscal imbalance is a myth. Therefore, whatever that party has to say about equalization does not really matter because the leader of the party himself says that there is no fiscal imbalance.

Hon. Ralph Goodale:

You broke your promise and you broke your word.

Hon. Jim Flaherty:

I know the member for Wascana wishes that his leader had not said that but he did say that. He said that the fiscal imbalance was a myth.

We are fixing the fiscal imbalance--

The Speaker:

Order, please. The hon. member for West Nova.

Hon. Robert Thibault (West Nova, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister broke his promise to Nova Scotians.

The so-called minister from Nova Scotia broke his word to a brave MP. The so-called minister from Nova Scotia values his cabinet seat more than his own province.

I would ask the hon. member for Central Nova what loyalty means. Were those not his words? Why can he not stand up for Nova Scotia? Is it because he cannot or because he will not? Will he resign as the minister irresponsible for Nova Scotia?

Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, personal attacks like that always say more about the person saying them than about the person receiving them. It is unattractive, I must say, to have those kinds of personal attacks here.

However, on equalization--

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Hon. Ralph Goodale:

Look in the mirror, Jim.

The Speaker:

Order, please. The Minister of Finance has the floor and we will have a little order, please.

Hon. Jim Flaherty:

Mr. Speaker, the Province of Nova Scotia has the option of electing the new system, the modified O'Brien system, this year or continuing with the Atlantic accords. The province has chosen, for this year at least, to elect the new modified O'Brien system.

What that means for the province in terms of transfers in budget 2007 is $256 million more than in the previous fiscal year. That is good for--

The Speaker:

The hon. member for Labrador.

* * *

Atlantic Accord

Mr. Todd Russell (Labrador, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, the ranks of Atlantic Conservative dissenters keeps growing. First it was Progressive Conservative premiers, then a list of Conservative candidates condemned the attack on the Atlantic accords and then those Conservatives booted out one of their own after last night's vote.

Now John Crosbie, a Progressive Conservative, has been added to the growing list with a blistering memo proving that the finance minister betrayed my province and Atlantic Canada.

Those Conservatives are like jellyfish: totally spineless, no backbone and sting us when they can.

How can the former Progressive Conservative ministers continue to sit in that caucus and represent their provinces?

Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that we have the greatest respect for Mr. Crosbie, who was a Progressive Conservative minister of finance in this place. I had the opportunity to speak with him about these issues during the course of the past several months and we value and respect his views.

However, in terms of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, which have accord agreements, the plain fact is that those accord agreements are the status quo agreements which they can choose to continue with or they can go with the modified O'Brien formula. However, no province will be worse off in Canada as a result of the new equalization scheme.

Mr. Todd Russell (Labrador, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, last night, the newly independent member from Nova Scotia did the right thing and stood up for his province and his region. He voted with the Liberal Party and against the Atlantic accord betrayal. His five former colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia fell in line with their bully boss, the Prime Minister, and voted, not just with their own party but with the separatists.

We had problems with harp seals and now we have problems with trained seals.

With one more vote to go, will Conservative ministers and members from Atlantic Canada finally stand up for their constituents and their province?

Hon. Loyola Hearn (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the hon. member and the House that it was a Tory government, a Conservative government, that gave us the original Atlantic accord. Let me remind him that it was a Tory opposition that forced the Liberals, including some of them sitting there, to get the second Atlantic accord. Let me also remind him that while they are sitting, sniping from the sidelines, like the Premier of Newfoundland, we are working to deliver to our provinces.

* * *

Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, Ind.):

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Fisheries just said that they are trying to solve the problem. It is an easy problem to solve and I would like to make it easier for him. All he has to do is say that the Government of Canada will honour the contract signed by the Government of Canada.

It is a signed, sealed and delivered contract. It is a 12 year contract. We are two years into it. Consequential amendments to the budget by the Minister of Finance change the Atlantic accord.

Will the minister now just say, “It is all over. We will honour the signature of the Government of Canada. We will honour the Atlantic accord exactly the way it was written, no amendments. We will honour the work of John Hamm”.

Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, he and I have had many discussions on this subject.

Budget 2007 provides Nova Scotia flexibility and more money, as well as respecting the Atlantic accords and giving the province of Nova Scotia the opportunity to make an election. In fact, the province was concerned initially, after March 19, that its budget was coming up that Friday and asked for more time to consider the matter, which we have done. The province has since elected to enter into the agreement for one year to have more opportunities to consider it.

These are worthwhile considerations and at the present benefit—

See:

Casey Up To Bat



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REIT Spells Rental Rip Off

There are renters in Alberta to be exploited yet through rent gouging.

Alberta's CEO Ed Stelmach refused to bring in rent controls as advocated by his appointed public committee on housing, because it might impact the 'free market'.

His in-action on the rental crisis in Alberta has influenced the market, in favour of the REIT's and against the interests of those he is elected by the worker/consumer/taxpayer/citizen.

GE snaps up Dundee's eastern properties

LORI McLEOD

Globe ad Mail, Print Edition 05/06/07 Page B4

Dundee Real Estate Investment Trust is selling two-thirds of its properties to a division of General Electric Co. for $1.5-billion, amid a wave of consolidation of Canadian real estate trusts and assets.

The trust decided to sell its Eastern Canadian assets in the belief that properties in Western cities such as Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver will continue to perform well. For example, Dundee expects to raise rents in Calgary by about 50 per cent when they expire, compared with 20 per cent for the current portfolio over all.

Dundee is the second largest REIT owning and profiting from apartment and real estate investment, behind Boardwalk. And like other REIT's they are busy transforming exiting apartments into Condo's they can sell off in the Alberta's hot market.

This is the Income Trust business transforming itself once again back into a private capital enterprise.

Income Trusts are a ponzi scheme where upon private capital moves into the public market, profits in barely legal schemes in that market, and then when it is no longer to their advantage they return again to the shadow world of private equity hedge funds.

Just how questionable these schemes are can be told in the Dundee offer which changed in the headlines in a few hours. Prior to the article above an earlier edition of the Globe and Mail carried this headline; GE buys properties from Dundee REIT for $2.4-billion

Which is a lot more than $1.5 Billion apparently finally settled on. Which may explain this;Investors question Dundee's asset sale

PROPERTY REPORT

REIT watch

June 4 close

Weekly change

Y-to-d total return

Dundee

$39.96

4.10%

5.80%

REITS success relies upon their making steady earnings distributions to their shareholders. Those earnings are made off the back of renters.

And it is clear that thanks to Ed Stelmach the Canadian REIT's look at Alberta as the sole base for their business in Canada. Which is scary for working families in Alberta as we have found out this past year.

The changes made by Stelmach in only allowing a rent increase once annually, with no cap on its size means that the REITs look forward to even bigger profits next year when they can charge 50% mark ups on their rent like they did this year.

The smart real estate money is heading West, which is not to say that GE fumbled the ball by snapping up Dundee REIT’s Central and Eastern Canadian investment properties for $2.4-billion, including debt, but rather Dundee’s decision to keep its bricks and mortar located primarily in Alberta.

For that reason, Desjardins Securities analyst Jeff Roberts is recommending Alberta-centric real estate stocks like Melcor Developments Ltd., Mainstreet Equity Corp., Genesis Land Development Corp. and Boardwalk REIT, all “top pick” rated.

For investors who like distributions and dividends, his “top picks” include Boardwalk REIT, with a 34 per cent total 12-month expected return; Calloway REIT, offering a 33 per cent total return; and First Capital Realty Inc., 26 per cent.

This is the so called free market, which you can regulate, the Alberta Government as usual just doesn't want to be bothered because after all they are partners with business. And business calls the shots in their partnership.

So no one should be surprised when Dundee REIT looks forward to raising rents 50% next year, thats the regulation the Ed Stelmach created for them.

See:

Income Trusts

Housing




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Conservatives Ban Mandela

Rob Anders of the Reform Alliance Conservative Party has always claimed Mandela was a communist and a terrorist.

Now he gets his wish as the Conservatives deny Winnie Mandela a visa and as usual give no reason for their actions.

Consider it payback, for when they were in Opposition and could not confront Nelson like Anders wanted them to.

Ironically he just as big a criminal as she is.

Canada Denies Visa to Winnie Mandela

Ottawa's decision to deny her entry brings Winnie Mandela to tears

Despite four consecutive election victories in the seemingly unassailable Tory stronghold, Anders has been at the centre of unwelcome attention for the Conservative party and its predecessors.

In 2001, he was the only MP to vote against making Nelson Mandela an honorary citizen of Canada and he defended his actions by calling Mandela a communist and a terrorist.

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