Prove It

Each year, 16,000 Ontarians die from tobacco use and roughly 3,000 die from exposure to second-hand smoke. Peter Goodhand, Chief Executive Officer, Ontario Division, Canadian Cancer Society, Toronto

Oh really prove it. Like a magician pulling rabbits out of the hat the anti-smoking lobby, who have their hand out for more of your money for their failed cancer research, pull these stats out of their hat of tricks. I say prove it. Prove the deaths were from tobacco smoke and not oh say smog. Or heavy metals in the air. Or air pollution from cars. Or toxic chemicals that poision us every day at work and now in public.

New tests find poisons in children's blood, urine
Minister accepts challenge to have blood and urine tested for contamination

On Thursday, the group released results showing that the bodies of seven children tested are contaminated by a cocktail of toxic chemicals ranging from PCBs to flame retardants. The study found an average of 23 known or suspected toxins -- including carcinogens, hormone disrupters and neurotoxins -- in the bodies of the children tested. The researchers tested 13 individuals from five families, six adults and seven children. The families live in Vancouver, Toronto, Sarnia, Montreal and Quispamsis, N.B. "Our children are being poisoned every day by toxic chemicals that surround them at home, school and play,'' said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.

Our dirty little secret
Capital's sole air monitor in Sandy Hill not enough to keep up with our car-driven toxic soup

Milking It: Moms find industrial chemicals in their breast milk an outrage -- and a call to action

The Walrus Magazine | Everyday Poisons
Are fire retardants actually a toxic hazard? by Paul Webster

Toxins in N.S. counties prompt health warning

Toxic exposure

SHANNA H. SWAN

professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Rochester

Martin Mittelstaedt's Toxic Shock series (May 27-June 1 Globe and Mail) on chemical safety strikes a long-neglected note. As he points out, the list of potentially harmful chemicals is so exhaustive there's really no one among us who has not been exposed to at least a few of them. Chances are, we've been exposed to a great many.

The chemical industry often plays down the risks by saying individual exposures are so minimal we should not be concerned. But they fail to take into account that low-dose exposures are often most harmful, and that exposures to chemicals simply do not occur in isolation. Thank you for staying on top of this critical public-health story.

Yep prove it wasn't these that caused the cancer.

Sure bars that have smoking are polluted, but if they also have cooking they are polluted from the deep fryers and grease, as well as the chemicals used to clean with.

If the politicians were concerned about workplace health and safety of workers, which is what these anti-smoking laws claim, they would demand proper ventilation in the work place. They would enforce existing laws around WHMIS and hazardous materials in the workplace. But they don't. They could make workplaces really safe by enforcing the laws on the books now.

You see its easier to ban a social pyriah than to admit that work kills. Which it does. Smoking is a symptom not the problem. Capitalism is the problem.

Ontario goes smoke-free this June
The ban includes all indoor-smoking in public places such as restaurants, casinos, bars and bingo halls. But many are calling the government's move one filled with hypocrisy. "If politicians really cared about our health, they would ban the production of polluting vehicles with poor gas mileage. They could do so many things that would reflect a serious purpose, but banning tobacco — even from places where only smokers concentrate — is a little too farfetched," adds Nidhi Mehta, who is often seen taking a puff outside her Bay Street office in Downtown Toronto during break and lunch time.

Also See: Smoking


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Canada, kids, toxic, toxins, pesticides, toxic-poisioning

The Evil North

Canada is being described as the home of Terrorism.

Terror Land North: Canada Becomes America's New Next Threat

Terrorists are supposedly creeping into the US from Canada. This is being proposed not only by wacko US congressmen but by our own homegrown self appointed experts.

In this case a low level former CSIS agent who is making a living as a so called security expert. The reason to justify the passport and border laws the congress has passed.

Alienation at home, criticism from abroad

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. congressman warned yesterday that Canada, and in particular the enclave of "South Toronto," was a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists and that the United States will be under threat as long as passports are not required of all Canadians crossing the border.

"South Toronto, like those parts of London that are host to the radical imams who influenced the 9/11 terrorists and the shoe bomber, has people who adhere to a militant understanding of Islam," said John Hostettler, chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on immigration and border security, noting that Toronto has a very large South Asian community.

Mr. Hostettler's views were backed by several witnesses to the committee, including David Harris, an Ottawa lawyer and senior fellow at the Canadian Coalition for Democracies who used to work for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He was the only Canadian asked to appear before the committee.

Mr. Harris described Canada as being "heavily infiltrated by terrorists" as well as "a recruiting, planning, financing and launch point for international terrorism."

Sorry to dissapoint youse guys but everyone already knew that Canada was the source of all evil south of the border years ago.

Anyone who watched Twin Peaks, knows all the truly twisted evil that happened in that Northern Washington State town always came from 'across the border'.

And these dweebs; Hostettler and Harris have about as much credibility as the log lady.

The real politicks of last weeks terrorist bust is far more mundane, but no less sinister;

Canadian government, media use alleged terrorist plot to push right-wing agenda

'Cause our Chief Harpocrite can't do anything without asking Daddy first.

One of the first things Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper did after the weekend arrests of 17 suspected Islamic terrorists in Ontario was to pick up the phone and thank President George W. Bush for American assistance in tying the alleged plot together.




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Hostettler

Damn Fine Cup Of Coffee

FEATURE-Bolivian organic coffee farmers target niche markets

I drink organic Bolivian coffee, along with other organic and Fair Trade coffees. This is a fruity and piquent coffee with a touch of choclate to the flavour.

My pals at Earthson coffee in Edmonton roast their coffees out of their home. And they deliver their product to your door, at a price below those of more commercial companies in town. Email me if you want to contact them.

Over the past year I have been one of their coffee tasters testers. I didn't know I had the knack. I just like to drink coffee. Turns out I am a coffee gourmand.

The Bolivian organic is one of the new ones on the market and it is a damn fine coffee. To really get the full body, grind it fine, use cold water, and draw a cup off after your pot has about two cups in it. This is the full expresso flavoured version of the coffee, giving you its real full body taste that weakens as you add more water. Delicious.

And of course as with all Fair Trade coffees you know the farmers that grow and harvest these aren't being exploited unlike the real life poor farmers portrayed by real life Juan Valdez.


For news from Latin America See:

Latin America News Review

Narco News

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Child Labour In Alberta

Oh joy the dark old days have returned. No longer limited to developing countries the Alberta Advantage is now Child Labour.

AFL Posts List of Employers Using 12-14 year olds on Website

EDMONTON, June 7 /CNW/ - Nine months into new rules allowing restaurants
to hire 12 and 13 year olds it is clear they are failing to protect young
workers says the Alberta Federation of Labour today. The AFL released the list
of employers who have submitted the paperwork allowing them to employ
adolescents. The AFL also announced its intent to post the entire list on its
website (www.afl.org) and update it regularly. The AFL received copies of the
forms through a FOIP request.
Between July 1, 2005 and March 31, 2006, the first nine months of the new
rules for hiring children, only 160 forms were submitted to the government.
This is a fraction of the number of applications the government received
before the new rules. According to government figures, 552 permits to hire
kids under 14 were granted in 2004, and 359 permits in the first four months
of 2005.

Oh and the charges have upset MacDonalds. Those nice folks who are advertizing dates for their staff on bus ads in the city. Pimping I think is the term.


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Just In Case You Forgot

'Terror' suspects: Innocent unless proven guilty

Terror in the details

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Suplus Value

Here is the Stats Canada confirmation of that old Marxist theory of surplus value:

Canadian workers are more productive than ever. And they are cheaper, too
Canada's economic output is rising three times faster than the number of hours that people are working, helping to push Canada's labour productivity up by 2.3 per cent over the past year.

There is another side to the economic numbers, however. Canada's productivity is rising because the cost of labour is slowing.

Hourly compensation rose by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter, half the increase in the fourth quarter of 2005, keeping a lid on unit labour costs.

Whenever you hear the word productivity that simply means techology and cheap labour producing more profit. The watchword of capitalism. For workers it means you are getting screwed and paid less for it.

"Productive labour is therefore labour which reproduces for the labourer only the previously determined value of his labour-power, but as an activity creating value increases the value of capital; in other words, which confronts the labourer himself with the values it has created in the form of capital."

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Diamonds and Rust

While Miners in the North are on Strike at the Ekati Diamond Mine, Craig Kielburger of Free the Children puts Northern Development under the gaze of development elsewhere in the Diamond Fields of the World.

Fresh off the plane, I stood in a region engulfed by housing development and communities flush with new-found wealth. I wasn't in Sierra Leone or South Africa, where diamond mines have given rise to phrases such as "blood diamonds" and have caused massive social upheaval. On a work-related visit, I was in Canada's portal to the vast and serene north and, with my untrained eye, all seemed normal. We've all fallen prey to the marketing coup of the last century by believing that "a diamond is forever." But the communities that mine these diamonds are not.Since the discovery of Canadian diamonds in 1991, the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines have begun production in the Northwest Territories. The Snap Lake plant is gearing up for production next year and, as of this year, the Jericho project in Nunavut will also be in production. But according to Statistics Canada, these mines will be operational for only the next eight to 20 years.Once these mines shut down, miners can rarely transfer their skills beyond the industry. Diamonds are forever; prosperity isn't

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Pack Up And Move

Here is the authoritarian solution to unemployment typical of Conservatives and other right wing regimes, oh like the you know who.

MP: Help workers move
Alberta Tory says government should help relocate unemployed

Unemployed Atlantic Canadians should be encouraged by Ottawa to go where their opportunities are — namely job-rich Alberta — a parliamentary committee heard Thursday.

The suggestion, that the Conservative government could use taxpayers’ dollars to relocate jobless people from the Atlantic region, was made in Ottawa by Brian Jean — a Tory MP from northern Alberta — at a session of a federal committee studying employability in Canada.

Of course this guy forgets that there are over 2500 tradesmen currently unemployed in Alberta looking for work. Unemployed trades?

Or maybe he didn't. Since they are all union workers, and he is after all a Tory.

Do I smell another form of Tory Union busting.




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Fraser Institute Exposed

Here is an excellent expose on that charitable taxpayer funded think tank of the Right; The Fraser Institute. Who funds the Fraser Institute?

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Made In Cuba Green Policy

On Clean Air day Rona Ambrose assured reporters, again ad naseum, that sometime soon we will have a Made in Canada Green Plan.

My message to you, on Clean Air Day, is that the Government of Canada is working towards a “Made-in-Canada” approach to deliver real change and real results for all Canadians, in our common campaign to clean up our air and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

So instead of Ambrose the Minister of Do Nothing standing up in the house talking about how the US is ahead of us, ad nauseum;

Hon. Rona Ambrose (Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is that thanks to the Liberal government being in power for 13 years the Bush government has done more on the environment than this country has for the last decad. The Americans are outperforming us on pollution control. They are outperforming us on emission reductions. This government is going to ensure that we outperform not just the Americans but all of our counterparts.

How about we start comparing the Made In Cuba plan with the lack of plan that the Tories have. Because Cuba is way ahead of Canada, and the U.S.

Castro's new soldiers
Richard Gott
03 May 2006 04:59

At a petrol station outside the Cuban town of Cienfuegos, half a dozen teenage girls stand languidly by the pumps, jumping to attention when a car or lorry pulls up. They work the pumps efficiently, take payment and enter the transaction on to a large official form. They are dressed neatly in T-shirts and jeans and a slogan across their backs proclaims their identity as trabajadores sociales, or social workers. They are Fidel Castro’s latest army of guerrillas, deployed in the struggle against corruption, the scourge to which state-run economies have always been peculiarly vulnerable. They are also the vanguard of the generation upon whom the future of the Cuban revolution will depend.

On earlier visits to Cuba I have observed the petrol problem. Driving through the countryside you could always find a willing accomplice to direct you to a tank in someone’s back garden, where petrol would be sold at an advantageous price, or simply off-ration. It had been siphoned off the state’s supplies. The practice seemed harmless enough. Yet it had begun to create a large hole in the economy. Castro complained that “as much petrol was being stolen as sold’’, and last year his government stepped in with a novel solution. About 10 000 young activists, more than half of them women, have taken control of the country’s pumps, while the usual attendants have been sent home on full pay.

The social workers’ jobs do not stop at the petrol stations. They also go from house to house to hand out low-energy light bulbs, to check that everyone has the new electric pressure cookers provided by China and to prompt the exchange of old, gas-guzzling fridges from the 1950s for something more energy efficient. Others will move on to examine financial practices in bakeries and the construction industry. About 30 000 of these revolutionaries, aged between 16 and 22, have been deployed across the country. Identified some years ago as a potentially counter revolutionary class, they are helping to keep alive the revolution’s mystique.

Maybe the Tories could mobilize all their Blogging Tories and Fraser Institute student Interns to be Green Social Workers like Castro has done.

Besides both parties share the same intials; CPC. And same style of authoritarian leadership.


And don't forget all the Canadian investment in Cuba. Like Sherritt Gordon.

And we have a long tradition of being business and social partners with Cuba.

Our CPC could learn some lessons from the Cuban CPC.

Other Great Leaders of Canada have.



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