In the last couple of years, various Canadian commentators have remarked on the new conservative narrative of Canada that Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives have been creating. Much of this narrative centres around a new form of patriotism that emphasizes support for the military, the Canadian North, hockey and Tim Horton’s coffee. Now, with the Harper Conservatives having formed a majority government in the 2011 federal election, progressive Canadians like Murray Dobbin, Jim Stanford and Andrew Jackson are calling for a new progressive narrative that provides an alternative to the narrative offered by the Harper Conservatives and the more general political right.

Earth Day, Tar Sands, Free Trade & Degrowth – Connecting the Dots by Janet M Eaton

May 1st, 2012

In a short article entitled “Earth Day and Tar Sands”, published by Common Dreams April 19^th  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/19-8 ]  Dale Wiehoff, VP of Communications and IP for the IATP [Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy], makes the link between Earth Day, the tar sands, and free trade.

First he relates how Earth Day emerged in the wake of a growing number of environmental concerns back in the 60s, not the least of which was a major oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel, all of which led, not only to Earth Day, but also to the Environmental Protection Agency in the US, significant new regulatory policies and a new generation that was defining environmentalism. In Canada we saw the parallel emergence of  Environment Canada and significant new legislative acts and policies.

Wiehoff goes on to  remind us that on this Earth Day 2012, as we look back over 40 years of corporate pillage and abuse, none of those earlier offshore disasters like Santa Barbara or the Exxon Valdez disaster come close to the environmental threats and costs of the tar sands.  Finally he reminds us of a rarely examined driver behind tar sands oil production – i.e  trade policy, starting with NAFTA and now the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

A Canadian spymaster’s business card was recovered last year in a trove of intelligence documents in Libya, providing a physical link between Canadian security agencies and Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s spy services.

William “Jack” Hooper, a globetrotting deputy director for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, was apparently among the Western intelligence officials who had cultivated ties with Libya, raising new questions about possible Canadian involvement in the arrests and interrogations of Arab-Canadians in their homelands following the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States.

read full article http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadian-spymasters-card-found-in-gadhafis-intelligence-complex/article2418533/

Megan MaCardle turned over her blog to Adam Ozimek to spread some misinformation about NAFTA and trade policy. Ozimek headlines the piece, "4 politically controversial issues where all economists agree." While I’m pretty comfortable with three of the four, the claim that all economists agree that, "the benefits of free trade and NAFTA far outweigh the costs" is highly misleading.

First, NAFTA was not about free trade. First and foremost if was about reducing barriers that made U.S, companies reluctant to invest in Mexico. This meant prohibiting Mexico from expropriating factories and outlawing any restrictions on the repatriation of profits to the United States.

read full article http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article21331

There’s a debate raging over Canada’s intellectual property regime. If one side’s right, Canada stands to pay $2.8 billion more every year in drug costs while it undermines its generic-drug manufacturing sector. If the other side’s right, what’s at stake is the viability of Canada’s pharmaceutical research sector and a trade deal that, the federal government crows, could raise Canada’s GDP by $12 billion a year.

It’s possible both sides are right, at least to some degree. That might be the scariest scenario of all.

Canada and the European Union are negotiating a free trade deal. There are a few sticking points, including Canada’s supply-management system in agriculture. You wouldn’t think it would be possible to find a trade issue with more acrimony, spin and brain-numbing complexity than supply management. But wait! The issue of pharmaceutical intellectual property (IP) has all that and more!

According to a recent House of Commons committee report, European representatives have said changes to Canada’s IP protection are “a critical priority in the Canada-EU CETA negotiations.”

read full article http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article21421

The Conservative Party apparatus may now simply be a "lying machine" determined to impose a false reality upon Canadians.  To make the lying machine work, the Party in power must be controlled by psychopaths.

http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/trade-environment
Summary:
The single biggest assault on environmental law was tabled last
Thursday morning in the House - to nary a whimper...
Bill C-38 came in without any detailed lock-up or briefing.
It had never been mentioned that the Canadian Environmental
Assessment Act was to be repealed; and that an entirely new act of 67
pages would be tucked in to the Budget Act. No longer will there be
predictable "triggers" for federal reviews...

The ways in which the Fisheries Act would include the transfer of
decision-making and management to the provinces were not explained in
advance. Nor were the restriction of requirements for authorization to
destroy habitat for those commercial, recreational and Aboriginal
fisheries. It had not been mentioned that the Species at Risk Act would be
amended to give the National Energy Board (NEB) power to approve the
destruction of the habitat of endangered species - or killing rare species
through the building of pipelines. Nor that the NEB would get power to
over-ride the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

It is a wholesale re-writing of all areas of federal jurisdiction
over the natural environment.... Theft of the environment in plain
sight goes along with abuse of Parliamentary process and of democracy
itself.           --- Elizabeth May April 30th, 2012

For the complete article see

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/04/30/elizabeth-may-how-the-
conservatives-stole-environmental-protection-in-broad-daylight/

How the Conservatives stole environmental protection in broad
daylight iPolitics Insight
Posted on Mon, Apr 30, 2012, 5:04 am by Elizabeth May**

A $2-billion procurement contract for about 100 new Close Combat Vehicles for the military has been restarted after the latest bids didn't meet technical requirements, a Conservative MP says.

The decision prompted opposition parties to accuse the government and defence bureaucrats of bungling yet another large procurement contract for the military, citing the recent F-35 fighter jet controversy.

B.C. Tory MP Andrew Saxton, a member of the public accounts committee, told CTV Question Period Sunday none of the vehicles "met the standard requirements to do the job."

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120429/combat-vehicles-purchase-120429/#ixzz1tXkAN5XH

Today, we are witnessing an emerging massive global revolt, led primarily be the educated and unemployed youth of the world, against the institutionalized and established powers which seek to deprive them of a future worth living. In Chile over the past year, a massive student movement and strike has become a powerful force in the country against the increasingly privatized educational system (serving as a model for the rest of the world) with the support of the vast majority of the population; in Quebec, Canada, a student strike has brought hundreds of thousands of youth into the streets to protest against the doubling of tuition fees; students and others are on strike in Spain against austerity measures; protests led by or with heavy participation of the youth in the U.K., Greece, Portugal, France, and in the United States (such as with the Occupy Movement) are developing and growing, struggling against austerity measures, overt corruption by the capitalist class, and government collusion with bankers and corporations. Students and youth led the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt last year which led to the overthrow of the dictators which had ruled those nations for decades.

All around the world, increasingly, the youth are taking to the streets, protesting, agitating, and striking against the abuses of power, the failures of government, the excesses of greed, plundering and poverty. The educated youth in particular are playing an active role, a role which will be increasing dramatically over the coming year and years. The educated youth are graduating into a jobless market with immense debt and few opportunities. Now, just as several decades ago, the youth are turning back to activism. What happened in the intervening period to derail the activism that had been so widespread in the 1960s? How did our educational system get to its present state? What do these implications have for the present and future?