The last we had a glimpse of weed king Jimmy Reardon, he was sinking to the ground in front of his Vancouver club, Chickadee, shot multiple times and bleeding.
Did he bleed out? Was that it for Reardon and Intelligence, the gritty CBC street drama that had fans hooked for two seasons, ending abruptly last December?
Before the show was dropped recently from the network's upcoming fall lineup, there was buzz the CBC first buried, then killed Intelligence, because the storyline hit a nerve in corporate ranks. It's about the mass export of Canadian water to a thirsty U.S. amid the overall threat of economic integration.
As one theory had it, new CBC brass under Richard Stursberg, head of English-language operations, was worried enough about the spectre of privatization under the federal Conservatives without making it worse with a show about one of Ottawa's most secret operations: the sale of Canadian water.
Sure, everybody at CBC loved, loved, loved the show, but it still ended up as collateral damage.
Fantastical, maybe. Still, there's a strong case to be made that, however else director Chris Haddock irritated the mucky-mucks, his storyline was dangerously close to real events happening in Canada, including secret talks about water that could leave this country facing shortages in times of emergency.
Indeed, Haddock was ahead of the curve. The point can be made that political journalists could get a truer sense of the wheeling and dealing around water from this show than the stonewalling of officials involved in the hush-hush, behind-closed-door negotiations for what's called the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America...
Full story: A national disaster, made for TV
Stumble It!
edited to read
Intelligence will have to be stopped because it comes to close to the truth
Those who control oil and water will control the world
New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly
John Gray The Observer, Sunday March 30 2008 Article history
About this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday March 30 2008 on p33 of the Comment section. It was last updated at 00:03 on March 30 2008. History may not repeat itself, but, as Mark Twain observed, it can sometimes rhyme. The crises and conflicts of the past recur, recognisably similar even when altered by new conditions. At present, a race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players and it is not only oil that is at stake.
It was Rudyard Kipling who brought the idea of the Great Game into the public mind in Kim, his cloak-and-dagger novel of espionage and imperial geopolitics in the time of the Raj. Then, the main players were Britain and Russia and the object of the game was control of central Asia's oil. Now, Britain hardly matters and India and China, which were subjugated countries during the last round of the game, have emerged as key players. The struggle is no longer focused mainly on central Asian oil. It stretches from the Persian Gulf to Africa, Latin America, even the polar caps, and it is also a struggle for water and depleting supplies of vital minerals. Above all, global warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources. The Great Game that is afoot today is more intractable and more dangerous than the last.
People are starting to notice?
Democratizing BC's Water Governance: Discussion Paper
Contributed by PatriotPete on Friday, March 28 at 11:40 (70 reads)
Go sign the petition there pls
Is Trevor in on the cover-up too? lol
Great piece by John Gray!