Golden unicorns and shiny ponies, Christy clucking Clark and Rich habitual liar Coleman, snake oil salesmen, fraud artists, election fraud sold to a dumb electorate by a corrupt media...
I have little to say right now, however, the man in demand around the world for his expertise has plenty to say on LNG and BC`s fake-out Ponzi scheme....
He was a radio guest with Simi Sara today on cknw, the segment took place January 22nd/2014 the time...1:00pm to 1:30 pm..
I present you.....David Hughes
_________
The NEB appears to have violated its mandate to ensure Canadian energy security by approving seven LNG export applications, which add up to more than the current gas production of all of Canada, and far exceed even its most optimistic projections of BC gas production. To put this in perspective, the US, which produces five times as much gas as Canada, has approved only four export projects with a total capacity of less than half that of the NEB approvals. The public would be well advised to demand more from their government than an improbable LNG fix to address crucial long term energy security, environmental, and fiscal problems. Arm-waving assertions by BC politicians of more than 950 tcf[13] of recoverable resources are misleading, as they convey none of the geological and economic uncertainties in these estimates, nor the scale of the environmental and technical challenges in attempting to recover them. Natural gas is a finite, non-renewable resource; however it will continue to be an important energy input to BC and Canada for the foreseeable future. Liquidating BC’s gas resources as quickly as possible is not a sustainable energy plan. Long term energy sustainability must of necessity involve a reduction in our reliance on non-renewable resources and a vision of how to get there.
David Hughes is a geologist and veteran of three decades with the Geological Survey of Canada. He is president of Global Sustainability Research and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute
I haven`t written much on LNG lately because there`s nothing happening, no big announcements, no final investment decision no nothing, in fact the only big LNG news has as of late has come in the form of black swans..
David Hughes, a world renown energy geologist has just blasted the NEB and BC Government for what he calls blatant over-estimated reserves and export capacity, the Commensense Canadian website has highlighted his first-class and in demand work in this post..It`s a must read
The only other LNG news is....Shell.....Shell is quietly dumping its LNG holding around the world, being careful not to ring too many alarm bells, truth be told Shell sees the black swans and is doing its best to avoid them, while concentrating their efforts on profitable ventures..
Everything LNG passes my eyes, anything relevant you readers and contributors are the first to see it..
On Twitter I saw a tweet Merv Adey retweeted, the tweet was from Norman Specter, it was a tweet message to Christy Clark, Norman Specter advised Christy Clark and other BC politicos to read before continuing to blather about the riches of a BC LNG industry..The article Norman Specter linked in his tweet was aired in the Globe n Mail...
Before I highlight the pertinent parts of the article I need to toot The Straight good`s horns..
The only website in British Columbia who talked about Japan restarting its nuclear facilities is here...
We noted that when Japan restarts its nuclear facilities their LNG demand and needs will fall dramatically..
Also reported here is Japan and other Asian countries will not sign lucrative LNG buying contracts with an impending glut on the horizon..
Reported here the $100 billion dollar prosperity fund, our debt retired, all crown debt paid off, sales tax eliminated, tolls removed and streets paved with gold all from LNG is bogus sloganeering from a corrupt and failed BC Liberal Government.....Now, for you regular readers of The Straight Goods some old news, some old news reported as new news in an article in the Globe n Mail..
A little cut n paste..
_______________
"B.C., however, doesn’t yet have a single LNG project under construction, in part because of long standing problems in finding buyers willing to sign contracts. Japan, for all its energy hunger, is sick of the prices it’s paying. Post-Fukushima, Japan’s LNG imports have soared by 30 per cent. It’s been financially painful. Natural gas is much more expensive than nuclear energy, which helped push the country’s trade deficit to $72-billion in 2012.
“So economic thinking tells us that we have to use our nuclear reactors when the independent regulatory authority verifies their safety,” said Masakazu Toyoda, who heads the Tokyo-based Institute of Energy Economics. Companies have applied to restart 16 reactors; the first could be back up and running this year.
If that happens, Japanese LNG demand stands to decline, rather than rise, at a time of soaring supply. Mr. Toyoda’s institute produces a world LNG forecast. So many companies are looking to build new plants that if they are all built, by 2025 the world would face a roughly 50 per cent oversupply, even under a “high demand” scenario. The LNG ambitions of Canadian business and political leaders are founded, in part, on dreams of fat profits from selling cheap domestic gas at high international prices. Mr. Toyoda thinks that’s unlikely: “Except for transportation and liquefaction costs, the price is going to be identical for all regions,” he said.
Maybe one day our BC media, also known as the Stooges will start asking questions, start reporting, start doing their job and stop wandering around the cutting room floor looking for BC Government press releases and reusable gum under their desks..
What will it take before the media calls out the BC Liberal government and Christy Clark for acting like ignorant asses..
Jobs plan slogan is dead, failed propaganda, LNG won`t bring our province any money until at least 2019 if at all, endless reviews and phony public consultations on how to help the disabled, how to sell more booze, how to set speeding limits, how to expand gambling and gaming to every street corner and public gathering places..
Reviews on BC Hydro, on BC Ferries, on Translink, reviews into CLBC, now a review on why the ministry of justice is refusing to lay the obvious criminal charges against owners of the Babine mill in Burns Lake, what will it take for the media in this province to call a spade a spade, call corrupt corrupt, call a failed government what they are, an ethical and economical ongoing disaster..
It appears BC`s media will never grow balls or journalistic integrity, they, the Vancouver Sun, Global BC and cknw issue free pass after free pass to our failed government...
An editorial in the Vancouver Sun this week claims that everything is looking rosy for British Columbia, they cite the USA and Europe rebounding from the 2009 Wallstreet led grand theft of the world`s cash, they cite the virtues of a low Canadian dollar spurring tourism, spurring exports from BC, they cite LNG potential ..
That editorial garbage cites the same economists who have been wrong on everything, including how they were used to forecast the $billions and $billions in economic spinoff from our 2010 Olympic fiasco, how tourism would reach new record highs following the Olympics, it never happened, the same government spin doctors told us we would become an electrical exporting super power with run of river IPP hydro projects, and what bag are we left holding, BC hydro is bankrupt, in debt by $10s of billions, skyrocketing rates for residential users and a legacy of dead fish and spoiled environments...
These BC Liberals chased away John Doyle(our previous auditor general) because he was doing his job and the evidence is out on Christy Clark`s whitewashing replacement auditor with a pre-Christmas release stating all was above board with the Basi/Virk trial ending before it started
indemnity deal...What a lark, no one believes that bullshit except Bill Good, Keith Baldrey and Vaughn Palmer, the same stooges who defended these corrupt BC Liberals through the last decade`s crime spree...
Babine mill owner`s crimes that have been swept away because of political party donations...
It was frozen cold in Burns Lake the week of the criminal tragedy, temperatures got as low as minus 48 degrees, workers were wondering why they were still working in the extreme cold weather because in the past they always shut the mill down when it was that cold..
Workers had to use torches to heat mill machinery and equipment just to thaw it enough that it ran...Workers complained for days about a strong odor of gas, of natural compressed gas emanating throughout the plant, workers were told to shut up and work, there was also ignored written warnings well before the explosion about build ups of dry wood dust...
Kaboom....The fuel found an ignition spark and blasted the mill to bits..
And it is obvious what happened, O-rings...Let me repeat that...O-rings...Remember the Columbia shuttle blowing up...O-rings are seals, gaskets, these O-rings seals failed to do their job because of the extreme cold weather, if the plant was shut down during the cold snap this tragedy wouldn`t have happened, rubber shrinks in extreme cold, becomes brittle, in other words they don`t work, the gaskets and O-rings allowed gas to penetrate the mill and Kaboom...
And what, WCB need search warrants and need to read owners their rights before conducting an investigation...Hogwash, they do not have to do any such thing, ....This is the reason the Ministry of justice is using to deny legal action against the mill owners..Hogwash, the reason is political party donations and the continued disrespect of workers..
And who is conducting this review of the ministry of justice, John Dyble, the same clown who whitewashed the ethnicgate scandal, where is the outrage, John Dyble was a top player in Christy Clark`s premier`s office, we already know that any review from this sellout isn`t worth the paper it is written on..
Since 2009....Actually since 2003 these BC Liberals have been complete failures, going into the 2009 provincial election Gordon Campbell and Colin Hansen lied about our deficit, they claimed "$495 million dollar maximum" when the real deficit was revealed shortly after the election at a whopping $3.7 billion dollars, followed by a HST tax rammed down our throat, a complete government sellout, Gordon Campbell was rewarded by Stephen Harper with an overseas federal appointment, we have been a floundering province for the last 6 years and still the media props up this failed entity, they allowed Christy Clark to wander the province blathering, lying about a jobs plan, failed!!..Christy lied about credit ratings, lied about fiscal performance, lied about ferries, hydro rates and accountability as well as a fictional $trillion dollar LNG con-job..
And after the election, wheelchair fees for seniors, the shocking BC hydro rate hikes and more job losses and the realization that BC Hydro is bankrupt, not to mention the endless crony patronage appointments...
We have no provincial government, we have failed persons and a schoolgirl running our province like a fraternity. a wink wiggle toga wearing milf premier who was tossed out of S-F-U for cheating on elections, and saying all this it`s not the government that is responsible, it`s Keith baldrey, Vaughn Palmer, cknw, Global news and a corrupt defunct media...And with that above delusional editorial in the Vancouver Sun its no wonder why no one buys those rags anymore..The Vancouver Sun, The Province, Siamese twins with boring echoed and identical copy sheets..Not an original or ethical journalistic thought between them..
This post isn`t about any of the above topics..
Christy Clark with a media assist has passed the transportation infrastructure conundrum responsibility to no one..
The Translink referendum..
Let us be clear....The subway line down Broadway to UBC is too expensive, we can`t afford that $3 billion dollar project, students can ride the bus, if more buses are needed buy more new buses, I hear no stories about students arriving hours late or not being able to get there, students attend UBC for but a few years, they can get up extra early, ride bikes or drive cars...That caddilac project is off the table....Sorry Gregor Robertson, no subway for you..
Surrey has to decide to either go elevated skytrain with bombardier and Translink or LRT, light rapid transit, Translink will never endorse or approve LRT, Translink is intrinsically connected with Bombardier and the highly over-priced elevated skytrain...If Surrey wants a big bang for limited dollars than LRT it must go, it will however have to go it alone...
A referendum on Translink must be project specific, as you know Translink was given ownership of the dilapidated Pattulo bridge, it is in need of replacement, replacement cost will be approximately $1.6 billion dollars..
Let us be clear, if the referendum on transit includes monies from the public for a pattulo bridge replacement it can`t be a toll bridge...That is double dipping, I don`t know what the ministry of transportation does anymore, however..
The public can`t be taxed for a pattulo bridge replacement with property taxes, road use charges, multiple tolls on all bridges, more gas taxes, etc etc etc and charged tolls too, that is a double dip...
Translink already is charging 17 cents per litre on gas...Translink is already on property taxes, on BC hydro, ...Property taxes are for municipal governments for roads, sewers, parks and other needed infrastructure...Gas taxes are already too high, Translink is a bloated whale in need of harpooning..
Road charges, meaning X amount of dollars per miles driven would require $millions in recording devices and another bureaucracy..
Tolling all bridges would require another bureaucracy and 10`s of $millions in cameras, mailouts and billing apparatus..
A simple fee of say....$250 dollars per car every time one renews its insurance would alleviate all those cost outlays for cameras, recording devices and the like....I`m not saying that I`m in favour of that fee just saying that would be more prudent than spending hundreds of $millions in new recording equipment and more bureaucracy...
Property taxes are a no go, there are far too many property owners who simply can`t afford to fund a service they don`t use...
That leaves us with 2 options for transit funding....These are the only real options and neither require a buck-passing referendum..
The carbon tax, remove the corporate and personal income tax cuts associated with the carbon tax and direct that money into transit, not for bridge replacements but for transit..
And if that move is too onerous for our pathetic failed and incompetent BC Liberal government than new taxes on income are the answer.. meaning tax workers, tax those with jobs.
The BC jobs plan?, tax higher earners and or tax workers to fund transit, that way a tapped out public, including the poor, including low income pensioners, including those who can`t afford anymore raping by this government won`t have to pay...
The obvious answer is to simply direct the carbon tax for transit improvements, that will of course require the government to rollback those tax cuts associated with our phony carbon tax...
Make a decision Christy Clark, that`s what you were elected to do, stop waffling, stop stalling, stop playing reindeer games and get off your fat ass and do something, anything, stop smiling and winking and do something!
And besides, Christy Clark and these corrupt BC Liberals have decided carbon and greenhouse gases are our friends...As are those $trillion dollar LNG unicorns, redirect the carbon tax revenue to transit or kill it!
To begin, as the Canada Post union has pointed out, Canada Post has
seriously misrepresented its present financial condition to suggest it is in
much worse shape than it is ... in order to spark violent changes in operation.
For the first time – in addition – Canada Post tried to levy a special $5.00
surcharge … on all parcels going to Fort McMurray, Alberta. Canada Post pulled
back on angry reaction to the levy.
The pull-back may have been planned from the start - both the surcharge
and pull-back planned as public relations “theatre” to mask other draconian
changes, to divert attention from them, and to give the impression that
Canadians are listened to in matters of public policy.
Canada Post has announced the elimination of all door-to-door mail
deliveries in Canada– using dubious delivery numbers, according to the
union.And it is raising stamp prices …
absurdly. In addition it has announced a program of major labour cuts.
Canadians may be sure that Canada Post has done those things under the
direction of the Stephen Harper cabinet or in collusion with the cabinet. In
fact, the CUPW (postal workers’ union) website states “it was all hatched in
the backrooms of Conservative government offices”. [Go to the CUPW website for
information you won’t get from the mainstream press and media.]
The Conservative forces in Canada use falsehood, organized fraud,
distortion of fact and truth, and Dirty Power Tactics as matter-of-fact
instruments of policy.They plan
complicated operations to practice fraud upon the Canadian people.
Chief crystal-ball-gazer declaring Canada Post will lose One Billion
Dollars annually until 2020 is the Conference Board of Canada, which also said
Canada Post would lose $250 million in 2012.Instead it made $98 million in that year. (FOOTNOTE: the president of
Canada Post sits on the Board of Directors of The Conference Board of Canada
which is, to put it modestly, an ardent supporter of neo-liberal, private
corporate rule.)
The great historical policy of the Canadian Postal System has been
equality of cost and of service. A
letter across town or from Victoria to St. Johns, Newfoundland cost one
price.Timely delivery was assured
everywhere in Canada.Parcel Post cost
was governed carefully by distance. Why was Fort McMurray - now getting very
bad service – targetted with the insult of a $5.00 surcharge on every parcel
sent there? There is every reason why Fort McMurray – concentrating high wages
and growing population – should have crackerjack mail efficiency and an active,
effective body of postal employees.
One may – without being outrageous or extreme – suggest the bad service
is an intentional policy to make Fort McMurray residents angry with the Crown
Corporation. One may suggest further that the proposed parcel surcharge, the
raise in stamp prices, and the ending of home mail delivery are measures taken
to force average Canadians to push for privatized mail service ... or to
acquiesce when a Far Right organization like The Fraser Institute (or The
Conference Board of Canada) suggests privatization. Fifteen years ago such a
suggestion would have been lunatic. Times have changed….
The present minister in charge of Canada Post is Lisa Raitt who has
demonstrated animosity to unions and to fair labour practices. Using Dirty
Power Tactics as then minister of labour she attacked fair labour practices in
strikes by Air Canada and Canada Post workers, giving patently stupid reasons
for destroying fair collective bargaining.
Canadians need to register clearly in their minds that the present
Conservative government and the Conservative Party of Canada led by Stephen
Harper are not above planning a fake parcel surcharge they can retreat from to
make a pretense they respond to public concern.
The Conservative forces in
Canada use falsehood, organized fraud, distortion of fact and the truth, and
Dirty Power Tactics as matter-of-fact instruments of policy. They plan
complicated operations to practice fraud on the Canadian people.
They have, for instance, denied all accusations of Election Fraud in
national electoral matters.But the
Conservative Party of Canada has been found guilty of violation in two major
cases … and is still being investigated regarding a third - about which the
people of Canada have already rendered a judgement of guilty for massive
cross-country election fraud.
Mark the point carefully: The Conservative Party of Canada has
repeatedly organized frauds on the Canadian people in attempts to violate fair
elections and fair electoral practice.
Stephen Harper, himself, is involved, visibly, in falsehood and misrepresentation.
He supported the violations in electoral robocalling in Saskatchewan in January
2013. He accepted Nigel Wright’s (Senate Spending Scandal) resignation – which
he called a resignation from the PMO, “with great regret”. Then, embarrassed by
the Opposition, with facts, Harper declared he had fired Wright. One of the
statements by Stephen Harper is a falsehood. Without question.
But all was well in the Prime Minister’s Office because the only person
who knew anything about the $90,000.00 payment made to ‘control’ Senator Mike
Duffy was Nigel Wright himself … according to Stephen Harper.But days later, Harper was forced, by facts,
to admit in Parliament that other people in the PMO knew about the payment, not
only Nigel Wright. One of Stephen Harper’s statements on that matter is a
falsehood.Without question.
… and so it goes with Stephen Harper and with The Conservative Party of
Canada … lies used whenever possible, and even – as is plainly evident – when
not at all possible.
The avalanche of falsehoods, distortions, and misrepresentations that
come from Stephen Harper and The Conservative Party of Canada are a part of a
program to destroy the democratic electoral system in Canada and to reconstruct
power in the country. The reconstruction is intended to place private corporate
power in the actual position of government – resulting in a structure which is
commonly described as “fascist”.
The Senate Spending Scandal reveals some of the solidarity of the
players in that reconstruction. Canadians have looked on wonderingly as the Bay
Street Boy Scout Nigel Wright has submitted himself to attacks, vacillations,
andfalse reports made about him by
Stephen Harper.
Why has Wright been so silent?Promises for the future? Hidden pay-offs? Possibly, since Wright’s
severance agreement (for instance) has never been made public. But perhaps we
are dealing with something very, very different.We may be dealing with what I choose to call
“fascist loyalty” – a group determination to destroy Canadian democracy and
replace it with corporate rule bludgeoned into place by lies, the destruction
of national institutions, the erasure of citizen and environmental protections,
and an endless attack on free and fair elections. Nigel Wright may simply be
staying out of sight and remaining faithful to the vision.
Painted frequently as a person of faultless honour and integrity, of
selfless benefaction and public charity, Wright may appear somewhat different
to careful examiners.
Canadians are hardly aware that (longtime acquaintances) Stephen Harper
and Nigel Wright share biographies revealing a worship of Margaret Thatcher and
her programs to destroy community solidarity, community sharing, and communal
social responsibility. Margaret Thatcher famously rejected the very idea of
community, saying there is no such thing. Wright was, apparently, giddily
attracted to her in his youth.
Canadians are hardly aware, as well, that Nigel Wright is an early and
long-time backer of Stephen Harper to become and remain leader of the
Conservative Party.
Nigel Wright is one of the founders, moreover, of what may be called
the present Conservative Party of Canada.He “helped found [in 2003] and fundraised for the Conservative Fund of
Canada, alongside Sen. Irving Gursten, the chief fundraiser, for years.” [Tonda
MacCharles, The Star.com, Jan 13, 2014].He was seven years on the Board of the Fund with Senator Irving
Gurstein.
What Canadians may forget is that Senator Gurstein was charged in the
2006 Conservative Party of Canada election fraud, called the in-and-out
Scandal, involving the lawless disguising and relocation of a huge sum of money
through 67 Conservative constituencies.Charges were later dropped against Gurstein when a plea bargain was
reached and The Conservative Party of Canada admitted guilt.Linda McQuaig reports that “Wright is named
in court documents” of the in-and-out Scandal.
Very plainly, Nigel Wright didn’t arrive, brushing stardust from his
glistering angel feathers, to the top position in the Prime Minister’s
Office.He had “been around”
Conservative ways of dealing (and helped create some of them) for a long time,
and was close to one of the most dubious men in the Party: Senator Irving
Gurstein who most recently, as Chair of a Senate Committee, ruled “out of
order” a motion concerning his own activities.
The picture is clear.The
Canadian postal service - for the Conservative Party of Canada and the
Conservative government - is not a public service devoted to fairness, service,
and equality of treatment.It is nothing
more nor less than an enterprise through which private corporate actors can
exploit workers and abuse Canadians on the way to creating a gigantic
profit-making enterprise for a very few.
As with the destruction of (Crown Corporation) BC Rail in British
Columbia the pattern of destruction of Canada Post is becoming clear. [Remember
when BC Rail destroyer, premier Gordon Campbell had to leave the premiership
and had an approval rating of about 9%, Stephen Harper stepped in, whisked him
out of B.C., and appointed him to the position of Canadian High Commissioner in
London. Friends.]
The process of BC Rail destruction undertaken when Gordon Campbell was
premier and Christy Clark was deputy premier of British Columbia slowly became
clear during the later four-year long BC Rail Scandal pre-trial and trial. A
program of destruction had been undertaken. (1) BC Rail profitability was
falsified and/or misrepresented. (2) BC Rail was made unpopular by cutting
attractive services. (3) Profitable operations were carefully extinguished or
sold off. (4) Consistent propaganda reported BC Rail a steadily failing
operation.(5) Corporate forces and
cabinet power united to work openly and covertly for its destruction.
Few in Canada – even in British Columbia – know that one of the early
advocates of BC Rail-wrecking was Paul Tellier, head of CNR, who privatized it,
and saw its headquarters move, in fact, to Texas from which it has
(miraculously!!) become a very profitable railway.
Doubtless a privatized Canada Post would soon prove highly profitable
to its corporate owners - as postal workers would become pauperized and postal
services would become a luxury except for those in Canada willing or forced to
pay extravagantly for a “public service”.
Already Canada Post has presented highly dubious financial
accounting.Already it has offended
Canadians across the country by attempting a unilateral surcharge on parcels
sent to Fort McMurray – on top of mounting an inadequate postal service in that
city. Already it has threatened the employees of Canada Post by announcing a
huge cut to employment.
Already it has announced the end of door-to-door mail delivery and an
outrageous rise in mailing costs ….
I believe the whole “Canada Post Crisis” is a fake construction created
by the Conservative cabinet and the executive officers of Canada Post with the
deliberate intention of destroying a unifying, historical, communitarian
institution owned and operated by Canadians. What will Canadians do to save
Canada Post?
Some serious commentators in Canada say Canadians are on the way to
losing their democratic political structures because they don’t care and won’t
act to preserve them. A better explanation may be that Canadians simply can’t
believe the vengeful, brutal, corrosive, full-scale acts of dishonesty and
criminality being practiced by the Conservative Government and The Conservative
Party of Canada. It may be that Canadians simply can’t get their minds around
an organization working to pervert every excellent and humane process and
institution won for Canada and Canadians over the last two hundred years.
Canadians need to wake up … and to act. Now.
That may be difficult (though all the more necessary) since no federal
Opposition Party will, so far, face the truth of the new fascism in Canada. All
– all of them go on pretending they are facing a “normal” ruling government and
Party operating in a “normal” democracy and in an unchanged, democratic House
of Commons. If the Opposition parties won’t wake up, Canadians will have to
by-pass them with strong public action to remove what they will more and more
see as a band of criminals presently in power.
Please pass on __________________ Bit by bit, brick by brick Stephen Harper destroys Canada and hands control to corporations, .......Canada is now the poster child for a Corpo-Fascist Society......We must stand up and fight now, children of the future are depending on us, can`t you hear their cries?.......Grant G
Stories written from the inside, shadows and light, directions and decisions, blinking road signs and soon one finds a road most traveled, a one-way road to where destiny grips your grasping hands...
Valerie starts her day with a chocolate bar and a hit off the crack pipe, nourishment for a member of an outcast community, heroin thrice daily to keep her drug sickness from kicking in, crack and meth for street courage, darkness descends on a cold city and out they come, it seems like only yesterday when Valerie was the newest hot young babe offering her soul for a fistful of dollars, I`ll just do it once and quit, get a little money to pay the dealer then I`ll clean up, that was 10 years ago and she still owes the man, always paying for dope already consumed means always returning to the stroll, what will tonight bring, the fat married man cheating on his bitter wife, the construction worker drunk and horny or the beastly savage who hasn`t showered in a month...
Dad taught me to see one`s surrounding from a very young age, he knew every shortcut through Vancouver and he knew where to find, Dad sold ice cream and drove taxi as a young Vancouver man, days of bootlegged liquor and after-hour parties, heroin and booze were the stimulants then, not to mention the ladies of the night, our city was always this way, a port town, a terminus for some and a beginning for others and the more things change the more they stay the same, handsome, strong and clever were my Dad`s attributes but he always told me, told me from a very young age to look in people`s eyes and identify their reflection, as reflections never lie..
My town is here, Burnaby, Vancouver, Surrey, Nanaimo, everywhere as they are all the same, jungles of asphalt and dope with boundaries marked by tag, colours and bloodlines, these places have rules, hierarchy and codes not meant to be broken, like any jungle there are lions tigers and bears, along with hyenas, snakes, spiders and vultures all preying on the lambs..
Thomas makes good money but cocaine never sleeps, $4k paycheques on a Friday turn to counting dollars by Monday, Tom works hard and his co-workers are none the wiser to his hidden vice, a weekend burner, blazing pipes and white rocks lost, on hands and knees scouring the floor for the inevitable dropped crumbs, even last month`s scare of paramedics busting down his door after he called them before slipping into cardiac arrest hasn`t deterred his private indulgences, caring paramedics warned Tom that the next cardiac arrest may be his last, as cocaine is the number 1 reason for seemingly healthy young hearts to expire, rapid beating and sweat pouring then pop, it`s not easy watching friends being consumed by a demon who doesn`t discriminate, black, white, rich, poor, educated or fresh off a turnip truck...
We must have been maybe 11 years of age when a small group of us boys peddled on our banana seat peddle bikes from Burnaby north to Stanley park, 14 miles each way, brave, fearless and daring, seawall, trails and sharing a few stolen cigarettes, we would stop and eat a late lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory on the way back home, right smack in the middle of Gastown, $3 dollars for all you could eat, our bikes we`d chain to a tree and within eyesight...They were all there even in the 70`s, drunks passed out in alcoves, heroin addicted street walking ladies, thieves and the hyenas, the game, a cat and mouse game of cops and robbers only back then the Vancouver police was said to be the best police force money could buy, everything had a flow to it, drug bars, sex clubs, fences and dealers and like moths to a flame we boys couldn`t resist, we were fast and knew the code of conduct, yes even in a chaotic drug fuelled cesspool there are rules and an unwritten code..
As a young teenaged man I serviced older televisions and delivered new ones for a living, from Vancouver to Surrey, from Langley to Hope, we drove to and from and every town has a seedy side, the downtown eastside was always ground zero, the big tent, a big circus complete with sideshow freaks but Surrey wasn`t far behind, the Turf hotel and the Newton inn, back then known as the rootin, tootin newton, drug dealers were not hard to find, in fact they were the ones serving the beers..
Drugs are funny, liquor too, well, maybe funny is the wrong word, funny like a rock slammed into the back of a woman`s head, there are those among us who can try, indulge and get lost in a world of feel-good stimulants for a night then return to reality, however there are others who dine with Alice in Wonderland once and never return, life turns to feeding the beast and building your own coffin..
Never a boy scout and drawn to the flashing lights pool rooms and pubs still tug at me today, a few beers and a puff on a doobie seemed benign to me, I`ve known casual users for decades who work, support families and go to church, these people aren`t special or gifted just genetically different from the addict, or the alcoholic...
Working construction for 2 decades and using transit, skytrain and fast feet there isn`t a town in the GVRD immune from this tragic game, players preying on the weak, addicts surviving to die another day and children turning into distant memories, Gateway stroll, King George strip, New Westminster west, these places never vanish only move, even back in Robert Picton`s time in the jungle a place called "Kiddie stroll" existed, and everyone knew, can you imagine a modern Canadian city having a place known to johns as kiddie stroll, the name tells you all you need to know...
I don`t know how many Picton killed, maybe 50 girls, 50 ladies, 50 daughters, 50 sisters and apparently Willy Picton never broke society`s code,...
Valerie now pumped full of juice and meth enters the darkness of the street, she needs $200 a day to maintain her existence, red dress wrapped tight around a too skinny frame, black spiked shoes with a broken left heel, torn pantyhose, cheap perfume and purple mascara, both applied heavy, one to mask the smell of stale sex the other to hide dead empty eyes, at a distance she looks tempting, up close track marks and age lines tell a different tale..
While working construction in south Surrey for 2 years, Edmonds skytrain to Surrey Central station, then a bus further south, work all day turn around and return home, waiting and watching, a microcosm of a world turned asunder played out everyday right before your eyes, yet most people there are oblivious to the show, just youthful kids hanging around, unkempt men coming and going, too skinny ladies engaging the boys for brief meeting, those are the runners, mules peddling drugs, the hyenas are here too, looking for prey, the drunk man, the naïve tourist, don`t venture too far of the beaten Surrey Central track, don`t be alone there at night and show no wealth, rolling drunks is acceptable, selling $5 dollar crack rocks for $20 dollars is acceptable, the game is afoot...Police drive by and the scattered groups disperse, only to return a minute later, undercover cops are as obvious as a neon sign, smashed car windows and stolen loot, public intoxication and probation violations, police do enough to keep courtrooms, judges and legal aid busy but never enough to solve the conundrum or close Wonderland...
Thomas made $60 k in his last year of work yet he barely covered his rent each month, no savings no large purchases only living a lie, one too many free-base bashes and another visit by the paramedics, there were no more paramedic warnings for Tom because fate drew his number, a fatal drug-fuelled heart attack, his obit left the drug use part out and mentioned only the failed heart, I wonder how many others die with recorded lies..Only the famous are rung through the ringer..John Belushi and his speed ball, Jim Morrison, Elvis, Cory Montieth, Michael Jackson paid a doctor to comatose him...Charlie Sheen who brags of his speedball use, he just hasn`t physically died yet, only spiritually..
I speak of the "code" ... I speak of rules in a drug fuelled rat`s maze, Willy Picton executed dozens before even the faintest of lightbulbs lit up, the Surrey gang war that raged a few years back, the Abbotsford war zone too, not until the innocent fell victim in the Surrey six slayings did the authorities put on a stageplay, not until bystanders fall prey is any action taken, not until Billy the drug addicted teenager attacked a hockey mom in a moment of rage, death in the form of hard cold granite, weapons wielded by the sick...
I`ve read stories this week of Surrey police talking about coming down hard on the drug trade, stories of Newton residents demanding lighting, more police, more security, more jail for the offenders and I muse, ponder and sarcastically laugh, yes maybe Surrey can be first modern society to win the futile war on drugs, no more heroin from Afghanistan and India, no more crystal meth from China, no more precursor chemicals from Mexico, no more tonnage of cocaine from Bolivia, our neighbors to the south have spent $trillions of dollars and jailed 3 million plus people and still drug bazaars and crack cocaine gongs shows dominate every major US city, and yet Surrey claims that they will get tough and hinder the heathens, again I laugh, only this laughter comes in the form of tears, a man yesterday stole 3 cars, stabbed people and raged through multiple towns before finally being apprehended, a murder charge laid today against 32-year-old Sarbjit Bains of Surrey who killed 3 Valeries, maybe more, another sex worker serial killer on the loose, this individual never broke the code, we weren`t even aware that there was another killer on the loose, dead rats, players gamers mules and bangers in the maze are open game and don`t trigger town meetings or tough talk, merely sweepings bound for the underside of rugs..
These hallucinogenic demons arrive by plane, by train, by cargo ship, gamers working at airports, at seaports and border crossings, even in jail drugs flow freely, kingpins living in mansions and running fortune 500 hundred corporations, doctors prescribing addictive elixirs by the boatload, mind altering drugs for children, hillbilly heroin, oxycodone, morphine, hydromorph, the biggest drug dealers today are listed on stock market exchanges so to expect a normalcy of conduct from rats deadending in a hallucinogenic maze is...
Delusional, demented, in a state of denial, Billy regrets his attack, he never meant to kill only to stun, a weak skinny drug addicted victim who wanted no struggle, there are thousands rotting in jails for one punch murders and there are millions of wives, girlfriends and ladies who have been beat senseless yet refuse to identify their mate, logic and reason never trumps fear and shame..
Light up Newton, add more security, shut down one more crack shack, shuffle the stuff strutters into dark dank corners, kick the homeless out of Abbotsford, identify and shame the johns and solve nothing, not in my neighborhood in yours, not over here over there, close your eyes and pretend the problem is solved..
I don`t have any answers, what we`re doing isn`t working, the war on drugs, more jails, more mental health facilities, more police, if we legalize all drugs it couldn`t get any worse, at least we would know who the users are..
Billy as a young boy dreamed of being a hockey player, too slow and frame too small, just your average Canadian kid who dared to taste, now he waits for incarceration and peace, Thomas wanted a pretty wife, kids and to own a home, he flew to high and surrendered his life, a faceless nameless statistic who lived and died but never broke the code...
A 13 year old Valerie dreamed of owning a pony and marrying a fireman, by 16 she was a regular on the stroll, she couldn`t steal and drugs aren`t free, her father forgot her, mother pretended she had no daughter, another shattered family, heroin breached Valerie`s world and stole everything, including her future..
Valerie met her fate last year, the beast appeared, she recognized the risk, the evil that lurked within her was a more powerful force than fear, her one-way road trip was never going to end any other way, bruised battered and sexually tortured before the hands of death silenced her breath, yet the beast never broke the code so no one noticed, or cared...
I care.....Just tired of after-the-fact reactive posturing by Governments and the phony get tough double shuffle two-step stall while headlines fade..
__________
P.S.....This was a very difficult story for me to write, the people are fictional? and yet all too real, it`s very scary looking into people`s Soul, you can feel the pain.....My most sincere condolences to all victims of crime, we all come from family, the good and the lost......Grant G
Fascism and Contemporary Canada.Locating the Present Conservative Government Led by Stephen Harper.Part X
The Conservative Party of Canada: a Criminal Organization?
Written by Robin Mathews
Send this column to a Conservative voter.
Old Canadian Conservatism is gone.The present government in power is a gathering of neoliberal goons for
whom Canadian democracy is an impediment to be erased with all speed. That is
not a foolish or extreme statement … as we shall see.
One of the iconic Old Canadian Conservatives, Hugh Segal, is leaving
the Senate.Preparatory to parting, he
described his values, his efforts, and he revealed the richness of Old-Style
Canadian Conservatism to an interviewer on CBC Radio in December.In doing so, he managed also to expose the
degree to which his kind shamelessly surrendered ‘for a mess of pottage’ to
“the new fascist Right”. The Old Canadian Conservatives did not go down loudly,
fighting and dying to teach Canadians what the country was losing.They died instead, it seems, from
over-indulgent feeding at the enhanced Pork Barrels provided by “the new
fascist Right”.
That Right is everywhere in the present Conservative government. Also
in December, the bulky minister of industry, James Moore, in a mood of Yuletide
frankness and openness bridled at the idea of social responsibility.In a pre-Christmas interview with a Vancouver
journalist Moore asked – “Is it the government’s job- my job to feed my neighbour’s child?I don’t think so.”
Since almost all the Holy Texts in the world (the Christian Bible and
the Koran of Islam, just for instance) insist it is James Moore’s job (and his
government’s job) to feed Moore’s neighbour’s child, we can be sure Moore was
expounding the faith of the New Fascist Right in Canada.
Flagship of that Right is, of course, the present Conservative Party of
Canada. It persistently undertakes attempts to destroy (by fraudulent means)
Canada’s free and democratic electoral system.That tirelessly organized set of actions by The Conservative Party of
Canada is no ideological accident.It
is, one may conclude, part of the attempt to implant fascism in Canada.
Fascism, quite simply, is the integration of government and large
private corporations to achieve a single goal: the unimpeded domination and
profitability of private corporations. To achieve that goal, government must
become the instrument of private corporations.They (the private corporations) must, in fact, rule – erasing
regulation, public oversight of operations, public memory, environmental and
human protections of all kinds. AND they must erase any possibility of public
influence on public policy formed in the country.
If the public is to be successfully prevented from helping to shape
public policy, public memory must be destroyed, and real elections must be made
impossible. The public’s voice must be silenced.
No one can be certain of the number of times the present Conservative
Party of Canada has engaged in organized election fraud, though many are
counting its attacks on public knowledge: on science, libraries and archives,
research, the CBC, etcetera.Since the
activity of organized election fraud – by its very nature – attempts to slip by
unnoticed, it may have been used by The Conservative Party of Canada far more
often than Canadians know or have been able to record.
But we do know The Conservative Party of Canada has been caught three
times: in 2006, 2011, and 2013.
The best-known case of organized election fraud occurred in the 2011
federal election in what came to be called the 2011 Robocall Scandal. Some
observers believe that fraudulent operation gave the Conservative Party a
fraudulent majority in the House of Commons. (More on that fraud below, because
the exact identity of the wrong-doers has not, so far, been discovered – though
a huge program of fraud has been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt.)
Two cases of violation by The Conservative Party of Canada are
absolutely certain.They are cases in
which The Conservative Party of Canada denied any infractions … and then was
forced to admit its guilt.
In the 2006 federal election The Conservative Party of Canada used 67
constituency organizations across Canada – in an organized program – to violate
Election Spending laws and to gain fraudulent financial advantage in a number
of hard-fought ridings.
Charged by Elections Canada, The Conservative Party of Canada fought,
in denial, for more than five years.During that time, millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money was used to
bring the Conservative Party to justice. And then, on March 6, 2012, The
Conservative Party of Canada finally admitted guilt to submitting fraudulent
election records … and more ....It paid
back $230,000.00, and it paid fines of $52,000.00.It DID NOT PAY BACK the millions of dollars
spent by taxpayers to “catch” the wrongdoing Conservative Party of Canada.
In 2013, the situation was different, but a fraudulent intention
appears to be very clear.No election
was in process.Electoral boundary
commissions were at work across Canada to bring changing population and
constituency boundaries into harmony.The Conservative Party of Canada, apparently, didn’t like the changes
envisioned in Saskatchewan (because they might threaten safe Conservative seats).
And so Saskatchewan was flooded with robocalls in January, 2013, the
purpose of which appears to have been to poison public opinion and to suggest
the constituency changes were an affront to the democratic wishes of the people
of Saskatchewan.Because no election was
being held, complaints went to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications
Commission (the CRTC), overseer of electronic communications in Canada.
The CRTC found against The Conservative Party of Canada – which, at
first, denied wrongdoing (again).Then
it admitted guilt, that it had violated CRTC rulings.The Conservative Party of Canada, sender of
the robocalls, did not identify itself as the sender. It did not give a local
or toll-free number so people could check on the source of the calls and ask
for more information.In fact “the
caller” seems very obviously to have wanted to hide its identity.
The CRTC did not name the whole organized robocalling program in
Saskatchewan “deceptive”. Since the CRTC does not seek ‘wrong-doers’ but those
who have violated procedures, it merely indicates when procedures have been
violated and penalizes the violators– as it did in the case of The Conservative
Party of Canada in Saskatchewan.The
CRTC named a penalty of $78,000.00 against The Conservative Party of Canada for
its violations in Saskatchewan in 2013.
Reasonable Canadians may fairly conclude, using ordinary language, that
The Conservative Party of Canada attempted (and, indeed, perpetrated) another
“election fraud”. A Saskatchewan Conservative MP suggested the operation was
organized out of the Prime Minister’s Office by a person who has become the
deputy chief of the PMO staff.
In addition, Ottawa Citizen reporters pursued the story, finding a
voice expert with very solid credentials.He listened to the voice on the Saskatchewan robocalls, and he matched
it with Matt Meier’s voice on his voice mail. The expert declared that he was
close to certainty that the voice on the robocalls is owned by Matt Meier of
RackNine, Edmonton, a robocalling firm used by The Conservative Party of
Canada. RackNine was used in the much-publicized robocalling in Guelph, Ontario
in the 2011 federal election.Out of
that scandal a court case alleging criminal behaviour is proceeding against a
Conservative Party worker who claims he is being sacrificed to protect the real
wrong-doers in the Party.
The 2011 election fraud – operated across Canada – is still under
investigation by Elections Canada. The only party widely believed to have
engaged in organized, widespread election fraud in that 2011 election is The
Conservative Party of Canada.
Out of that scandal came the application by eight Canadian voters from
across the country, before Federal Court judge Richard Mosley, to unseat six
elected Conservative MPs on the basis (claimed) that their election was
contaminated by election fraud.
Mr. Justice Mosley could not identify a person or persons responsible
for election fraud.But he concluded
that misleading calls were made “to electors in ridings across the country”,
and that “there was a deliberate attempt at voter suppression”.
Mr. Justice Mosley was “satisfied … that the most likely source of the
information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS [Constituent
Information Management System] maintained by the CPC [The Conservative Party of
Canada] accessed for that purpose by a person or persons unknown to this
court.”
In addition, Mr. Justice Mosley makes very clear in his ruling of May
23, 2013, that the “respondent [Conservative] MPs attempted to block these
proceedings by any means”, and that they made “transparent attempts to derail
this case”. He added that they engaged in “trench warfare in an effort to
prevent the case from coming to a hearing on the merits”.
Consider those facts….
A political party attempting to move Canada to fascism might well
engage in “trench warfare” and do everything it can “to derail” any case
seeking to protect the integrity, fairness, and honesty of the democratic
election process in Canada.
Canada has never before seen anything like the organized, sustained,
continuing attacks on fair elections and a fair electoral system as the attacks
being conducted by The Conservative Party of Canada led by Stephen Harper. As a
result law, investigation, and penalty for systematic violation of citizens’ voting
rights and freedoms drag behind the outrages being committed repeatedly.They seem to be committed according to a
grand plan. Is that possible?
Propagandists for The Conservative Party of Canada led by Stephen
Harper will hedge and disinform, accuse and vacillate, deny and attack. But
more and more concerned Canadians of every party and political conviction are
becoming convinced that the present Conservative Party of Canada has engaged
again and again in what are, in fact, criminal attempts to destroy free,
honest, democratic election processes and structures in Canada. Canadians may,
therefore, be concluding that The Conservative Party of Canada is a criminal
organization.
David Hughes is a geologist and veteran of three decades with the Geological Survey of Canada. He is president of Global Sustainability Research and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute
