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Canadian democracy – hijacked?

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Canada is facing a general election later this year. A lot of us mere mortals are alarmed at the direction Canada is headed.

There is a widespread feeling that Canada, a vast nation with so much good land, one of the biggest forest and water and resources, is heading in a dangerous direction of denigration of its living space, its environment and its socio-economic fabric, for the sake of disproportionate profit by a few.

In the middle of this crisis, our very democracy might be facing new challenges.

Canadians as it is have a poor record of voting.

Now new facts are emerging raises question on the very process employed within many political parties in selecting their candidate that could be unethical, and cloaked in secrecy.

This blog is an effort to start chronicling firsts hand information and observations on this, and same time ask ourselves, as citizens of a free democratic nation, what we the people might do, to clean up our politics, our elections, and our nation. We owe it to ourselves to do so.

Clean democracy does not fall from the sky like snowflakes. We have to work to keep it clean, else it will taken away from under our feet. How? Well, there may be reasons to suspect that :

  • a large number of people are of a sudden becoming party members in droves just in time to participate in candidate selection, probably for the sole reason of influencing the selection process but otherwise taking no part in volunteering or promoting either party doctrine or our democratic process in any other way.
  • a number of these “sudden members” may not even know that they were members of a specific party, or that they might have voted in some candidate. In other words, there is reason to suspect that their name and signature may have been unethically produced.
  • that some of these members may not actually be living within the riding, and the address written in their forms seem not to be the place where they actually live.
  • that some of these people, might have been members of more than one party at the same time and their names may have been used for more than one party candidate selection process.

Introducing Ms Wendy Bales, of Deroche, BC, a small businesswoman, an organic farmer, a sustainable agriculture campaigner, and a politician, on her observations on what she found going on, in her riding.

She found some evidence of questionable goings on while canvassing for herself as an NDP potential candidate in the last Provincial election, wanting to be the selected member of the party. She subsequently found it hard to investigate the matter further because of difficulty in accessing membership and voting record data. She eventually resigned from the party, removed her name from it, and is now contemplating running for office in the federal election on an independent ticket.

The party in the process lost a genuine and hard wording candidate with a lot of responsible social work behind her, and Canada lost an honest and deserving candidate.

This is not to say that the problem exists only in her riding or only in NDP. She is now worried that the issue may be beyond individual parties and widespread, and the system is being abused because there is this lack of transparency and because parties can and do high their internal workings away from public eye.

It may be time for the people of Canada to demand that each political party makes all its books available first of all to all of its members, and then to the wider population, if they wish to earn the trust of voters.

[youtube 4aOKIv9Vb8Y]

This is the first of more videos and information on the topic.

If you know of questionable goings on in your own area, or have something to contribute to this topic – send me a note.

Glyphosate poisoning test for Canadians

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This is a follow up announcement for all Canadians.

We have been trying for a long time to have a system by which Canadians can test themselves for glyphosate poisoning, and also test their food to learn where the poison is coming from. Now, finally, some solutions are coming up. But there are also changes in the offing. The original lab that was offering the test in USA may not do so after Nov 30. A new system is being looked at through another commercial lab. So our advice at this moment is to hang on and wait to see what comes up in Jan 2016, unless you already paid and have to send samples across right now. Organizations that with to be involved in collection and handling of samples for as a shipping transit point from Canada to US labs, please contact me.

People interested in joining us to lobby various segments and layers of our Government and healthcare system to pay for some of these tests – please contact me. We need to present an unified, or collective, voice.

Please who believe in the need for testing glyphosate, and would like to join our effort in Canada, please consider contacting Tony. The time is right, with a new federal Government in place. Meanwhile watch this space.

Canada did not have a lab that would test body fluids or food for glyphosate content. We still don’t. However, things are changing. Public awareness on the dangers of Glyphosate is rising daily, along with an awareness that our Government does not test imported toxins for possibility of harm, but bases its decision on third party information, and is influenced by foreign corporate power more than a genuine concern for any long term safety of the people. Thankfully, there are still some institutions that are willing to rise up against this trend. World Health Organization is one. It recently classified glyphosate as a class 2A probable human carcinogen.

Meanwhile, US-EPA started mumbling about testing American food, for glyphosate content, a mumble that is likely to be echoed by the Canadian counterparts.

A lab or two in Canada are appearing ready to test vegetables and processed food for presence of Glyphosate. This will be covered in another blog, as we get organized to start testing our food.

Meanwhile, a lab in the US is offering citizens test of urine, water and breast milk for glyphosate. These labs are using high end High Performance Liquid Chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MSMS) methods and are offering these tests at substantially lower rate than before.

Payment and schedule details

Payment and schedule details

And, our earlier problems of finding an easy way for Canadians to send body fluids across the border to labs in the US, has been solved, thanks to cooperation from Henry Rowlands of Feed The World Group. For logistical and technical reasons, testing of breast milk is not offered to Canada right now, but urine and water can be sent. I shall remind people here that in Canada it is possible now to test soil, water as well as food for Glyphosate already, using both ELISA and HPLC-MSMS methods. Click on the above image to find details of when the next batch of urine samples might be ready for testing, and how to pay for it. Meanwhile those that have already paid for the test, in Canada and not yet sent their samples, follow this instruction and send the samples to Tony Mitra.

But for urine, which is so important for people to know if they have been poisoned or not, now Canadians can pay directly on line to the testing scheme, and then follow instructions specific to Canadians, as described in the attached video, regarding sending urine samples.

[youtube _f1Ik_Sgg7Y]

Please follow the instructions on the above you tube video, and the attached flyer below. Please do pass this information around to others that might be interested.

The idea of this test comes from realization that our Governments and Medical systems have been turning a deaf ear when it comes testing if the most used toxin in Canadian food system and agriculture has been poisoning our children, our elderly and ourselves.

This is the first prong of our citizens initiative to test ourselves bypassing our do-nothing Government. The second prong will be to test our own food by ourselves, possibly using one of our own Canadian labs. Details for that will be followed up by a separate blog and perhaps another “how to” video.

If you have any question, feel free to contact me.

As results are coming in, it has become clear that nearly everyone of us are exposed to glyphosate, one way or another. Its only a matter of degree. As the first batch of people are expected to be those already concerned about glyphosate and likely are careful to eat good food, the results are likely to be lower than the national average when a broad cross section of the population are checked, including those that are unable to be selective of what they eat, and those that are unaware.

Link to this blog has been sent to folks people across the world that I have had the pleasure of communicating with in regard to Glyphosate testing. Only one of the email did not go through. The failed emails are listed below:

1. Ms Sinvia Bishop – elected municipal councillor of my town, Delta, BC : sbishop@delta.ca. The emails service returned a note that my email was rejected by her server.

The remarkable story of Richard Miller

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Richard Miller was a healthy, barely thirty young man back in the 1990s, when he started getting sick with an incurable and permanently present migraine headache. The illness made him unfit to work every so often. Some days he would be unable to get off his bed, or keep his food down. He was visiting the Hospital sometimes 18 to 20 times a year. He lost his regular job. He spent countless thousands of dollars trying to cure himself, without success. He got progressively sicker, became obese, developed blood cholesterol and other problems, got into an indenting list of medicines he had to take. But nothing helped.

Then, in the fall of 2013, he saw Dr. Mercola on TV, in Hawaii. The doctor was taking in calls from the public. So Richard called him, and luckily got through. The doctor, after listening to his story, suggested that Richard tries to go 100% organic for a month, and see if that helps.

Richard did. On the tenth day, he woke us without a headache and feeling better than he had for the last 20 years. The experience changed him. Today he looks trim and healthy, years younger than his fifty plus years. And along with himself, he is changing his very neighbourhood in Chilliwack, BC, Canada.

Now, he is a messiah that is converting his neighbourhood, one house at a time, to get them to start growing their own organic food in their own front and/or backyard, and promoting chemical free food, including organic sprouts. In order to help convince his neighbours, Richard passes out free seeds, saplings, compost, and even his own about, to help a neighbour get started.

Watch the remarkable story of Richard Miller, in his own voice.

[youtube _chKm0a65Yw]

Anthony Samsel and Monsanto’s Secret on Glyphosate

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Dr. Anthony Samsel got hold of the Trade Secret files on Glyphosate from EPA, that had been sealed and protected from public eye for 35 years. He had to sign a legal agreement not to copy or show those documents to anybody, although he is allowed to study the content and talk of his own opinion about them.

And express his opinion he did. IN an hour long telephone interview with me, he disclosed how Monsanto used unethical means and unrelated information from other tests, to find an excuse to ignore what their own tests glaringly showed – evidence of harm to the animals exposed to Glyphosate.

[youtube 13yO9VpjwLQ]

I broke the talks into two parts, part 1 of 19 minutes and part 2 of 12 minutes. The rest of the conversation was more from me and less from Dr. Samsel and covered issues within Canada, and how Glyphosate might have been approved by the Canadian Govt. Those issues I feel are outside of the main scope of this blog and this topic – which is – Glyphosate is unsafe to be in our food or environment. All herbicides are unsafe to be in our food or in cattle feed or in nature. These chemicals should be banned. Also, the practice of using unrelated, contaminated, historical controls to explain away glaring evidence of harm in lab tests is a practice that should be banned in science.

[youtube yPBPfWrFwuI]

In my view – what Monsanto did was not science. It was voodoo.

Nationwide Glyphosate Testing comes to Canada

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Feed The Word is offering the first validated public testing for glyphosate in the World for urine and water. The lab that created the testing is based in the U.S. and therefore there are difficulties for Canadian citizens to get involved in the testing project. However, we believe we have now solved these difficulties and we would like to involve Canadian citizens in this vital public testing.

Feed The Word is offering the first validated public testing for glyphosate in the World for urine and water. The lab that created the testing is based in the U.S. and therefore there are difficulties for Canadian citizens to get involved in the testing project. However, we believe we have now solved these difficulties and we would like to involve Canadian citizens in this vital public testing.

This testing will also provide the first validated peer-reviewed data for use in challenging Canadian regulators on the World’s most used herbicide – glyphosate.

NATIONWIDE GLYPHOSATE TESTING, a Canadian citizen action grassroots group, is  proud to join hands with Feed The World to bring a hassle free first step effort for Canadians to get their urine or water tested in a high quality per reviewed system for detecting Glyphosate, at a price which is a third of what a commercial lab in the US might charge. We are aware that Canada does not even offer a lab at the moment to the public for testing Glyphosate in people, food, animals or plants.

The future aim of Feed The World and Canadian Citizen group, with local NGOs is to push for a lab in Canada to either develop a method for testing or to license the U.S. method – however long it might take. Canada deserves a lab that tests for glyphosate in biological samples as a long-term solution.

PAYMENT : US$ 119 per sample.  To register and pay for the testing visit here: http://feedtheworld.info/glyphosate-testing-test-yourself/ Results will be sent within 12 weeks of receipt of sample via e-mail.

Sample Collection in Canada : Feed The World, with the help of Tony Mitra, has set up a collection point in Canada for urine and water samples. The cost of the postage to the Canadian address needs to be covered by you. Please send Mr. Tony Mitra a message via e-mail on or before the day you send the package to his address: glyphosate.testing@gmail.com and tony.mitra@gmail.com. For more information – watch this page time to time watch this page.

Send sample to: After registering and paying for the test, send sample, with registration details to : Tony Mitra, 10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada.

Please send Tony Mitra a prior message via e-mail: glyphosate.testing@gmail.com and tony.mitra@gmail.com. For more information – check www.tonu.org. Your samples will then be sent to the lab in batches so effort will be made to time them so that early samples do not wait too long in Canada before shipment to the US.

NEWSFLASH : We are informed that two more countries – Switzerland and Australia, has decided to follow the Canadian example and join the global effort to get Glyphosate detected in people.

Flyer:

To download the above flyer, click on it . It will take you to another page with the pdf file displayed. Download it from the file menu. Link :
http://www.tonu.org/tonu/Mypics/MP09/MP375_GlytestCanadaFlyer02.pdf

 Dr. Anthony Samsel on Glyphosate & Cancer

[youtube uCrkVoEjqLQ]

Kate Storey of the Green Party nails it on GMO and Glyphosate

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Kate is an organic farmer based in Manitoba. She is also the Agriculture critic of the Green Party and an aspiring politician that is standing for the coming federal and provincial elections, hoping to be either an MP or an MLA.

For me this was a back to back interview with two candidates of the Green Party. They are on a fast growth track, far as I can see, but are starting from a near zero level. Their system and policies stand apart from any other conventional party.

Besides, being concerned about Canada’s food security and this chemical and biological attack we are subjected to through foreign biotech corporations efforts to own everything in Canada and our politicians penchant to sell Canada piece by piece to the lowest bidder is, at least to me, a national crisis whose root is in political corruption and can only be resolved politically, by electing good people into our parliament. Just like Politicians have a duty to protect the land and the people, a task in which they are failing, citizens have a duty, to ensure good people get elected, and to keep our politicians in check. A functioning democracy needs both elements – good politicians and involved citizens.

I wanted to ask her questions that relates to the particularly unenviable position that Canada is in, with regard to exposure to transgenic organisms and nasty biocides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp herbicide and others being used on our food system, our prairies, forests, parks and everywhere else.

I wanted to ask her if the Green Party might bolster its policy on UN convention on biodiversity and the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, by proposing to ratify the Cartagena Protocol and actually pass a law that will protect indigenous flora and fauna. She agreed this is a good idea and asked me to send her the details. Members of the party can propose amendment on their party policy and she was a member, so she would consider helping the party adopt it.

Then she spoke for around ten minutes straight, describing the Green Party agriculture policy, possibly reading it out, and covered a lot of ground so we did not have to ask each item one by one. I was concerned about the rural heartland being depopulated as small farmers were driven to extinction, and becoming unemployed job seekers while mega corporate farms replaced them and turned to extremely energy and input dependent toxic chemical dependent mono-culture regime that only bring illness to the people and lifelessness to the land while impoverishing the people. She did a good job explaining all of that in one shot.

Then we went to another difficult issue – political alliance in ridings where the left vote is split and the conservatives gain by stealing the seat there. I got a response from Tom Mulcair about his effort to form an alliance with the Liberals, but that the Liberals refused. He did not mention the Greens.

Kate spoke on record that the NDP had refused to form any alliance with the Greens. The Greens had tried very hard to form alliance with both Liberals and the NDP but apparently none of the larger parties were interested. This is a tragedy, in my mind, because ego of the parties get in the way and open the path for the Conservatives, who are ruining the country.

I should be asking Tom Mulcair again to clarify the issue of alliance with the Greens.

Kate opposes absentee owners of the farm land and supports agriculture cooperatives for helping small farmers and dependence in local food instead of our cauliflowers coming from California.

Pesticide use has increased instead of decreasing, with widespread adoption of GM crops. The party is aware of Glyphosate poisoning of people and proposes all children being tested for Glyphosate.

I did not interrupt her to state that Canada does not even have a lab that will test children or our food for Glyphosate content. Canadian labs at this moment only offer testing Glyphosate in water and soil. I am personally involved in trying to coax labs to offer this service on one side, and asking the people to demand this test, so as to create a “demand” for this service, so that labs take note and get on board.

I should be asking Kate to consider writing in a policy to help in this effort so Canada gets a few labs that will test Glyphosate in people and food.

I asked her about mandatory voting law. Its not mandatory in Canada, and Canadian voter participation is rather poor. She things this is a great idea, as is the issue of proportional representation. The problem is, I thought, that current senators may never vote these systems in, because they are the beneficiary of the absence of these laws.

However, these are necessary goals and can only happen with public pressure and public demand.

She said NDP is in power in Manitoba and that they have a policy to support proportional representation, and yet, they have not passed this law. So,  somebody needs to ask NDP Manitoba about it. Perhaps I shall ask them by email, and see what they say.

Kate predicts that the Greens will get somewhere between ten and twenty seats in the next federal election, with British Columbia leading the way and perhaps PEI following suit.

All in all, this is one politician and hopefully a future MP that I really enjoyed speaking with.

I do hope she wins, and gets to kick some butt in Ottawa.

The podcast is just over 31 minutes long. You can listen to it by clicking the play button at the bottom of this page.

Introducing Becka Viau, Green Candidate from PEI

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Becka is an artist, a young mother, and a self described active social catalyst. She is standing for the provincial election next week on the Green ticket.

I spoke with her on record, and asked her about :

  • Why she is standing for election
  • Pesticide load on Prince Edward Island
  • Splitting of the left vote as against making political alliance
  • Mandatory voting

She also stated about bringing the voters out, especially the youth vote, because the young folks allegedly do not vote. She hopes to energize this segment.

She believes there needs to be more Green voice in our politics and she likes the strong  environmental policies.

Regarding the pesticide load, Becka describes how agriculture is the largest business and it uses a model of potato mono-culture that is heavily dependent on synthetic pesticides which are linked to diseases. She things there are newer organic farmers that are willing to come in and replace this mono-culture regime, if the Govt does not stand in their way. Becka hopes to be that agent to change.

She is standing from a riding that has a strong incumbent, the current health minister of the province. In case she does not win the provincial election, she intends to stand for the coming federal election.

Green Party has some of the best party policies in Canada. It is also the youngest and smallest party. Rumour has it that the party might make significant inroads into PEI during next weeks election.

She supports electoral reform including proportional representation. But that is unlikely to happen any time soon. She also promotes giving a positive message during her campaign rather than giving a negative message that things are bad with Canada and that folks must vote to fix a broken system. She believes this drives voters away. She prefers to give a positive message

She also does not believe mandatory voting, such as in Australia, should be adopted unless our education system is reformed and kids are taught civic duties. Actually I was a bit surprised to learn that Canadians are not taught civics in school.

She is not coming from big money and represents herself as our neighbour. She hopes to run a strong campaign. She is not a hundred percent certain she can win against a strong incumbent.

I wish Becka Viau the best of luck. Election is on May 4th.

Our talk covers less than 15 minutes of audio, and you can hear her by clicking the play button at the bottom of this page.

A few reference links:
Becky on Facebook
Green Party on Facebook
Her candidacy web page

Edmonton uses toxic chemical banned by other cities

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Meet Sheryl McCumsey of Edmonton, Canada.
She has been battling the municipal Govt of Edmonton for a while on account of using Dursban within city limits. I spoke with her and recorded her conversation for you all to listen to.

What is Dursban ? It is a brand name product by Dow chemical. The active chemical is named Chlorpyrifos. It falls under a group of chemicals called organophosphates.  The chemical interrupts the electrochemical process used by nerves of insects and higher animals to communicate with brains, muscles, organs and with one another.

It was discovered a few centuries ago, but its killing powers got better understood in the 1930s and this chemical was manufactured in Nazi Germany as a nerve gas agent for killing people although chemical weapons had been banned by then.

Today, it is often used in agriculture and as pest control.

EPA ordered a phaseout of this chemical by the turn of the century, year 2000, and removed the product from shelves, mainly due to concern of health risks for humans, particularly children.

The chemical Chlorpyrifos is banned in Singapore from using it for termite control. It is banned in South Africa from residential use. In 2010, India barred Dow from commercial activity in india for five years after its Central Bureau of Investigation (Indian version of FBI) found Dow guilty of bribing an Indian official in 2007 to allow the sale of Chlorpyrifos.

In Canada, it is not used anywhere except in Edmonton. Winnipeg stopped using it but had leftover stock. Edmonton reportedly bought the stuff. Somehow, Govt of Canada re-registered the product and allowed its use, and the municipality of Edmonton is reportedly using it without disclosing to the public where, when and how much of it is used.

I leave it for Sheryl to explain the rest. Its a 25 minute podcast. You can listen by clicking the play button.

From Sheryl McCumsy :
Besides sharing information and researching the harm of chlorpyrifos I suggest people lobby to city and provincial government to discontinue the use of this insecticide as there are safer alternatives. Bee well and Bee informed! Ditch the Dursban and Delight in Dragonflies. contact Sheryl at Pesticide Free Edmonton on facebook or e-mail at: Pesticide Free Alberta

Dr. Josette Wier continues her battle against pesticides

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Dr. Josette Wier, a doctor and an activist against pesticides, was born in France. She is 68 years old. She has a 120 Acre plot at Smithers, northern BC. She wishes to plant organic grain there, but has not managed the economics of it yet, so presently leases the land for hay. She does not earn anything from it – but gives the hay away freely. She intends to try out experimental crops in small lots to see what works and what does not. She is not aiming to get her products certified organic right now, because it is an expensive proposition, but would like to grow her crops as if they were organic.

There is a shortage of information and knowledge on what can be grown there sustainably. The region’s history of settlements is barely a century old, where settlers came, cleared the forest and created the farm land. Nobody has tried growing human cereals, though some have grown animal feed there. There was a government funded study in an experimental farm decades ago, to see what can be grown there. But, the Government has shut that down quite a while ago. The information thus collected is apparently lost or lying in someone’s barn without any effort to preserve. Reportedly a research student in the University of Northern British Columbia, UNBC, is trying to find that information and is lamenting at the difficulty of finding, preserving and building on that knowledge base.

Josette has a few more things that sets her apart. She has been battling pesticide use in Canada, as an activist and a litigator, for 15 years or so. She took the provincial Government followed up by taking the Federal Govt to court for practice of injecting arsenic based pesticide into hundreds of thousands of BC forest trees to fight the pine beetle attack, and for spraying RoundUp by the logging corporations. After several years of court battle , she eventually won both her cases, and the practice was halted. But this happened only after EPA had withdrawn approval of the practice in USA due to proven harm to environment.

Josette however does not consider it a victory, since the BC Government does not seem to know what to do with the hundred thousand trees that still stand with arsenic and Glyphosate in them, and are poisoning woodpeckers, mice, insects and a whole lot of the food chain. During this long battle, she came to learn a lot about the harmful effects of Glyphosate.

As if that was not enough, Dr. Josette Wier has come across a new challenge in the last few years in Smithers. Her district voted itself to want to be GMO free through a resolution in 2013. However, an Alberta farmer has landed on her town, bought a large plot, and has started planting and growing GM RoundUp Ready Canola, and spraying RoundUp, more than the recommended limit, on his property bordering Josette, causing pesticide trespass onto her property over the fence, as well as using RoundUp on crown property ditches which is illegal even in Canada.

Further, he appears to be using it more often and in larger quantity than recommended by the producer (Monsanto) and seller (Croplife). Also the new farmer apparently does not follow best practice guidelines recommended in Croplife brochure, about informing bee keepers and neighbours before spraying, so the neighbours could take precaution.

Josette says she and her family is genetically inclined to fall prey to Cancer more easily than others. She has officially complained to the district board. But nothing much happens.

It appears that the use of Glyphosate is approved by Health Canada based on study by the maker of the product, provided the user follows the guidelines provided in the package. The strange thing is – there seem to be no oversight or regulator, to ensure that the guidelines, however questionable, are being followed.

[youtube eXxdL00nKC4]

Josette has filed a case with the Farm Industry Resource Board on this issue as well as given written letters to the farmer in question, advising him of the recommended practice per CropLife and Monsanto documentation and requesting him to maintain a buffer, use the herbicide no more than recommended level and keep neighbours and bee keepers advised ahead of time. None of these requests are being followed.

I am planning to create a two part video, 15 minutes each, of Josette’s talk, and plan to drive to her place in summer,  a 12 hour drive, for a look sea and taking pictures (right now there is a lot of snow on the roads and is not a good time to drive there).

This video was created based on my talks with her.

A few notes:
She is asking for a buffer around her property where no herbicide is sprayed. This is better than no buffer. But we know that is insufficient as the spray drifts in the air. Also, it may get into the underground water, and also go in agricultural runoffs and contaminate the neighbourhood anyway.

The issue here, is another example where we may be having a Government that appears determined to poison the countryside for the sake of a handful of Auber-powerful corporations. Is this an onset of fascism? Are we having a Government of the Corporations, for the Corporations and by the Corporations, while maintaining a thin and crumbling facade of democracy and rule of law?

If any of you know the student of UNBC that is searching for the missing documents about the experimental farm in Bulley-Nachako regional district, that was shut down by the Government, I would request you to pass me her contacts so I can catch up on that story.

This is not the only battle on Josette’s plate. She has the pipeline and the other toxic agendas to fight against too. My heart goes out to this spirited doctor, and member of CAPE (Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment).

For those that might want  to offer a suggestion for Dr. Wier – send me a note.

Canada’s unenviable record of resisting Glyphosate and GMO

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Here is something that I wrote, on a long chain of email based discussions on what we Canadians or British Columbians might do, to resist the GMO onslaught.

Hi Dag, and everyone else.

Guess this is a kind of email-brainstorm discussion on the topic. I shall state my feelings on it, if I may, based on Dag’s very good analysis, which is still quite different from mine.
I look at it this way, but am not proposing that everyone else must agree:
  1. Glyphosate is a greater health risk, proven, than GMO. Glyphosate combined with vaccine additives make a drastically more dangerous cocktail of poison. Glyphosate is in more things than just our food, and is killing more than just humans. Glyphosate is now being used even on non-GMO crops as desiccant, so it is expected to have higher concentration on non-GMO food than even on GMO crops. Lastly, without Glyphosate, a majority of the GMO  (roundUp ready crops) will automatically die off. IN other words, eradicating GMO will not stop Glyphosate, but eradicating Glyphosate will more or less kill the largest swatch of GMO. So, at least in my view, Glyphosate is to be the primary target of my energy. The only thing worse is, 2,4-D is coming, together with Glyphosate and smart stacks.
  2. I disagree that Canada in the last ten or twenty years have gone a long way forward  in fighting off GMO. I do not know how to judge public awareness, but by mathematical numbers, the support for fighting off GMO is pitiful in my eyes. Where venues should pack thousands of people, even hundreds of thousands, we see tens and twenties and at times a few hundred. I do not consider this progressing forward. To me this is regressing backward. Further, if I check the details of how many GMO crops Canada managed to stop, and compare than with how many GM crops Canada has allowed in, in the last two decades, I come to the conclusion that Canada is singularly the worst nation in the planet (along with USA) when it comes to approving GM products in our food. Official figures through UNO affiliated bodies say USA and Canada have over 100 GMO products on their food shelves, while Europe has less than ten, and countries like India have just one. So, if I consider we are making progress, then I am in denial, and I am part of the problem, not part of the solution.
  3. When strategizing, I must take into account that GMO and pesticides are entering Canada through our political system, and that both mainstream political parties, i.e. the conservation’s and the liberals, are allowing wholesale introduction of it, much like the republicans and the democrats in the US. NDP has a slightly shrouded agriculture policy that appears to be against GMO and pesticide  but does not spell it out clearly and unambiguously. I have learned to be suspicious of policy statements that are vague and avoids calling a spade a spade. The agriculture policy of the Green Party appears to be the only one that is unmistakably, unambiguously and clearly, against introduction of patented GMO and pesticide laden agriculture, forestry and ecosystem management practices. Not just that but they seem to be the only party that highlights the dangers of the trade deals we are entering into that allow foreign nations and corporations to sue us if we do not import their toxic packages. But then, the Green Party is a long way off from forming a Government.  Some  MLA and MPs have said, including emails to me, that there is no hope for Canada (on the GMO/pesticide issue as well as many others) unless we get proportional representation. However, nobody seems to know how to bring about proportional representation when such policy changes will have to be voted by the very MPs that support the current unjust system. What we have is a mockery of democracy, and the onset of a full blown fascism, and unless we fix that, all the talk about resisting GMO is just that – talk. So, to me, resisting GMO or pesticide cannot be divorced from politics. This is a political problem – a crisis of civilization, and not one of just science or sociology. Our democracy has gone down the toilet.
  4. I am appalled at the apathy of Canadian citizenry, especially of the younger generation that seems to have no time for anything other than be preoccupied with themselves. In that sense, I believe the youth is disconnected in general, but Canadian youth appear to be particularly more self-absorbed and myopic compared to youth of other continents. So, again from my point of view, I am trying within my meagre means to get ordinary citizens to re-engage with the rotten political system of this country. I have been vigorously involved within my means in the local municipal election – supporting good candidates and exposing those that sit on the fence on the GE free issue on my blog (www.tonu.org) naming rogue politicians, mayors and the like and putting up their pictures, as well as highlighting honest politicians that pledge to fight for eradication of GMO and pesticides. I am happy to note the only politician I went door to door to canvas in support of (ms Heather King) won the election in Delta. I am trying to organize a weekly trip to the local town halls where municipalities conduct their business in front of the people, and trying to give a free ride to anyone wanting to attend them from my neighbourhood. I find it appalling that the halls are bare and there are more councillors and municipal staff than there are public attending them. These, to me, are some of the root illnesses of our society, our civilization and our culture – just my view.
  5. In the last provincial election, I went door to door supporting candidates in Surrey, and Langley area that were standing on the Green ticket – not because of the party, but because they had integrity and would not mince their words on GMO and pesticide. They all lost their elections, but that hardly changes my position on what I as a citizen consider my duty of supporting good candidates.
  6. I am contemplating who to support in the next general election and what strategy I might adopt as a citizen. I already have at least one candidate and a very strong personality on anti-GMO and anti-pesticide battle. She is Brandie Harrop of Sherwood Park, Alberta standing on the Green ticket. I have not yet found a similar candidate, of any party or independent, in BC, but the search in on.
  7. I aim to promote and highlight people that make a difference, such as Arzeena Hamir, April Reees, Harold Steves, Sheryl McCumsey, Huguette Allen, Wendy Bales, Josette etc. These are hero and heroines of far greater importance, in my book, than a hundred Vandana Shiva, or Jeffrey Smith, Rachel Parent, or any other name on the horizon. These are people that are trying to “do” something, and not just talk about it and look pretty on tv. And I am always looking out for more of the unsung hero and heroines of Canada. I cannot get enough of them.
  8. I think GE free resolutions are a great starting point, but it needs to go further, and Municipalities need to push the button and find ways to pass bylaws and not just resolutions, on banning on growing GMO, or find ways to make it difficult or uneconomic for GMO / pesticide using farmers. I know legally agriculture in Canada is supposed to be a federal jurisdiction. But I have studied enough of it to know that both Provincial Governments as well as Municipalities can push at this boundary continuously, and preferably with many Municipalities together – to alter the situation. I also come from the land of Gandhi, who said, if there is a law that is unjust, then it is our duty to break that low. Growing clean food should be a basic human right and any law that curtails it is an unjust law in my book. That is part of the civil disobedience that Henry David Thoreau talked about almost two centuries ago.
I do not propose or expect folks here to agree with me much. I am just stating my own analysis on it and what I aim to do about it. I shall join hands with others occasionally where our views overlap.
Yes, we are in it together, but we are not a monolithic pack and I am not here to work under a narrow agenda. Most agendas I have so far seen, appear irrelevant and do not go far enough for me. But, I accept that for a lot of folks, thats all they can do.
By the way, there is a lot of bogus information, ill-information, half-information, or veiled misinformation going around in the name of science, while promoting the notion that GMO and herbicides are good for us and good for the planet. Don’t be swayed by such propaganda of the corporatocracy. Here is an example, that claims to state the “truth about glyphosate“:

Thanks and best wishes
Tony Mitra
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[More to come here. Watch this space]