Category Archives: Politics

Talking glyphosate, corruption, & citizen duty – in 17 minutes

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Talking about glyphosate poisoning of the planet, political corruption that makes it possible, and how the buck stops are your feet – all in 17 minutes.

Well – we are facing an existential crisis, and the buck stops are our feet.Question is, what are we, as individual citizens, prepared to do?

Here is my take, on Glyphosae, political and scientific corruption, and the need for citizen activism.

Glyphosate, being a mineral chelator, was denying our body from picking up essential nutrients from food by chelating (stealing) the minerals.

About a third of all our proteins (say around 40,000 kinds, give or take) function with a metallic ion placed in them. When our body creates a new protein of this kind, say to replace damaged one, it needs a metallic ion such as Manganese, or Iron, etc. to be attached to them in order for the proteins to function properly. This mineral is to be picked up from our food. However, glyphosate, if present in the same food, is able to steal that mineral. So, newly formed proteins would be denied its essential mineral, and remain non-functional as a result. Non-functional proteins lead to a pathway of diseases.

We humans and all animals have evolved in symbiosis with the bacterial kingdom, and a mass of bacteria use our body as host and in return perform essential services such as helping digest our food and assist our immune system.

Glyphosate kills bacteria, and thus it indirectly harms all of us, if we consume glyphosate along with our food. The claim that glyphosate is safe is patently false and to make it stick, industry has acquired a stranglehold on scientific research, destroying its neutrality and objectivity. More on this later.

Our immune system has not learned to identify glyphosate as a harmful substance because it is a synthetic molecule that did not exist in nature in the 4 billion year evolutionary history of life on earth. Our evolutionary process did not have to deal with it. That is why we have no defence against Glyphosate. This molecule was invented by man, only two generations ago, and as such is of extraterrestrial nature. It aught to be made extraterrestrial again – sending it out of planet earth. Let them make it and store it on Jupiter.

As if all this was not enough, glyphosate is a biological mimic of glycine, a canonical amino acid that is among the most common of the 22 amino acids that form the basic building block of  all life. By molecular mimicry, it slips past all our defences and gets mis-incorporated into our proteins. This invasion of glyphosate into our proteins turns them into rogue proteins, which can lead to a cascading series of diseases including synthetic diseases that did not exist before.

For scientific confirmation – one may read peer reviewed papers of Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff, linked in my blog tonu.org.

For me, glyphosate is unacceptable for a simpler and more ominous reason. A product may not be approved by a government for general release without disclosure of its safety documents and providing the proof that it is safe. However, test data and documents that prove glyphosate is safe for consumers, have not been disclosed by any nations anywhere, despite it being approved for use since the 1970s. To me, this itself makes approval of glyphosate illegal.

Also, no government was engaged in broad based testing of food to detect levels of concentration of glyphosate, the most used herbicide on the planet. This is not just irresponsible and unacceptable. It should be criminal.

Personally I could not get any organization, anti-GMO groups and various talking heads to join me in asking the government in Canada to disclose hitherto hidden safety document on glyphosate. Neither could I find anyone to join me asking the Canadian government to start testing our foods for glyphosate. That is how I decided to go alone.

In 2013 Canada did not even have a lab that could test glyphosate in food, mainly because neither our government nor the medical establishment had so far been interested in testing foods for glyphosate. As a result, labs did not gear themselves up for a non-existent market.

I subsequently started a single handed two pronged effort to get the Canadian government, as the time under Stephen Harper and the conservatives, to get off its backside and first disclose all safety documents and data based on glyphosate was approved for the first time, back in the 1970s. Then, on a separate appeal, I asked the ministry of health to get some labs ready to test foods for glyphosate and to answer why Canadians could not test presence of the most used herbicide in our food.

The first effort is still dragging on. The government does agree I have a right to see the safety documents. And yet, it drags it feet forever. I also learned that I was the first person in Canada to officially as for this information, although the molecule has been approved back in the 1970s.

The second effort was more successful. In fact, it moved mountains, primarily due to a dedicated member of parliament, Mr. Alex Atamanenko, who took up my cause and demanded that the then minister of health answers me why Canadians cannot test food for glyphosate. This resulted in the ministry of health finally responding to me in a letter and also arranging to have its food inspection agency to start broad based testing of all foods available in Canada, produced locally and imported, for presence of glyphosate.

As soon as I learned that the wheels of the Government was finally beginning to turn in favour of testing our food for glyphosate, I asked the Canadian government discloses all test results to me – not just for the emerging records on glyphosate but for all biocides in food that the government had already tested for. And thus December 2016 I got almost 8,000 just concluded test results of glyphosate in foods and later another almost 100,000 records of results of other biocides in foods.

Analysis of the glyphosate records proved to be a shocker.

First, seed based foods and food products produced in the US and Canada were an order of dimension more toxic with glyphosate than same foods produced anywhere else on the planet. North America produces the most poisonous foods on the planet. I call glyphosate to be poisonous on the grounds that its safety data has been kept hidden. By that omission, I consider approval of glyphosate as illegal and the product as unsafe and downright a slow and deadly poison. Also, That it in fact is a deadly slow poison, has been explained by scientists such as Samsel and Seneff in their peer reviewed papers.

Not only that, I found out that conventional non-GMO crops such as wheat, rye, oats, barley, chickpea etc have an order of dimension more glyphosate than GM crops like soy and corn. Thus conventional non-GMO foods were, in my view, very much more poisonous than GM crops.

In my view, going after Monsanto is a useless exercise, because Monsanto does not necessarily break the law. What is does is corrupt our governments and gets our politicians to change the law to suit its business model. I believe its claim of safety of glyphosate to be fraudulent. I believe that is why it influences governments to hide this safety record from the people and prevents independent scrutiny of these data. Our governments is thus knowingly or unknowingly helping slow poisoning of the people, by allowing widespread use of glyphosate in agriculture.

Therefore, if one has to identify the rogues that are responsible for poisoning our food, our health, and our future, one needs to focus on our ineffective and possibly corrupt political process and perhaps corrupt or illiterate politicians that could not distinguish glyphosate from their elbow, who are unfortunately in charge of the regulatory mechanism and end up changing the laws of the nation to allow glyphosate to be used in agriculture.

Other scientists have found problems not just with glyphosate, but also with other chemicals packaged around it to make the branded product such as RoundUp. While this may be correct, it is glyphosate and glyphosate alone, that goes to regulatory mechanism and passes approval that ends up as RoundUp herbicide. In my view the cumulative damage that glyphosate does, not just at the toxicological level but in destroying our biology by molecular mimicry, sets this molecule apart from other adjuvants that goes into the packaging of RoundUp and even other herbicides.

And while we have other herbicides, pesticides, insecticides that are all possibly harming the ecosystem, glyphosate again stands out by the sheer volume of it that is produced and used, compared to all other biocides.

GMO are also based on fraudulent logic, exploitative ethics, twisted science as well as designed to undermine food security and freedom of a nation. However, there are hundreds and hundreds of them, each following different sets of scientific detail. If I have to fight a single battle and not a thousand battles, then I would choose glyphosate to be in my primary target. Glyphosate is the 900 pound gorilla in our food web and environment. Killing it would effectively also kill the GMO project. We shall be on the way to have all foods grown everywhere to be naturally organic as well as belonging to the people and the region that grows these foods, and not property of western corporations and banks .

Agri-corporations and their enablers in our government is quick to show the weighty evidence of science papers that claim glyphosate is safe. Promoters of this model of agriculture peddling increased sale of toxic chemicals, support a viewpoint that there is a baseless conspiracy theory and paranoia created in the minds of people by some miscreants and hapless scientists, which is resisting progress and modernism in agriculture and fighting glyphosate. There is a misconception that a little bit of toxicity in food in way of glyphosate is both acceptable and necessary, in view of the increased population of the world. All these claims by the promoters of toxic agriculture are fraudulent and not supported by honest facts and honest science. But my response to this chemical onslaught is simple. I say – disclose the safety documents, or shut up.

As to the weight of scientific evidence and the so called science based assessment – this is what I have to say.

Scientific research on safety of technologies such as glyphosate and GMO needs to be public funded and public owned. Instead, it is funded by the industry. Our politicians have allowed this travesty to come about. The public has bought into this on the false idea that this makes science free for the people and reduced our tax burden. This is false. There is no free lunch. You pay junk money for science, and you get junk science.

The industry is not interested in funding scientists that wish to check if products such as glyphosate has a problem. As a result, research on possible negative effects of glyphosate does not get any funding. Science has thus become one sided. It has lost its neutrality and objectivity. This, to me, is not science. This is voodoo, and so called “scientists” promoting it are not true scientists. They are pedlars.

Lastly, all this talk sidesteps a few important points – and these are to do with my perception of what constitutes democracy, the role of citizenry and what should be my personal duty to uphold our democratic process where the people are the masters of the government, and not some poison peddling corporation.

The most important stake holder in democracy is the citizen. It is my view that we, each of us, incur a debt to society and to democracy, as we grow up. The society does a lot to groom us. And we are to pay this debt back through the course of our lives by doing something in return for our society, our neighbourhood and our nation. We take a lot from the the society. We are supposed to put back more than we take, so that we leave the kitty is a bit richer and not sucked dry in our lifetime.

And there is the crux. We as individuals, within our individual capacity, are to engage in citizen activism to uphold and improve the wheels of the nation. This is our job, and not the job of the politicians. The politicians job is to represent us, take our views, and execute our wishes as our temporary servants. Our job is to be ever vigilant to ensure that these temporary servants are not robbing us and selling us off.

If we are caught napping, and stop controlling the politicians, then our politics will start being controlled by someone else or something else – which does not have our best interest at heart. Democracy then begins to fail, or morphs into forms of dictatorship, or fascism or other forms of rogue governments.

As they say – if you have a nation of sheep, you get a government of wolves. So, I appeal to you, the people, to get busy paying your debt to the nation, and start holding the feet of your politician to the fire.

We are facing an existential crisis. The very well beings of your children and grand children depends on you doing your duty in your own lifetime. Nothing else will do. The buck stops at your feet.

Thank you.

Spraying glyphosate around the Turtle Creek Reservoir in NB

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Someone from New Brunswick asked for my opinion of the CBC audio interview with Mr. Len Ritter. The interview was about the issue of the town of Moncton, NB objecting to the practice of spraying glyphosate around the Turtle Creek Reservoir that supplies water to over 100,000 people. The province of New Brunswick overrode the objection and claims that Glyphosate is safe.

I have a lot to say about it all, including:

  • My opinion of CBC’s neutrality and our responsibility in this regard
  • The value of science today and the qualification of Len Ritter
  • Non-disclosure of safety data on glyphosate & possible illegality about its continued use.
  • The need for glyphosate to be at all sprayed

My views are in the above 20 minute video.

To start with, I do not consider Len Ritter to be qualified to talk on the issue from neutral standpoint. He has made a career of allowing toxic chemicals in our environment – in my judgement.

I do not consider science to be neutral and objective any more, thanks to removal of public funding in science.

Questions directed to Mr. Ritter did not mention the fact that the government has hidden the safety data based on which it approved the use of glyphosate, which is, in my judgment, illegal. And my idea of safety data involves subjecting a group of test animals to the herbicide and their health parameters compared with another identical group subjected to clean food. This comparison, and analysis, constitutes actual safety test – and not someone else’s opinion on if glyphosate is safe or unsafe.

Canada should demand such tests be done specifically for registration of glyphosate in Canada and the promoter should be asked to pay for these tests, but the tests should be done by competent neutral institutions outside of control of either the industry or the government. The cost of this should be borne by whoever wants to register it in Canada.

This is just one area where we have junk approval of glyphosate. Without disclosure of their safety data, its use is illegal in my view.

Why spraying was at all necessary near Turtle Creek was not asked bY CBC.

We have junk science, junk scientists and junk media, covering this issue of life and death importance to the people of Moncton.

MLA Sonia Furstenau – ban glyphosate from BC

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To: MLA Sonia Furstenau
cc: Lana Popham, Minister of Agriculture, BC
Dated: September 9th, 2017
Subject: Ban glyphosate from British Columbia
Dear member or legislative assembly Sonia Furstenau,
I am a Canadian citizen and a resident of Delta, British Columbia. Although I am not from your riding, I write this letter of great concern for all British Columbians, hoping to get your support in the BC legislative assembly. The issue is about banning the use of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in pervasive week killer Roundup as well as many other lesser known brands of killer chemical concoctions.
I have been involved for a number of years in coaxing the Ottawa government to first set up labs to test foods for glyphosate, since Canada did not have such labs a few years ago, and then to engage in broad based mass testing of foods collected in Canada for glyphosate, then to give me a copy of all those test results. I finally analyzed them all to discover the shocking truth that Canada and the US produces the most toxic foods in the planet, when it comes to glyphosate contamination, and that foods collected in western Canada, that includes all land west of Ontario and includes the prairies, to have measurably more toxic foods in stores than in any other place on earth.  We in short are living in the global epicentre of poisonous foods. My findings are there for all to see in a 400 page ebook on Amazon titled Poison Foods of North America.
I write this letter for the specific reason. I seek your assistance in getting the newly formed Green partnered BC government, in working to ban the use of glyphosate from British Columbia, in agriculture, over forests and from every other area.
I have learned that it is legally possible and within rights of the provincial government to ban glyphosate outright, despite the fact that it is approved federally, and that the BC government cannot be sued by Monsanto or any other commercial entity for hurting their business interest, because it involves concerns of health and sustainability.
We know Lana Popham is the minister of Agriculture and that this issue might be within her jurisdiction. We know she had been a strong promoter of organic agriculture. I have written to her already, and a petition is created about this. However, we also realize that once one is in the government, and in the driving seat, one often comes under commercial pressure to compromise on their core principles. I do not know if Lana is under such pressure. But we decided to strengthen her hand any way by broad scale public support.
This letter is copied to her since she is referred here.
Apart from creating the petition, I have written to my MP, MLA and Mayor to also consider writing to Lana Popham to ban glyphosate from BC. I believe such letters would further bolster her hand. My municipality has circulated my letter to the all councillors and senior staff and decided to discuss it in their general meeting shortly.
I write to you because you have a track record of fighting to protect the land from ecological degradation driven by commercial interest. Many of us believe you might be the most committed person in the BC government to turn the issue of banning glyphosate, from a talking point, into a crusade. And at this point, we do need a crusade, and a crusader.
That is the main goal of my letter to you. British Columbia might show the path for the rest of the world to follow.

I am an activist that tries to encourage others by example. So this letter will be circulated on social media, and in blogs and perhaps video.
I shall be very happy to receive a note of acknowledgement and a pledge to look into this grave matter. I do not ask and never will ask, for any personal favour. I only ask you to consider saving the world.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada
tony.mitra@gmail.com
604-649 7535

Glyphosate brainstorming Sept 8, 2017

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Some of us had our first brainstorming session yesterday, September 8th, 2017, at Richard Miller’s place, the iconic old railway powerhouse at Abbotsford.

Folks that attended in person were: Richard Miller, Tracie Caterole, Justin Cawker and Tony Mitra. Person that joined in long distance by phone, was Larry Wartels. Person that narrowly missed out finding us, was Gina Lipford.

This is an exploratory day, with brainstorming without a specific agenda. Each of us spoke on record, for very short durations on who we are and what we feel.

Tracie came before the camera for the first time, speaking about clean food as the first item to ensure clean health, from her own perspective and experience.

Justin, an 18 year old British Columbian college student of political science that is remarkably articulate, speaks about the issues surrounding food and health. Off the record he said a lot of things about the problems of the younger generation, many of whom have little social skills and even less awareness because they are raised and groomed by their phone. He recognizes some of the root issues that affects his and his family’s health as well as affects the future of his generation.

Justin is also an exceptional person because he not only loves cooking, but bought organic flour from the US to make organic bread for the family. How many of us can do what Justin does for his family?

Richard spoke about writing to Lana Popham to ban glyphosate. he repeated what Larry Wartels already mentioned over the phone, that the province of British Columbia absolutely can ban Glyphosate legally from agriculture, forests and everywhere else, despite the fact that it has been approved in Ottawa.

He warns people to try to eat organic food to avoid glyphosate, and those that cannot buy organic bread, should at least avoid ordinary bread that contain wheat bran, because conventional American and Canadian grown wheat that is almost always desiccated with glyphosate, has been found (by me from the CFIA test results), to contain astronomical levels of glyphosate in wheat bran.

Last to speak was myself. I identified the the root problem as political corruption in Canada, and identified the citizens, that is you and me, as the guilty party responsible for bringing our nation and our future to such a pitiful state.

While all this was going on, we also were shown how to roast seeds of organic pumpkins for eating. They are delicious.

Larry Wartels was a reservoir of important information. To start with, he lives in the riding of Lana Popham in the provincial map and Eizabeth May on the federal map. He provided the “Resolution FAQs”  of the NDP party – which could be used for registered members of the NDP, for raising a resolution, for example on banning glyphosate in BC.

Larry also gave us some good leads. We discussed the issue of the record breaking trio of green party MLAs that were sworn into not only the legislative assembly of British Columbia, but also in the ruling coalition that came to power. The party is expected to bring groundbreaking legislative agenda to greatly improve British Columbia’s ecology, health and environment. Toxic food and pesticides in our environment aught to be one of the high priorities. Larry singled out one of the three Green MLAs – Sonia Furstenau.

She has been a tireless and forceful warrior to protect local areas in the island from commercially induced degradation. I had a bit of difficulty figuring out how to remember or pronounce her last name correctly, and decided to call it first-to-know, thus turning her name as Sonia First-To-Know.

Sonia might be among the best candidate to write to, to transform the issue of banning glyphosate in BC from a talking point, into a crusade. So, I was going to write to her, and encourage everyone else to consider doing so as well, apart from writing to Lana Popham, to your Mayor, MLA and MP and apart from supporting the petition.

MLA Sonia (First-to-know) Furstenau’s contacts are:

Office:

Parliament Buildings
Victoria, BC  V8V 1X4

Phone: (250) 387-8347
Email : sonia.furstenau.MLA@leg.bc.ca
 Decision was to make this brainstorming a regular monthly feature for those interested. Perhaps one of the Fridays every month. Details to be sorted out.
Thats all for today. Thanks for the visit. Feel free to pen your views in comments.

 

Agriculture Minister – ban glyphosate in BC

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The province of British Columbia, Canada, now has a new government, a coalition between the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Green Party. This is a first in Canada where the environmentally conscious Green Party holds the balance of power.

New Ag-Minister BC – Lana Popham

The new agriculture minister, Ms Lana Popham, of NDP, had been a promoter of clean organic food and supporter of pushing back at GMO and herbicides in agriculture. I have met and known her from the time when she was an MLA in the opposition bench under the liberal government for two terms.

A new petition is hereby being created, asking her to consider ways by which the province of British Columbia can push back and ultimately ban the use of Glyphosate in British Columbian agriculture, and perhaps even impose restrictions on import of foods with considerable glyphosate content, and thus get the ball rolling and lead by example for the rest of Canada.

This petition is not aimed solely at residents of British Columbia. Since this beautiful western province is a major tourist destination for people within Canada as well as from the United States and the wider world, we are asking everybody everywhere, to chip in, sign the petition, and also write individually to the agriculture minister (AGR.Minister@gov.bc.ca) that you wish to have clean, glyphosate-free food when you next visit this beautiful land.

I read out the letter to the new Agriculture Minister in the video that goes with the petition.

===============================================================
I started asking my elected representatives (politicians from my riding in Ottawa, Canada, in Victoria, BC and in Municipality of Delta, BC), asking them to support this petition. The body of the message is also given here as an example for other citizens that might like to write similar letters to their own representatives, to support the petition, to write to the Agriculture Minister and to create a broad based support for her to lead the way for the other provinces to follow.

To: Carla Qualtrough, MP, Delta, BC, Minister of Sports
Ravi Kahlon, MLA, Delta, BC
Lois Jackson, Mayor, Delta, BC
Dated: Friday, September 1, 2017
Subject: Petition on Banning Glyphosate in British Columbian Agriculture.
Ms Carla Qualtrough, MP
Mr. Ravi Kahlon, MLA
Ms Lois Jackson, Mayor
I write to you about my petition on banning glyphosate from this province.
It is the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller brand ‘Roundup’. It is the most used herbicide in Canadian agriculture. Ottawa has never disclosed safety data and documents based on which it considered glyphosate to be safe for agriculture. In my judgment it is illegal to allow the use of a product while withholding its safety data. Our federal government is therefore breaking its own law in allowing glyphosate to be used in Canada for the last 35 years.
Ms Qualtrough knows something about it when I personally handed her over 23,000 signatures demanding that Health Canada releases all hitherto hidden safety documents on glyphosate. She should have first hand experience on how Ottawa continues to drag its feet on this issue.
Mr. Kahlon met me personally at my home for an hour prior to the last provincial election, and had promised to do something about getting Ottawa to release the hidden documents should he get elected. Now that he is elected, I remind him of his promise, and shall wait to see what he is prepared to do.
Mayor Jackson has not had any communication from me about glyphosate per se, although I have written to her in the past about pushing back at GMO from Delta agriculture lands. Anyhow I expect she knows about glyphosate. I am also requesting the mayor to share this letter with the rest of the Delta Municipal Councillors.

For reference you may consider reading my 400 page book, ‘Poison Foods of North America’ as an analysis on near 8,000 food samples tested by CFIA, that shows Canadian and US grown seed based foods to be the most toxic in the entire world with glyphosate contamination. I had a role to play in getting our federal government to set up labs that could test food for glyphosate and then for it to order massive tests of all foods available in Canada, locally grown and imported, and finally demanding that I be given a copy of all the test results. This body of data is the largest and most comprehensive in the entire world, and paints a very grim picture of Canadian and US agriculture. 

And out of this toxic mix, foods collected in Western Canada, which includes the mega farms of the prairies west of Ontario, proved to be more toxic than foods found anywhere else. We are at the epicentre of poisonous foods in the entire planet. We are also the sickest in the entire industrial world, in spite of spending the most on healthcare.
I write this letter to you three for the following reasons:
1) I request you to sign the petition asking the newly appointed agriculture minister of British Columbia, Ms Lana Popham, to find ways to push back at the use of glyphosate in British Columbian agriculture, despite the fact that its use has been, illegally in my opinion, approved by Ottawa.
I further request you to write individually to Minister Popham about above and also encourage her to find ways to restrict or impose tax on any imported food that contain measurable amounts of glyphosate.
I have met Ms Popham on a number of occasions when she was an MLA in the opposition bench, and know her to be a promoter of organic food and against the use of GM crops and glyphosate. Now that she is the Agriculture Minister, I expect she might be facing commercial pressure to compromise on her original views, and as a counter, she perhaps needs broad based public support. Your letters would therefore help.
2) I understand that in a functioning democracy, people aught to be the masters and the elected officials their public servants. However, the roles often get diffused and the public as well as politicians sometimes forget who is the master and who is the servant.
This letter therefore serves the second purpose where I, a citizen voter, am telling you, my representatives in Government, what my wishes are, with regard to demanding clean, glyphosate-free food in my province.
3) I also use these letters as an example for other citizens of Canada to let their own politicians to know of their wish.  this is the essence of building large body of public support for Minister Popham on banning glyphosate.
Therefore, these letters are designed to also be circulated through blogs and social media and forwarded email, to lead by example and encourage other voters to join up and work to take back the controls of democracy in this country, a control that appears to be slipping out of hands of its citizens.
In closing, I shall be delighted to receive a positive response from you or an invitation to speak face to face on this. I am willing to lead a delegation to see any of you should you wish. But even a negative response, or a non-response from you, will be used to encourage ordinary people to get involved.
I would however caution you not to use select science, or quote Health Canada or any other government institution, in telling me that glyphosate is safe. You do not have the right to make that decision. People have that right. The only thing Ottawa needs to do about glyphosate, is to stop parroting about its safety, and place all hidden safety documents in public domain.
Thanking you,
Tony Mitra

10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada
605-649 7535

Tony with Lana – 2013 April

Back in 2013 when I first met her, she was an MLA and a promoter of clean organic foods.

Today, she is the Agriculture Minister of BC.

I do not know if my knowing her earns me any currency today, but if it does, I intend to spend every last cent of it in trying to convince and help her in finding new ways to push back at Ottawa and cleanse our province from this toxic soup of glyphosate.

Letter to Mayor of Moncton

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In support of her effort to stop spraying of Glyphosate in eco-sensitive areas near her town in New Brunswick, Canada.

To: Ms Dawn Arnold, Mayor, Moncton, New Brunswick,

Date: Saturday, August 26, 2017

Subject: Your effort to stop spraying of glyphosate in eco-sensitive areas of Moncton.

Dear Ms Arnold,

I am a Canadian citizen that writes to you in support of your effort to get the provincial government to put a stop to the practice of spraying glyphosate near the Turtle Creek reservoir. I came to learn of this through news outlets on internet.

I am a resident of British Columbia and have been to your province some years ago along with scientist Thierry Vrain, talking to people about dangers of glyphosate. I had an influence in getting our government to test thousands of food samples collected in Canada for presence of glyphosate. I obtained a copy of the results from Health Canada and was shocked to find north American foods to be the most toxic in the world, with regard to glyphosate contamination. I published my analysis in a 400 page book on Amazon titled “Poison Foods of North America”.

Mayor Dawn Arnold

I write this not just to show my support in your endeavour get the government to put a stop to spraying glyphosate in areas where it can cause maximum damage, but also to seek ways to spread this message to the rest of Canada, since you are considered to be a role model that many other Mayors could learn from.

If you agree, I would like to give you a call over the phone, for say a five minute talk where you can speak in your own voice about the issue. I would like to record it and have it converted into a short video with still images related to the subject, and promote it through blogs and social media across Canada and the world. My blog gets around 2,000 hits a day and I have talks with scientists such as Anthony Samsel of Stephanie Seneff from the US that are investigating all the different ways glyphosate can hurt the living planet. One can key in “glyphosate” or “Samsel” in the search field of my blog and read the resulting entries including talks of the scientists themselves.

I also have a three year old running case through Access To Information application for the government to release all safety test documents based on which it approved the use of glyphosate. In my understanding of the law, it is illegal for the government to release a product while withholding its safety data. The government has indirectly agreed to my view and accepts that I have the right to see the documents and yet it drags its feet. It has been dragging its feet for 35 years now.

If  you agree to our talk, please revert a telephone number and a suitable date and time when I might call you.

Either way, please take this letter as a note of appreciation from a citizen activist that supports your efforts. It is our view that citizen activism is a critical component that enables the government to relate to views of the civil society, which in itself is a critical element for a functioning democracy.

Thanking you

Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7
Canada

Reference : “POISON FOODS OF NORTH AMERICA”

Reference : Talks with Scientist Anthony Samsel on my blog:

Response received:

This is a good example of citizens taking it upon themselves to lend mass support to a few politicians that are out there willing to fight back at this avalanche of chemical attack that we are subjected to. This entire blog is geared to encourage more people to do the same. Politicians need mass support for doing the right thing.

Labelling GMO – a letter to my MP

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To: Carla Qualtrough, Liberal MP, North Delta., carla.qualtrough@parl.gc.ca.
cc: Terry Beach, Liberal MP, Burnaby BC, terry.Beech@parl.gc.ca
Dated Sunday, August 20, 2017
Subject : Bill C-291 – regarding labelling of genetically modified food.

Honourable Ms Qualtrough,

I write to you with regard to bill C-291 which aimed to amend the Food and Drug Act and include a clause to mandate labelling of genetically modified foods in Canada. This bill got defeated in the parliament with 216 Nay votes and 67 Yea votes. You voted against it, as did virtually all of the conservatives and most of the liberal MPs. A handful of Liberal MPs voted in favour of labelling GMOs, Honourable liberal MP Terry Beach of Burnaby BC being one of them. This letter is copied to him since he is referred here.

Common sense tells me that GMO aught to have been labelled, irrespective of what science says about it, of if one prefers to eat or avoid genetically modified food. It is the right of the people, I feel, to know what they are eating, and GMO is one such information that aught to have been identified to consumers.

But I do not write this letter regarding what I feel aught to have been or what my idea of common sense is.

I write this letter for two specific reasons. These are

1) To inform you that in my view you have violated the duty you were to perform when you got elected to represent us, by making your own decision to vote against the bill instead of checking with your constituents first.

You have often held meetings in Delta to gather public opinion on various issues. I have received invitations from your office to attend such meetings and have attended a few and voiced my concerns there. I presume the reason you hold such meetings is to gauge the opinions and feelings of the constituents and to reflect them back in Ottawa.

However, you failed to invite us to express our opinion on this important issue of labelling GMOs which has great relevance to food safety and general health as well as food security, preservation of biodiversity and independence from corporate ownership of living organisms. How I know you avoided checking public opinion is that you failed to hold a meeting on this and I did not receive an invitation from your office to attend any such meeting.

2) Since in my view you may have violated the sacrosanct duty that you were constitutionally required to perform, I believe I may have a reason to question your suitability in performing the task of a public servant to protect our interest. I therefore might decide to perform my citizens duty, to alert voters that you may have assumed dictatorial powers and decided to make unilateral decisions on what the people of Delta should know about their food.

In my book, only two kinds of persons can make such unilateral decisions for the people. These two are – a dictator, or an emperor. I do not believe you are either, though I suspect you might have forgotten what your specific duty is.

I write this letter to you not expecting an answer per se. I know politicians are usually quite good at staying silent on questions that they would rather not answer.

I am nonetheless writing this to publicize and circulate it among voters within my capacity, and also to set an example for other citizens, in Delta and outside, to take a queue and question their own respective representatives about what authority they had in making decisions without checking with the people first.

While I do not expect any response, I shall be glad to receive one, to discuss how you voted against this bill. Either way, this letter is going to be public.

If I do not succeed in changing your behaviour with regard to voting on sensitive bills, I sure hope to change views of a few of the citizen voters with regard to their perception of their representatives in our parliament.

If you find this letter a bit harsh, you will forgive me, since I do not feel particularly amicable after seeing how you voted against this bill.

Thanking you
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane Delta BC.

A response received from the office of Ms Carla Qualtrough. This is a good omen. Among all the letters I have sent to various MPs, MLAs and Mayors and councillors in Canada,very few will come back with a response.

However, this is an example that, if one tries hard enough, one might get a few responses time to time. More importantly, perhaps this is a sign that if enough folks approach their representatives, there will be a collective pressure that might translate into positive movements in our government to represent issue of vital importance for our people.

Reference:

List of who voted which way on C-291

Another video on the same issue I made two months ago

Direct Democracy?

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There is a news from Paris, where the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed that the French Parliament be trimmed by a third because it is too top heavy and has too much bureaucracy and has gotten slow and inefficient.

The article came up here.

This is an interesting idea – to cut the French Parliament of excess fat and trim it by a third.

I believe time is ripe for not just trimming the fat, but to radically overhaul our parliament and question the very need to have Members of Parliament at all.

IN the time gone by, there was a need for representative of the people to go to the Capital, and vote on bills, representing the wish of the constituents that elected the member.

Today, two things have happened that makes the job of the Member of Parliament redundant:

1) The elected public servant no more votes according to the wish of the people. Rather, he or she votes according either to the diktat of the party boss, or whoever funds her campaign, such as lobby groups and corporations. In short, the elected official has become a traitor to the constituents.

2) In todays world of internet and instant communication, it is not too difficult to set up system where each voter can either log in from home, or in a nearby Government kiosk, and vote once a week or once a month on a number of pending issues – or decide to abstain, thus exerting “direct democracy” instead of proxy democracy through middlemen that betray the people.

There is a case for direct democracy, and cut the fat much deeper.

Think about it, Mr. Macron of France and think about it, Canadians.

Many of these observations first came from me through social media such as Facebook. But I am storing them here as I believe some day they might deserve to be  part of a book of essays.

Chlorothalonil in food and our disfunctional democracy

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Was interviewed the other day by the US based USA Prepares Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8W5SjHRHVI)

They wanted to know if I am happy with either a one hour interview or a two hour.
I personally think anything over 10 minutes gets to be boring for the people, so agreed to a one hour.
 
These folks came to know about me from German born New Brunswick farmer Werner Bock, who has been screaming hoarse about Canadian government poisoning its agriculture, its forests and its meadows for more than three decades, to the point where the government started harassing him and even putting him temporarily in a loony bin claiming he was mentally disturbed. Apparently, Werner knows everybody in North America. He found out my phone number a few years ago and usually calls me up every few months. He is well known to the radio show people and apparently told them to find me.
 
I personally am not too sure if radio talks are fruitful.
 
I know articles written in online and printed papers have their value in raising awareness. I know blog posts and social media have their value in raising awareness. I know youtube video, audio podcasts and radio shows have their value in raising awareness. I know seminars, March against Monsanto, and mock tribunals all have their value in raising awareness.
 
And yet, I am coming to the conclusion that all these “raising awareness” is pretty much useless, when I consider what result it has achieved in the western hemisphere, especially in North America, which is faced with the worst of this avalanche of food poisoning.
 
At this rate, we shall have a highly raised level of awareness in a few more decades, while we shall also all be dead from poisons – highly aware people that died from poison but decided to do nothing, other than being “aware”.
 
The reason for this contradiction, in my analysis, is that the western world in general, and North America in particular, is too full of people that are little more than armchair activists, and people that are addicted to “raising awareness” to millions more armchair activists.
 
To me, it is clear as the open sky, that the root of all this problem is a dysfunctional democracy that has been hijacked into a full blows fascism, while the addicted population still believes writing an article, or clicking a like button, or hanging out with this or that talking head will bring them close to Nirvana.
 
If we have a full blown fascism and our democracy is nothing more than a make belief facade, then we have a problem that is political in nature and has to be solved, if at all, by political means.
 
I am not a politician by nature. I hate politicians and consider their professions to be among the lowest of the low, very close to anti-GMO talking heads in fact. They all are there to make a living out of whatever the hot topic of the day is. They are not here to solve anybody’s problems.
 
So, as an activist that is fed up with arm chair activism of my friends, fed up with raising awareness, and fed up with local politicians at the municipal, provincial and federal level – the only option appears to be to try and influence more citizens to stop the bullshit, and start targeting politicians, and try to pull their pants off in public. Time is well past when I can still be polite and ask  politician with folded hands to “please sir, please madam, please look at this or that issue, please see these reports and please disclose that hidden data and please, please please please please …”
 
I am dome with that shit. But, I am not a revolutionary and hate violence and bloodshed. I also hate being an elected politician or the compromises that one needs to make in order to gain political office. I am also a serious disbeliever of the political party system. To me, political parties should be banned and only independents allowed to stand for election. That way, theoretically, each elected official works only according to wishes of his or her constituents and not according to any party leader or party whip. The very notion of a political party is, to me, unconstitutional and anti-democratic. Anyhow, hating politics as a profession and refusing anything outside the law, and fed up with “raising awareness” to a comatose citizenry, my options are limited as an activist.
 
What we have here is a failure of democracy not because politicians are crooks, which they generally are, but because the citizens are in coma. In democracy, even in a failing democracy, every fault of the system lies at the feet of the citizens, no matter how much folks may like to blame politicians or Monsanto or the devil. It is always the fault of the people to allow things to come to whoever it has come. And our citizens, in North America, are are almost incapable of rational thinking. It is as if they are in a coma or has already gone autistic and are incapable of any rational thinking.
 
I want other citizens to grab their politicians by the scruff of their necks, metaphorically, and give them one issue options – “ban glyphosate or your rear end is mine to kick”.
Meanwhile, here is a chart about “Chlorothalonil” in foods as tested by CFIA, consolidated from over 65,000 tests and plotted on a logarithmic scale. I have not had the time to look deeper into it, but Canada and USA ranks high in these along with a few others like Guatemala, Mexico and China etc. Some of the worst individual samples have over 50,000 ppb of Chlorothalonil, such as Chinese Cabbage grown in Canada.
 
I shall eventually have time to break these down by nations and food types better. All this would be in my book, which may bloat from the current 400 pages to either closer to 1,000 pages, or be split into volume two.
 
This chart is only covering food types that had chlorothalonil average contamination level of over 20 ppb, and shows both the average contamination and the percentage contamination. So, for items that have very low percentage contamination and yet rather high average contamination – those foods have only a few samples with extremely high levels of Chorothalonil while the rest where clean. Good examples of these might be Fine Herbs, Chinese Cabbage (this was make in Canada), Plum, Apricot and Beet. It would therefore make sense to check if those very high levels of contamination in a few few samples are an indication of where they were grown etc etc.
 
Other food items where the percentage contamination is also high, might be candidates that folks aught to consider rejecting, or growing themselves, or buying organic.
 
Incidentally, all items in this chart are conventional. Lots of organic food types were also tested by CFIA. They all had zero or negligible amounts of Chlorothalonil. So, in this particular case, going organic only is safer. All that will appear in my book eventually. Its a work in progress.
 
The green line represents the concentration in ppb, in descending order from left to right, with corresponding percentage contamination in blue for each of these food types.
 
All that will come in due course. Meanwhile I have to figure out how to kick some more political rear ends and how to goad them, shame them, insult them, till they start responding. 
 
There are some animals that turn over and play dead when in trouble. If you take a stick and turn the animal right side up, it immediately turns over belly up again, to convince you that it is really dead. Our politicians are a master of that act.
 
Some of these should end up in my blogs but I am having some malware issues with the wordpress platform and need to solve those first so that future blogs come out OK.
 
PS I hope to catch up with Anthony Samsel sometime to catch up on the implications of having much chlorothalonil in food, especially what we consider as vegetables.
 
Tony Mitra

Green Party Responds

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I am determined to try my best to bring the issue of glyphosate and the Canadian Foods being the most toxic on earth, to the mainstream political discourse. I have not been too successful so far, as politicians in general as well as mainstream media, seems to have developed a case of indigestion when it comes to facing this issue.

Nonetheless, the effort continues, as part of our citizen’s duty, to be vigorously involved in our political process and try to force the candidates to address real concerns of citizens intend of talking on manufactured issues.

I have already written to three candidates of my riding, cover in earlier blogs. These were from the Liberal, NDP and BC Greens party. Two of them, the Liberal and the NDP, did not even bother to respond, which has convinced me never to vote for a candidate that ignores you.

But more than that, I have tried to lead by example so other citizens would follow and try to ask direct questions to the candidates, especially why people of western Canada are subjected to the most toxic foods on earth.

I made a few videos on this already.

The first one is here – a ten minute video about why and how I found Western Canada to be the epicentre of toxic foods.

The next, my explanation on why I wrote the book on glyphosate contamination of foods based on CFIA records, and why I do not go with the mainstream media trying to whitewash the results – an 8 minute video.

Next, a letter to the BC Greens Leader. – a 3 minute video.

And finally, a response from the BC Greens candidate from my riding – another under 3 minute video.

As I was telling someone in email today, I am convinced that our problem is rooted more to the corruption in my political process and less to do with Monsanto or any other entity, and it is our duty, as a citizen, to grab this political beast by the horn and shake it till it starts piddling.

Stay tuned.