Did Canada include Glyphosate in its study of Environmental Chemicals?

To a few scientist friends
+++++++++++++++++++
Dear friends,

I trouble you again in search of some truths or information from three reports that Health Canada (ministry of health, Canada) has published of studies on various harmful manmade environmental chemicals and how much of each has been found in humans. The studies started in 2007 for the first report, and ended with the publication of the third report in 2015.

Two of these three reports are available from Health Canada web site, and one is available by personal request made to Health Canada. I have all three of them and have been going over them repeatedly, to find if the Government considers Glyphosate to be a harmful environmental chemical (as a herbicide) and if Canadians have been tested for its presence in their body fluids.

I have found mention of other substances such as 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, Atrazine, Dicamba, and many many other pesticides and herbicides, as well as metals such as Uranium, Lead and Arsenic. But I failed to find a single mention of Glyphosate or RoundUp.

There are mentions of organophosphates, but I am unsure if it includes Glyphosate and how much of it has been found in humans.

Ultimately, I decided to pass the three reports, the first (2007-2009), the second (2009-2011) and the third (2012-2013, published 2015) to you for some help in finding if Glyphosate is at all represented in Health Canada’s ten year study on environmental chemicals and human exposure to them.

The three reports are:

1. report-rapport-eng.pdf
2. HumanBiomonitoringReport__EN.pdf
3. chms-ecms-cycle3-eng.pdf

I would very much appreciate if any of you can advise me if these three definitive reports by Health Canada on Canadian citizen’s exposure to environmental chemicals does or does not include Glyphosate.

I wished to also pass some of these to Nancy Swanson, but since she changed her email, I am out of touch with her. Perhaps one of you will pass this to her, in case she might offer to help.

The reason I ask this is – I intend to do something about it in case Health Canada has neglected to test Glyphosate in Canadians. I do not know yet what I would do, but that would depend on if and how much these reports have or have not covered Glyphosate.

By the way, the first and the second report covers the generic topic of “pesticide” and the third, the most recent one, does not.

I apologize again for troubling you all.
I do not know where else I could go.

Thanks and best wishes
Tony Mitra


For readers – please feel free to add your comment. If you have a Facebook account, you can use that to identify yourself. No anonymous posts please.

A letter to a mayor

Apr 2, 2016 — To: The Mayor Ms Luis Jackson,
Delta Corporation
April 1st, 2016 (not a prank)
Subject : Test Glyphosate in Delta’s water, soil and food.

Mayor Jackson,

Good day.

I write to you, yet again, regarding potential dangers linked with exposure  to Glyphosate for residents of Delta, and what the municipality could do.

Delta has fertile lowlands and farms. Glyphosate is the most used chemical in Canadian food production. Besides, since our town is actually in the delta of the Fraser river, and comprises of tidal mudflats and lowlands, most runoff from farms, as well as from the upland forests go through our midst. Both these regions use glyphosate, in agriculture by farmers and aerially in hilly forests by logging corporations.

In spite of being the most used toxin in Canada and the planet for a generation, safety test records and data of this weed killer are kept hidden from Canadians, possibly illegally, to protect commercial interest of the promoter.

Legal precedence is already being set in some countries, where supreme court has overruled federal Governments about keeping safety documents hidden from the people. Apparently, commercial confidentiality agreements and intellectual property rights cannot trump public safety. So, if a corporation cannot divulge safety records of its product to the public, the product itself may not be approved by the Government either.

I have two different channels of communication ongoing with the Ottawa Government about this. One of them is an online petition through change.org for the Government to disclose all safety test documents, based on which it is supposed to have approved Glyphosate for use in Canadian agriculture and environment. Link : https://www.change.org/p/minister-of-health-canada-justin-trudeau-health-canada-prove-glyphosate-is-safe

The petition has generated a large number of follow up updates with input from scientists around the world and other notables, and has over 22,000 supporters, 98% from Canada. The volume of information on the petition has crossed a thousand pages, and MP Carla Qualtrough has agreed to see me so I can present all that to her and request her to hand deliver it to the minister in Health Canada, to either place the safety documents in public domain, or inform Canadians why they do not have a right to these safety documents, or perhaps arrange a debate on the floor of our parliament about if Canadian citizens have, or do not have, a right to see first hand, all safety test data on this herbicide that has been entering our food chain in ever increasing dose for a generation.

Meanwhile for the town of Delta, and perhaps many other towns where concerned Canadians have supported this petition, there are areas where our municipal governments could actively engage, at the bottom tier of our political system, to address this issue in the following manner:
1)
Start having our food, water, and soil, tested for concentration of Glyphosate. This could not even be done just a few years ago since labs did not offer such services, especially about testing our food for Glyphosate. But this can easily be done today. Increasing number of accredited labs are offering a high quality service. And some of the labs are nearby, such as in Burnaby. This testing is legal, and reasonably easy to do for a Municipal corporation. The reason so many labs are now scrambling to offer this service, is because our Government has started a massive effort to test our food, but behind closed doors, more or less from the time World Health Organization decided to reclassify Glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.
2)
Start placing these test results online and available for any research student, scholar, scientist or concerned citizen to read, download and follow up on, should they so desire.

3)
Inform all parties, such as farmers, or loggers or nature park managers, that samples will be drawn from their areas after application of the herbicide, or when its concentration is noted to be highest, and also in off season, to get an idea of seasonal variation, and to start tracking the toxic load in regions within Delta.
4)
This data should be available to local hospitals and doctors, to check if reports of skin rashes, gastro-intestinal or auto-immune disorders, especially among children, seem to be following the rise and fall of prevalence of Glyphosate, in which case any research organization would now have some data to start working on, to investigate if some ailments might be linked to Glyphosate exposure. The municipality need not get involved in this research, but can easily and legally offer accumulated data. Why ? Because that aught to be our first line of defence against environment induced ill-health and it aught to be the duty of our town council to ensure the residents are protected from the most used and most controversial agriculture and environmental toxin in Canada.
5)
This data should also be available to wildlife research scientists that are investigating sudden population decline, unexpected mass death, skewring of sex ration in newborns, or disappearance of creatures starting from bees, birds, amphibians, herbivores and even whales.
6)
Invite volunteers to check if recommended limits of dose of glyphosate is followed by those authorized to use it, like farmers and loggers, or exceeded by anybody. I have reason to believe that application of Glyphosate is not supervised by anybody, even if the packaging warns that it is (or may be) relatively safe only if applied according to instructions and within the maximum recommended dosage limits. I believe a municipality has the right to allow citizen volunteers a right to check if such limits are maintained, even if the council cannot afford employing people to do so for them.

This is not the first time I have written to the Delta Corporation on Glyphosate and what I wished the town council to consider engaging in. This is unlikely to be my last. I wish the municipality would take this seriously.
This letter will likely be included in the petition asking Ottawa to place all safety data on Glyphosate in the public domain. The reason this letter, and others written to other politicians, will be included is that battling indiscriminate use of an untested (it remains untested as long as the tests are hidden from people) and potentially hazardous chemical will need to be challenged on multiple fronts and the people would need to engage in it directly, and apply pressure on the politicians. It is my hope that this update, which reaches all 22,000 supporters of the petition across Canada and beyond, will influence a few hundred others to also write to their respective town councils, MPs and MLAs. Even if a single politician or town ends up being the first in initiating a program to track our food, soil, water and environment for glyphosate concentration, that will amount to a kicking in of the door, a pathfinder, and a worthy achievement that others might follow.
Should Delta Corporation have an interest in discussing this further, I shall be more than happy to attend.
Looking forward to a positive response,
With good wishes
Tony Mitra, 10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada

Minister Qualtrough agrees to a meeting

Mar 22, 2016 — Minister Carla Qualtrough has agreed to a 45 minutes meeting about this petition. I am in the process of gathering a small but potent group to to see the Minister.

Here is an email sent to a few, which explains the issue, and should serve as an update.

++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear friends,

Here is an update on the Glyphosate issue along with a proposal, if one of you feel strongly enough to join me to meet our MP and minister Carla Qualtrough on April 1st afternoon in Delta BC.

In order to explain, I need to give the background.

Glyphosate is a toxic chemical that is the primary ingredient in the commercial weed killer brand named “RoundUp”. It is produced by Monsanto. It is by far the most used herbicide in Canadian agriculture, same as in USA and some other countries. Because it is used in agriculture, this chemical is expected to be in our food, and as such, is being found in various foods such as cereals, packaged food, milk, beef and poultry.

That Glyphosate is safe for us, is supposed to have been verified by Health Canada, before approving its use. In order to verify that, it is expected to see results of safety tests conducted on target animals exposed to this chemical. Health Canada says it has seen that, but in all the 30 years of its use in Canada (and 35 years in USA), no citizen of any country has been allowed to see these safety test data.

I have a communication ongoing with the Ministry of health, Ottawa, through Access To Information Act, demanding that the Government releases any and all safety tests it has seen that is supposed to indicate that Glyphosate is safe for animals, or give me the legal reason why it cannot show me these documents. The Government has acknowledged I have the right (as should any Canadian) to see the safety records, but is dragging its feel and finding excuses to delay the process, which started under the Harper Government and, far as I can tell, is continuing under the Trudeau Government.

Meanwhile, I have a separate online petition, asking the Canadian Govt to release all safety test documents on Glyphosate to the Canadian public. That petition has over 22,000 support signatures, 98% of whom are Canadian. Their comments, my follow up information and the list of all supporters would make over 500 pages of printed matter.


After having a string of email communication with Dr. Seralini of France, I am preparing to open a separate ‘Access To Information’ case with the Government of Canada, to check if it has at all seen any safety tests on the entire formulation of the herbicide “RoundUp” with all its ingredients, which, together, is suspected to be more dangerous than Glyphosate alone by an order of dimension, perhaps hundreds of times more dangerous.

Meanwhile, I wrote to Minister Carla Qualtrough recently about Glyphosate, about the fact that Canadians have not been able to verify if the chemical is safe, and that, according my understanding of the law (Carla is a lawyer), if the safety data of a product cannot be disclosed to the people, the product itself cannot be released either. I then asked her to grant me an audience of a half hour, where I may tell her about this petition and hand over the 500 odd page document with a request to her to consider taking that material to Ottawa and deliver it to the Minister of health, even on the floor of the parliament if need be, and ask her to either respond to the Canadian people’s demand to release the hitherto secret safety documents, or explain why Canadians do not deserve to see these safety records, or perhaps agree to a parliamentary debate over this issue.

I asked Minister Qualtrough to let me know in case she is unwilling to see me, so I can widen my search and find any MP, even an opposition one, who is willing to place this item on the floor of our Parliament for a general debate. I have reason to believe this chemical is also triggering a possible extinction of our flora and fauna through release over our forests from air, by logging companies.

I have been notified by the office of Minister Qualtrough, through email and two separate phone calls, that:
1) I may visit her office for 45 minutes on 1st April.
2) I may bring the 500 odd page document
3) I may bring a few like minded folks, if I wished.

That is the story.

I am in the process of getting a wide-ranging but small group, to come with me. I write this to you to ask if any one person (sorry, no more room) among you might feel passionate enough to accompany me.
have two noted persons that agreed to visit Delta and join me. One is Dr. Thierry Vrain, who should need no introduction here.

The other is Kenneth Young, Canadian Military veteran, advisor on chemical defoliant to Canadian and many other international institutions, Canadian Veteran Advocacy group, and strong advocate on speaker on permanent damage done to veterans through exposure to toxins starting from Agent Orange, and going on to Glyphosate. He has spoken three times at March against Monsanto events in Downtown Vancouver along with me and Thierry, and travels widely across Canada and overseas on this issue. Currently in Ottawa meeting with a Government sponsored committee to contribute in the consultation on possible policy changes needed to deal with toxic exposure and pesticides. He agreed to come to Delta on his own and join me on April 1st in this meeting and lend his voice as needed.

I also have some nature lover and passionate Delta residents wishing to join me for the meeting.

In summary, the primary object of the meeting is to highlight legality of releasing a chemical into our food web while hiding its safety record from the people, and if Canadian citizens have or do not have a right to demand public release of these documents, the volume of which I am advised by Health Canada to go beyond 130,000 pages, all of them kept secret for over a generation.

So, if there is someone here that wishes to join up, let me know. We are in the talking process to figure out how to manage the 45 minutes and who might talk on what. We are also planning a lunch or something on April 1st in Delta, prior to the meeting to iron out any issue and to present a cohesive front.

Thanks and best wishes
Tony Mitra


Material towards the online petition on public demand for disclosure of safety documents have gone so large that I am contemplating converting it all into a future e-Book for record keeping.

Meanwhile, a new blog might me done on the people that are preparing to join me for the meeting. Who they are and what they might do, etc. I will work on this next week.

Ledikeni, Sepoy Mutiny, Nova Scotia, and Glyphosate

It all started with me looking afresh at the list of 21,000 folks that supported my petition for the Government of Canada, Ministry of Health, to disclose safety test data on the chemical Glyphosate, in herbicide RoundUp and VisionMax, by Monsanto. That lead me to a few places in Canada were apparently named after a Mr. Canning where the petition had a few supporters. I knew the name Canning, as the last name of a noted English high born family of the mid nineteenth century. I remembered a place in India bearing the same name. Further, the name reminded me of a number of mystical water colour paintings of India created more than 150 years ago, by a noble Englishwoman named Charlotte Canning, or Lady Canning, perhaps the most prolific of all major female painters from India till date. Finally, I remembered a local sweet of Bengal that was named after Lady Canning – “ledikeni”. And all of this, somehow, was vaguely related to my effort to raise awareness on the dangers of the synthetic molecule glyphosate.

Charlotte Canning

Lastly, I contemplated covering this tenuous link between seemingly unconnected far flung towns spanning opposite ends of the globe, as a chapter of my never ending book – from the unique perspective of an immigrant from eastern part of India, to settle in the western edge of Canada, who was also involved in finding ways to expose, raise awareness on, and help curb within my means a reckless use of the toxin glyphosate, which I believes to be at the root of not just a global health crisis, but also a symbol of a crisis of civilization where sovereignty of nations were being undermined by corporate power.

Ironically, the first global corporation that emerged, and had enough power to subjugate large nations and even entire continents – is the East India Company, whose seat of power within India was a mere hundred miles from my birth place.

Courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum, London

The petition allows me to download a list of supporters and their towns, but not their emails of contact details. I was looking at the data to see if I could figure out which provinces and towns had how many people that had reservation about Glyphosate being present in our food or environment, and thus ended up supporting my petition.

In the process I came across two locations in Canada that drew my attention.

I had three supporters from a village named Canning, in Nova Socitia, on the far eastern edge of Canada, and four more from the town of Cannington, Ontario, in the outskirts of Toronto.

Courtesy – Victoria & Albert Museum, London

For me, a visit to the village of Canning, Nova Scotia, if undertaken by road, would involve a 6,000 km drive that would likely take me nine days of driving six hours a day, conducted largely across the border through nine states in USA and then three provinces in Canada, literally a coast to coast journey, from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Having been born in in Santiniketan, near Kolkata, India, I could not help but compare it to a hypothetical trip from that eastern town of india, right through the country, then crossing multiple international borders and driving through Pakistan, Iran, Isis controlled regions of Iraq and possibly Syria, then into Turkey and driving right across its length to the edge of Bosphorus straight, to the city of Istanbul.

But of course I was not planning to drive, either to Canning, Nova Scotia or to Istanbul, Turkey. I had already been to Nova Scotia, and might have driven right past Canning on my way to Halifax. And I had already been to Istanbul a long time ago, as a sailor whose ship docked there.

Courtesy – Victoria & Albert Museum, London

But the name of Canning and Cannington, struck a bell. Coming from West Bengal, India, I was aware of a coastal village called Canning, to the south of Kolkata, and a Bengali sweet called “ladikeni” which is derived from an English noble woman of the time, Lady Canning.

I wondered if these names, Canning and Cannington in Canada and Canning in India, halfway across the planet, had any link. And, as I soon found out, they did have a common link – a family name of the British aristocracy, of Earls, a title that, in absence of any living descendant, died out a generation after family was elevated to the rank of Earl.

The village of Canning, Nova Scotia, and the neighbourhood of Cannington, Ontario were named after the British Prime Minister George Canning. The coastal village in India was named after Lord Charles Canning, son of George, who was the Governor General of India during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, later promoted to Viceroy, and the family rank elevated to Earl. He was also the last Canning of his lineage, since he and his wife Charlotte did not leave any descendant, and therefore were the first and the last Canning with the title of an Earl.

Sepoy mutiny was the first and only major nationwide armed rebellion against British rule in India. It was participated mostly by the sepoy, or the Indian rank and file soldiers of the Royal British Army, in which the general population of India did not take part. After a brutal and bloody rebellion, the uprising was eventually subdued, having failed to dislodge the British from power. It did, however, usher in a lot of changes to the nature of the administrative system overseeing the British colony for the next ninety years, till India finally gained independence in 1947.

The mutiny was the first major rebellion in India against British rule, where Indian soldiers actually killed many of their white superior officers as well as European civilians. It was also occasion where Hindu and Muslim soldiers fought side by side against a perceived common enemy, the British. The next time this was to happen would be during the second world war, almost three generations later, when an Indian National Army under Subhash Bose would fight the British on Indian soil in Kohima during the later phase of the second world war.

Images of the Sepoy Mutiny, 1857

The mutiny also signalled the end of rule of a Corporation – British East India Company. From that point on, the British Government under Queen Victoria, took over the reigns of India. The country would thence be a British colony for the next ninety years, till Gandhi and a new generation of Indians took up the movement and spread it to the Indian masses on a platform of non-violence from the inside, and Subhash Bose declared war on Britain by the Indian national army from the outside, developments that eventually resulted in a split subcontinent gaining independence as two separate nations – India and Pakistan, in 1947. Pakistan was to bifurcate again with Bangladesh as an offshoot in 1971.

Images of the Sepoy Mutiny

Meanwhile, Governor General and later viceroy Charles Canning made some significant changes in the way of British policy towards ruling India in the aftermath of the mutiny and the brutal suppression and revenge killing that ensued. Two of the best known measures where conflicting and controversial, and one of them had a long standing historical relevance to this day.

The first was his observation that the success of the mutiny and its brutal effect in killing British and other white people was because the entire Indian solider class fought together without internal friction and hatred, in spite of the historical animosity between the Hindu and Muslim factions. Therefore, the British should adopt a policy of stoking this hatred and keeping the soldiers divided along religious lines, so the soldiers would no more be united, and each would prefer the British to maintain balance of force and each would assist the British in preventing any effort of the other to take over the reins of India. Thus, the Indian soldier should never again pose a unified threat to British Rule. That policy advice and doctrine became a sort of standard British policy all the way to India’s independence, and was critical in triggering the eventual “partition” of the nation along religious lines after a horrific sectarian violence and religious riots – ending up in creation of the nations of a Muslim majority Pakistan as a separate nation alongside a Hindu majority India.

Viscountess Charlotte Canning at right.

The second notable act of Lord Canning was his decision that the British should not indiscriminately punish every Indian soldier that did not fight on alongside the British during the mutiny, and instead, make a distinction between the actual rebels that took up arms against the British and those that abandoned the army in the wake of the turmoil and went back home, to sit out the mutiny. For this act of clemency, against deep rooted and loud protest from other British officials, he was also given the nick name – “Clemency Canning”. His post of Governor General was also elevated to Viceroy. He came to India after Marquess of Dalhousie and he was succeeded by Lord Elgin.

Today, a lot of places around the world has bears the name of Canning, mostly for the father but also the son. Surprisingly, the place “Canning, West Bengal, India” is not listed, or I could not find a reference to it in wikipedia and a few other resources, possibly because no volunteer offered to add that information.

George Canning, FRS, former British Prime Minister

Bengali people like sweets. And one of the enduring sweets is ledikeni – named after Lady Canning. That was Charlotte Canning, or Countess Canning, wife of Lord Charles Canning, Governor General and later Viceroy of India. She reportedly liked that sweet, or might have actually created it or popularized it.

Charlotte Canning was better known around the world as perhaps the best known woman artist of India of the time, and perhaps even till now. Some three hundred and fifty water colour paintings of her can be seen in Victoria and Albert Museum in London, most of them of scenes and people from India. Most of them are in ink, pencil, pastel or water colour wash. Most of them are also exquisite and carries a nostalgic sense of the times a century and half ago.

Earl Charles Canning, former Viceroy of India

Photography was just being invented and popularized around the time, and had arrived in India. So, Lord and Lady Canning also arranged to create and collect a vast number of photographs depicting various regions and people of India, which has left an enduring photographic record of the times.

She died in India a few years after the mutiny, in 1961, at the prime age of 44, from malaria. In that short span, and an even shorter combined tenure in India, she produced some 350 water colours representing the country, and thus left her legacy that has endured perhaps even more than her illustrious husband or father-in-law.

Lady Charlotte Canning

Fast forward to the present and I was looking at the names of three people from a single village of Canning, Nova Scotia, a thinly populated eastern province in Canada signing up on my petition on Glyphosate. This should not come as a surprise – Nova Scotia, along with Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, are often lumped together in calculations of pesticide use,  and has the highest per capita and per acre pesticide load in Canada. The region also enjoys the dubious unenviable record of being a sort of cancer capital for Canada. The region was also being used extensively for aerial spraying of Agent Orange on an experimental basis, before it was used in Vietnam, and for which deformed babies are still a fact of life there, and people in the eastern Canada are still fighting for the Government to accept that people were poisoned during that horrific test by American producers.

That leaves four more people from Cannington on the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario that also signed into the petition. I did speak in Toronto, Ontario, along with Dr. Thierry Vrain, about the dangers associated with allowing glyphosate in our environment. Perhaps some of the people signing up from there had heard me speaking.

Ledikeni

And that leaves the Bengali sweet “ledikeni”, which survives till this day in West Bengal, India. A cheese-based fried sweet, its distinctive features is its molten sugar syrup of lightly flavored cardamom powder. One of the main ingredient of any Indian sweet is of course – sugar. In India, it is made from Sugarcane.

These days, the sugarcane plants is being desiccated with RoundUp, with Glyphosate as a killer poison, in many parts of Bengal, I am told. So, it is more than possible, and very likely that the sweet ledikeni, prepared in Bengal today, contains glyphosate and will bring its share of ill-health to the people of Eastern India, much as any sweet in Canada or USA, coming for sugar beet, also laced with Glyphosate, is bringing ill-health in North America.

Click to go to the petition

And that brings me back to where I am, looking at the list of 21,000 people that supported my petitions, and trying trying to find new ways to resist the approval of this chemical for use in Canadian agriculture on one side, and trying to add a chapter for my book on the other.

And, I so like the paintings of Charlotte Canning.

Canada should start for testing glyphosate

Time to ask our governments to start testing people and food for glyphosate

Things have changed in the past year. We have been badgering the previous (Harper’s) Government in Ottawa for two years to get labs set up in Canada where people could test their urine and food for glyphosate. Some of our letters to the minister has been hand carried by then MPs to the then Minister of Health to respond to.

Sample table of compiled results

Sample table of compiled results

The good news is – today an increasing number of Canadian labs are coming up to test food items for detection of glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in RoundUp herbicide.

Unfortunately, we still have not located a lab that will test glyphosate in human body fluids such as urine, blood or mothers breast milk. We hope that happens soon. But we have now found ways to send samples across the border to USA for testing, which was proving to be expensive and difficult due to US customs rules.

Meanwhile, from various communication we have had with the Canadian Government, including through the Access To Information Act, it appears increasingly unlikely that our Government has actually seen any result of safety test of glyphosate, and may have approved it based on maker’s own statement and third party opinions. We are trying to look through this cobweb by asking the Government to disclose and make public what safety test it saw while approving Glyphosate. The response has been unsatisfactory less than transparent, with a veil of secrecy wrapped around the issue.

So, a separate petition is promoted on line, for the new Minister of Health to disclose safety test data on Glyphosate for people to verify.

Meanwhile, it is perhaps now our duty as citizens concerned about public health and quality of food, to keep our provincial Governments informed of the fact that glyphosate may have been approved circumventing the law and without studying any safety test record. It should therefore be of interest to the local governments to start testing our food and our people, to see concentration of glyphosate, and to let the people know of these results. This testing is now possible and within reach of the Government, since tests only cost from CAD 100 to around 250.

Meanwhile, we the citizens can initiate limited testing ourselves within our means, and start putting the results up on line for people to see. A sample table is put up here.

Folks interested to write to their governments, federal, provincial and municipal, we encourage you to do so and invite you to join our collective effort.

This may not be easy for a single person, but together, we can force our Governments to show diligence in ensuring that safety information as well as contamination from toxins are measured and people are kept informed.

This is a blog that will likely evolve as the efforts coalesce. Watch this space and feel free to contact me.

Thanks

Tony Mitra


Meanwhile, here is a brief list of Glyphosate MRL from Health Canada on various food items

GLYPHOSATE MRL – by Health Canada

Database reveals questions, and offers hints

I started looking afresh at the Health Canada public website for details put up my PMRA on pesticides in food, and their maximum recommended Residue limit in various kinds of food.

First, the unit used for MRL (maximum residue limit) was not mentioned in the results of search. For example, if you search for safe maximum residue limit of glyphosate in wheat, it will produce result of 5, but will not say if it is 5 ppm, or 5 mg/Kg of the wheat, or 5 mg/Kg body weight for the consumer or 5 ppb or what. This absence of indication of unit is something I found puzzling and also unprofessional. I had to ask a lab test expert from New Brunswick, who told that form his quick look, the unit appears to be ppm. I presume it is ppm in the wheat itself, in other words 5 mg/Kg of wheat.

I intend to dig into this a bit more regarding PMRA’s limits, and what unit is used, and what exactly it means.


The other interesting things I noticed were, in general, as follow

1) Most all factory farmed animal products including meat and milk are declared to have some MRL value for glyphosate.

2) Most all vegetable products are not in the list, probably an indication that these are not expected to have any traceable glyphosate, hence no limit has been set.

Deduction to be made from the above two – if you are deadly serious about reducing glyphosate – you might consider becoming a vegan, or seriously cut down on animal products.

Among vegetables there are tantalizing exceptions.
Soybean and Corn being known as large RoundUp ready crops, and most north American sugar coming from sugar beet – these are expected to have glyphosate, hence they also have MRL levels declared. So, if you want to avoid glyphosate, stay away from them.

Garden grown beet apparently is OK, as well as most other vegetables and fruits.

But for Mustard – watch out.

This one family, strangely, has multiple varieties listed with wildly varying figures.

Some are not in the list, such as standard (non branded) mustard and seed, indicating these are unlikely to have glyphosate. But other kinds, condiment type, oil seed type, and Hare’s ear mustard, can have as high as 10 ppm glyphosate. I have no idea what these are, but am very aware that GM mustard is already being grown in some places, which must have some brand name. GM mustard is also being shoved down India’s throat, so they produce a heck of a lot of it for local consumption and perhaps also for export. I do not know their brand names or where they originate from. but this multiple variety of mustard oil convinces me to be very careful about it.

Sugarcane cane is not listed, even if some of it is grown in Asia with glyphosate desiccation. So sugarcane question remains confusion.

I do not know why refined beet sugar does not have an MRL but sugar beet has a high MRL. Is it because Health Canada accidentally missed it, or could the refining process somehow remove the glyphosate? Can someone answer these questions.

I have included my first jotting of these partial readings into my blog, where I wish Canada starts testing their food, to see where the glyphosate levels in food are at this moment.

I understand the Govt is right now testing a lot of food, and might re-adjust these MRL figures as new information comes to light.

I am jotting this down so that future adjustments might be noticed.

Its a lot of work and takes a lot of time. Anybody wants to pitch in and help, is most welcome.


Meanwhile, this response comes back from the Access To Information (ATI) and Privacy Act Division of Health Canada, about revealing the safety test documents relating to glyphosate that the Government is supposed to have studied before approving use of glyphosate in agriculture

Bill C-51. What is a Canadian to do?

I am in search of an expert that is willing to speak with me on record about Bill C-51 and how it might affect free speech and rights of Canadian citizens, as well as why Canada should need such a law


Bill C-51, also known as Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, was proposed by Conservative MP Steven Blaney, was discussed in the parliament, voted on, got Royal assent and became law in the summer of 2015.
Part 1 of this bill is suspected to be an act legitimizing sharing of secret information about Canadians citizens by Canadian security agencies.
Part 2 is suspected to enact a Secure Air Travel Act that can restrict rights of air travel to suspect individuals.
Part 3 is suspected to amend the Criminal Code.

I use the word “suspect” because I do not consider myself an expert on the bill, and neither have I studied the bill personally. However, the implication of the bill concerns me as a citizen of Canada. I wish to learn more about it, and wish to spread awareness about it for Canadian citizens.I am aware that the bill, proposed by a conservative MP and supported by the Conservative party then in power, did not have the necessary votes to pass it, and that the Liberal party in opposition voted in support of the motion, thus providing it with the necessary number.
I have so far failed to get hold of a person that is able and willing to speak on record, preferably in short clips of no more than 5 or ten minutes, on what precisely the wordings of some sections of the bill is, and how this can affect citizens rights, either providing better security or taking away their rights to due process of justice.
There is a broader question as to why precisely does the Canadian Government need this anti-terrorism act, and if Canada is engaged internationally in actions that are expected to expose Canadian citizens back home to acts of retaliation or terror. The traditional image of Canada had been one that is a kind, peace brokering sympathetic nations that does not engage in foreign wars that are not our business. As a result, traditional Canada should not need to curtail its citizen’s freedom in order to stop terrorists around the world.So, what has changed ?Since I have been frustrated in my effort to find an expert that is willing to speak on record, and ask direct questions, I wrote this letter to the Canadian Bar Association, based on their online executive summary on the bill.


To the Canadian Bar Association
Hello,
I am a blogger (www.tonu.org), podcaster, amateur videographer (https://www.youtube.com/user/Tonymitra/videos), wild bird photographer (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tonu/), aspiring writer, a food security activist, a backyard organic farmer, a retired marine engineer and a concerned citizen of Canada. My blog gets between a thousand and two thousand hits a day.
I have been concerned about bill C-51 and its implications. I have been on a search to find a suitable person that is able and willing to speak with me, preferably on record, in order to create an brief audio podcast or a video to accompany a blog for the people, to explain how rights and freedom of Canadian citizens might be compromised by the bill C-51 and its broader implications as to why this bill has been created and what a secretive Government could do with this bill, to the people of Canada and to people outside of Canada, and why it should be important for Canadians to act on it, either supporting it or resisting it.
I have found many people that do not like the bill. I too do not like it instinctively. But unfortunately I am yet to find anyone that is knowledgable, has read the bill thoroughly, has checked how it infringes against people’s freedom point by point, and is willing to educate us on it.
I write to you because I have read your Executive summary on C-51, the anti-terrorism act of 2015 (http://iclmg.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/37/2015/03/15-15-eng-Executive-Summary.pdf).

From Canadian Bar Association summary

From Canadian Bar Association summary

Can you help connect me with a person that might be willing to speak with me on record of the specifics of this bill and how each of them impact our freedom?I live in Delta, BC, and am able to drive within the lower mainlands in BC, or connect over the phone or on skype.
Thanking you
Tony Mitra
(contacts)


A sort of petition to the Liberal Govt

Open Letter to MPs, to amend or kill C-51

The following is an open letter addressed to all members of Parliament and signed by more than 100 Canadian professors of law and related disciplines.

Dear Members of Parliament,

Please accept this collective open letter as an expression of the signatories’ deep concern that Bill C-51 (which the government is calling the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015) is a dangerous piece of legislation in terms of its potential impacts on the rule of law, on constitutionally and internationally protected rights, and on the health of Canada’s democracy.

Beyond that, we note with concern that knowledgeable analysts have made cogent arguments not only that Bill C-51 may turn out to be ineffective in countering terrorism by virtue of what is omitted from the bill, but also that Bill C-51 could actually be counter-productive in that it could easily get in the way of effective policing, intelligence-gathering and prosecutorial activity. In this respect, we wish it to be clear that we are neither “extremists” (as the Prime Minister has recently labelled the Official Opposition for its resistance to Bill C-51) nor dismissive of the real threats to Canadians’ security that government and Parliament have a duty to protect. Rather, we believe that terrorism must be countered in ways that are fully consistent with core values (that include liberty, non-discrimination, and the rule of law), that are evidence-based, and that are likely to be effective.

The scope and implications of Bill C-51 are so extensive that it cannot be, and is not, the purpose of this letter to itemize every problem with the bill. Rather, the discussion below is an effort to reflect a basic consensus over some (and only some) of the leading concerns, all the while noting that any given signatory’s degree of concern may vary item by item. Also, the absence of a given matter from this letter is not meant to suggest it is not also a concern.

We are grateful for the service to informed public debate and public education provided, since Bill C-51 was tabled, by two highly respected law professors — Craig Forcese of the University of Ottawa and Kent Roach of the University of Toronto — who, combined, have great expertise in national security law at the intersection of constitutional law, criminal law, international law and other sub-disciplines. What follows — and we limit ourselves to five points — owes much to the background papers they have penned, as well as to insights from editorials in the media and speeches in the House of Commons.

Accordingly, we urge all MPs to vote against Bill C-51 for the following reasons:

  1. Bill C-51 enacts a new security-intelligence information-sharing statute of vast scope with no enhanced protections for privacy and from abuse. The law defines “activities that undermine the security of Canada” in such an exceptionally broad way that “terrorism” is simply one example of nine examples, and only “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression” is excluded. Apart from all the civil-disobedience activities and illegal protests or strikes that will be covered (e.g. in relation to “interference with critical infrastructure”), this deep and broad intrusion into privacy is made worse by the fact there are no corresponding oversight or review mechanisms adequate to this expansion of the state’s new levels of information awareness. Concerns have already been expressed by the Privacy Commissioner, an Officer of Parliament, who has insufficient powers and resources to even begin to oversee, let alone correct abuses within, this expanded information-sharing system. And there is virtually nothing in the bill that recognizes any lessons learned from what can happen when information-sharing ends up in the wrong hands, as when the RCMP supplied poor information to US authorities that in turn led to the rendition of Maher Arar to Syria and his subsequent torture based on that – and further – information coming from Canada.
  2. Bill C-51 enacts a new “terrorism” offence that makes it criminal to advocate or encourage “terrorism offences in general” where one does this being reckless as to whether the communication “may” contribute to someone else deciding to commit another terrorism offence. It is overbroad, unnecessary in view of current criminal law, and potentially counter-productive. Keep in mind how numerous and broad are the existing terrorism offences in the Criminal Code, some of which go beyond what the ordinary citizen imagines when they think of terrorism and all of which already include the general criminal-law prohibitions on counselling, aiding and abetting, conspiring, and so on: advocacy or encouragement of any of these “in general” could attract prosecution under the new C-51 offence. Note as well that gestures and physical symbols appear to be caught, and not just verbal or written exhortations. In media commentary and reports, there have been many examples of what could be caught, including in some contexts advocacy of armed revolution and rebellion in other countries (e.g. if C-51 had been the law when thousands of Canadians advocated support for Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress in its efforts to overthrow apartheid by force of arms, when that was still part of the ANC’s strategy). So, the chill for freedom of speech is real. In addition, in a context in which direct incitement to terrorist acts (versus of “terrorism offences in general”) is already a crime in Canada, this vague and sweeping extension of the criminal law seems unjustified in terms of necessity – and indeed, the Prime Minister during Question Period has been unable or unwilling to give examples of what conduct he would want to see criminalized now that is not already prohibited by the Criminal Code. But, perhaps most worrying is how counter-productive this new crime could be. De-radicalization outreach programs could be negatively affected. Much anti-radicalization work depends on frank engagement of authorities like the RCMP, alongside communities and parents, with youth who hold extreme views, including some views that, if expressed (including in private), would contravene this new prohibition. Such outreach may require “extreme dialogue” in order to work through the misconceptions, anger, hatred and other emotions that lead to radicalization. If C-51 is enacted, these efforts could find themselves stymied as local communities and parents receive advice that, if youth participating in these efforts say what they think, they could be charged with a crime. As a result, the RCMP may cease to be invited in at all, or, if they are, engagement will be fettered by restraint that defeats the underlying methods of the programme. And the counter-productive impact could go further. The Prime Minister himself confirmed he would want the new law used against young people sitting in front of computers in their family basements, youth who can express extreme views on social-media platforms. Why is criminalization counter-productive here? As a National Post editorial pointed out, the result of Bill C-51 could easily be that one of the best sources of intelligence for possible future threats — public social-media platforms — could dry up; that is, extreme views will go silent because of fears of being charged. This undercuts the usefulness of these platforms for monitoring and intelligence that lead to knowing not only who warrants further investigative attention but also whether early intervention in the form of de-radicalization outreach efforts are called for.
  3. Bill C-51 would allow CSIS to move from its central current function — information-gathering and associated surveillance with respect to a broad area of “national security” matters — to being a totally different kind of agency that now may actively intervene to disrupt activities by a potentially infinite range of unspecified measures, as long as a given measure falls shy of causing bodily harm, infringements on sexual integrity or obstructions of justice. CSIS agents can do this activity both inside and outside Canada, and they can call on any entity or person to assist them. There are a number of reasons to be apprehensive about this change of role. One only has to recall that the CSIS Act defines “threats to the security of Canada” so broadly that CSIS already considers various environmental and Aboriginal movements to be subject to their scrutiny; that is to say, this new disruption power goes well beyond anything that has any connection at all to “terrorism” precisely because CSIS’s mandate in the CSIS Act goes far beyond a concern only with terrorism. However, those general concerns expressed, we will now limit ourselves to the following serious problem: how Bill C-51 seems to display a complete misunderstanding of the role of judges in our legal system and constitutional order. Under C-51, judges may now be asked to give warrants to allow for disruption measures that contravene Canadian law or the Charter, a role that goes well beyond the current contexts in which judges now give warrants (e.g. surveillance warrants and search and seizure warrants) where a judge’s role is to ensure that these investigative measures are “reasonable” so as not to infringe section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights. What C-51 now does is turn judges into agents of the executive branch (here, CSIS) to pre-authorize violations of Canadian law and, even, to pre-authorize infringements of almost any Charter right as long as the limits in C-51 – bodily harm, sexual integrity and obstruction of justice – are respected. This completely subverts the normal role of judges, which is to assess whether measures prescribed by law or taken in accordance with discretion granted by statute infringed rights — and, if they did, whether the Charter has been violated because the infringement cannot be justified under the Charter’s section 1 limitation clause. Now, a judge can be asked (indeed, required) to say yes in advance to measures that could range from wiping a target’s computer clear of all information to fabricating materials (or playing agent-provocateur roles) that discredit a target in ways that cause others no longer to trust him, her or it: and these examples are possibly at the mild end of what CSIS may well judge as useful “disruption” measures to employ. It is also crucial to note that CSIS is authorized to engage in any measures it chooses if it concludes that the measure would not be “contrary” to any Canadian law or would not “contravene” the Charter. Thus, it is CSIS that decides whether to even go to a judge. There is reason to be worried about how unregulated (even by courts) this new CSIS disruption power would be, given the evidence that CSIS has in the past hidden information from its review body, SIRC, and given that a civil-servant whistleblower has revealed that, in a parallel context, Ministers of Justice in the Harper government have directed Department of Justice lawyers to conclude that the Minister can certify under the Department of Justice Act that a law is in compliance with the Charter if there is a mere 5% chance a court would uphold the law if it was challenged in court. Finally, it is crucial to add that these warrant proceedings will take place in secret, with only the government side represented, and no prospect of appeal. Warrants will not be disclosed to the target and, unlike police investigations, CSIS activities do not culminate in court proceedings where state conduct is then reviewed.
  4. We now draw attention to effectiveness by noting a key omission from C-51. As the Official Opposition noted in its “reasoned amendment” when it moved that C-51 not be given Second Reading, Bill C-51 does not include “the type of concrete, effective measures that have been proven to work, such as working with communities ‎on measures to counter radicalization of youth – may even undermine outreach.” This speaks for itself, and we will not elaborate beyond saying that, within a common commitment to countering terrorism, effective measures of the sort referenced in the reasoned amendment not only are necessary but also must be vigorously pursued and well-funded. The government made no parallel announcements alongside Bill C-51 that would suggest that these sort of measures are anywhere near the priority they need to be.
  5. Finally, the defects noted in points 1, 2 and 3 (information-sharing, criminalizing expression, and disruption) are magnified by the overarching lack of anything approaching adequate oversight and review functions, at the same time as existing accountability mechanisms have been weakened and in some cases eliminated in recent years. Quite simply, Bill C-51 continues the government’s resolute refusal to respond to 10 years of calls for adequate and integrated review of intelligence and related security-state activities, which was first (and perhaps best) articulated by Justice O’Connor in a dedicated volume in his report on what had happened to Maher Arar. Only last week, former prime ministers and premiers wrote an open letter saying that a bill like C-51 cannot be enacted absent the kind of accountability processes and mechanisms that will catch and hopefully prevent abuses of the wide new powers CSIS and a large number of partner agencies will now have (note that CSIS can enlist other agencies and any person in its disruption activities and the information-sharing law concerns over a dozen other government agencies besides CSIS). Even if one judged all the new CSIS powers in C-51 to be justified, they must not be enacted without proper accountability. Here, we must note that the government’s record has gone in the opposite direction from enhanced accountability. Taking CSIS alone, the present government weakened CSIS’s accountability by getting rid of an oversight actor, the Inspector General, whose job was to keep the Minister of Public Security on top of CSIS activity in real time. It transferred this function to CSIS’s review body, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which does not have anything close to the personnel or resources to carry this function out – given it does not have sufficient staff and resources to carry out its existing mandate to ensure CSIS acts within the law. Beyond staff, we note that SIRC is a body that has for some time not been at a full complement of members, even as the government continues to make no apology for having once appointed as SIRC’s Chair someone with no qualifications (and it turns out, no character) to be on SIRC let alone to be its chair (Arthur Porter). And, as revealed in a recent CBC investigation, the government has simply not been straight with Canadians when it constantly says SIRC is a robust and well-resourced body: its budget is a mere $3 million, which has flat-lined since 2005 when the budget was $2.9 million, even as its staff has been cut from 20 in 2005 to 17 now. Without an integrated security-intelligence review mechanism, which should also include some form of Parliamentary oversight and/or review, and with especially SIRC (with jurisdiction only over CSIS) not a fully effective body, we are of the view that no MP should in good conscience be voting for Bill C-51.

Above, we have limited ourselves to five central concerns, but it is important to reiterate that some or all of the signatories have serious concerns about a good number of other aspects of C-51 – and/or about detailed aspects of some of the concerns that were generally expressed in the above five points. The following are some (but only some) of those concerns, in point form. They are included by way of saying that signatories believe these all need to be looked at closely and rigorously during House of Commons committee study of C-51, now that it has passed Second Reading:

  • C-51 radically lowers the threshold for preventive detention and imposition of recognizance with conditions on individuals. Only three years ago, Parliament enacted a law saying this detention/conditions regime can operate if there is a reasonable basis for believing a person “will” commit a terrorist offence. Now, that threshold has been lowered to “may.” There has been a failure of the government to explain why exactly the existing power has not been adequate. In light of the huge potential for abuse of such a low threshold, including through wide-scale use (recalling the mass arrests at the time of the War Measures Act in Quebec), Canadians and parliamentarians need to know why extraordinary new powers are needed, especially when the current ones were enacted in the context of ongoing threats by Al-Qaeda to carry out attacks in Canada that seem no less serious than the ones currently being threatened by entities like ISIS and Al-Shabab.
  • C-51 expands the no-fly list regime. It seems to have simply replicated the US no-fly list rules, the operation of which has been widely criticized in terms of its breadth and impacts on innocent people. Is this the right regime for Canada?
  • C-51’s new disruption warrants now allows CSIS to impinge on the RCMP’s law enforcement role, bringing back turf wars that were eliminated when intelligence and law enforcement were separated in the wake of the RCMP’s abusive disruption activities of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But, even more important than turf wars is the potential for CSIS behaviour in the form of disruptive measures to undermine both the investigation and the prosecution of criminal cases by interfering with evidentiary trail, contaminating evidence, and so on.
  • C-51, in tandem with C-44, permits CSIS to engage not just in surveillance and information-gathering abroad, but also in disruption. There are many questions about how this will work. The danger of lawlessness seems to be significantly greater for CSIS activities abroad, in that CSIS only needs to seek approval for disruption under C-51 where Canadian, not foreign, law could be breached or where the Charter could be contravened (with Canadian law on the application of the Charter outside Canada being quite unclear at the moment). And there is no duty for CSIS to coordinate with or seek approval from the Department of Foreign Affairs, such that the chances of interference with the conduct of Canada’s foreign affairs cannot be discounted. Nor can we ignore the likely tendency for disruption measures abroad to be more threatening to individuals’ rights than in Canada: for example, Parliament needs to know whether CSIS agents abroad can engage in detention and rendition to agencies of other countries under the new C-51 regime.

We end by observing that this letter is dated Feb. 23, 2015, which is also the day when the government has chosen to cut off Second Reading debate on Bill C-51 after having allocated a mere three days (in reality, only portions of each of those days) to debate. In light of the sweeping scope and great importance of this bill, we believe that circumventing the ability of MPs to dissect the bill, and their responsibility to convey their concerns to Canadians at large before a Second Reading vote, is a troubling undermining of our Parliamentary democracy’s capacity to hold majority governments accountable. It is sadly ironic that democratic debate is being curtailed on a bill that vastly expands the scope of covert state activity when that activity will be subject to poor or even non-existent democratic oversight or review.

In conclusion, we urge all Parliamentarians to ensure that C-51 not be enacted in anything resembling its present form.

Yours sincerely,

Jennie Abell, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Amir Attaran, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law , University of Ottawa
Natasha Bakht, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Clayton Bangsund, Assistant Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
Margaret Beare, Professor of Law and Sociology, York University
Faisal Bhabha, Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Jennifer Bond, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Suzanne Bouclin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Civil Law, University of Ottawa
Susan Boyd, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
Sarah Buhler, Assistant Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
Karen Busby, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba, and Director, Centre for Human Rights Research
Michael Byers, Professor and Canada Research Chair, Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia
Angela Cameron, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Pascale Chapdelaine, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Larry Chartrand, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Allison Christians, H. Heward Stikeman Chair in Tax Law, Faculty of Law, McGill University
Brenda Cossman, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Stephen Coughlan, Professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University
François Crépeau, Hans & Tamar Openheimer Professor in Public International Law, Faculty of Law, McGill University
Hugo Cyr, Professor of Law, University of Quebec in Montreal
Jennifer E. Dalton, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University
Maneesha Deckha, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Julie Desrosiers, Professor, Faculty of Law, University Laval
Peter Dietsch, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal
Stacy Douglas, Assistant Professor, Department of Law & Legal Studies, Carleton University
Susan Drummond, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Isabelle Duplessis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Stuart Farson, Adjunct Professor, Political Science, Simon Fraser University
Gerry Ferguson, Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Leonard, Findlay, Professor, College of Arts and Science, University of Saskatchewan, and Director, Humanities Research Unit
Colleen Flood, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa; Research Chair in Health Law & Policy
Fabien Gélinas, Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University
Daphne Gilbert, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Jassmine Girgis, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Isabel Grant, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
Marie Annik Grégoire, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Sakej Henderson, Professor, University of Saskatchewan, Research Director, Native Law Centre of Canada
Gleider I. Hernández, Senior Lecturer in Public International Law, Durham Law School
Steve Hewitt, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Birmingham
Louis-Philippe Hodgson, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, York University
Felix Hoehn, Assistant Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
Jula Hughes, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of New Brunswick
Allan Hutchinson, Distinguished Research Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Shin Imai, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Martha Jackman, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Juliet Johnson, Associate Professor, Political Science, McGill University
Rebecca Johnson, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Jasminka Kalajdzic, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Charis Kamphuis, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Thompson Rivers University
John Keyes, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Muharem Kianieff, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Jeff King, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Laws, University College London
Jennifer Koshan, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
François J. Larocque, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Fannie Lafontaine, Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair on International Criminal Justice and Human Rights, University Laval
Louis-Philippe Lampron, Professor, Faculty of Law, Laval University
Nicole LaViolette, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Jean Leclair, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Ed Levy, Retired Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Brian Lewis, Professor of History, McGill University
Jamie Liew, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Catherine Lu, Associate Professor, Political Science, McGill University
Audrey Macklin, Professor of Law and Chair in Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Alice MacLachlan, Associate Professor, Philosophy, York University
Warren Magnusson, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria
Kathleen Mahoney, Professor of Law, University of Calgary; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Marie Manikis, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University
John Manwaring, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Michael Marin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Graham Mayeda, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Sheila McIntyre, Professor Emerita, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Michael M’Gonigle, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Cynthia Milton, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Montreal
Richard Moon, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Mary Jane Mossman, Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Claire Mummé, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Roxanne Mykitiuk, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Pierre Noreau, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal
Darren O’Toole, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Charles-Maxime Panaccio, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Steven Penney, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta
Denise Reaume, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Philip Resnick, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of British Columbia
Darryl Robinson, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University
David Robitaille, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Ottawa and trustee at the Quebec Centre for Environmental Law
Sanda Rodgers, Professor Emerita, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Bruce Ryder, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and Academic Director, Anti-Discrimination Intensive Program
Hengameh Saberi, Assistant Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Calvin Sandborn, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Legal Director, UVic Environmental Law Centre
Steven Savit, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Jennifer Schulz, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba
Dayna Scott. Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and Graduate Program Director
Noel Semple, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Martha Shaffer, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Elizabeth Sheehy, Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
James Sheptycki, Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, York University
James Stewart, Assistant Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
Donald Stuart, Professor, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University
Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Civil Law, University of Ottawa, and Vice-Dean, Research and Communications
François Tanguay-Renaud, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, and Director, Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security
David Tanovich, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Christine Tappolet, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Montreal
Saul Templeton, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
Kimberley N. Trapp, Senior Lecturer in International Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London
Gus Van Harten, Associate Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Lucinda Vandervort, Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
Wilfrid Waluchow, Professor, Senator William McMaster Chair in Constitutional Studies, Department of Philosophy, McMaster University
Christopher Waters, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor
Wesley Pue, Professor, Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia
Reg Whitaker, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, York University, and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, University of Victoria
David Wiseman, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law – Common Law, University of Ottawa
Stepan Wood, Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Relevant Links :

Bill C-51 (Historical)
Openmedia Petition

Disappointing response from Provincial Governments on Glyphosate

I received an email, from the Ministry of Health, British Columbia, in response to my below letter. It is disappointing, and appears to shirk responsibility of health concerns relating to Glyphosate.

My letter to the ministry had , two basic items, a question and a suggestion.The question was if the BC Govt had conducted any test of food grown in BC for presence of Glyphosate, and if so, to make the results public.

  1. The question was if the BC Govt had conducted any test of food grown in BC for presence of Glyphosate, and if so, to make the results public.
  2. The suggestion was – if it had not tested any food, to put forward a scheme to start testing local grown food for presence of glyphosate, and again, to make that information available to the public.

I cannot copy paste the response here or anywhere, since it comes with a warning, that this email was intended for me only, and any distribution, copy or disclosure by any one else is prohibited.

However, I suppose I can still write my impression of what the letter says.

First, it avoids giving direct answers to either of the two points above. What is says in essence, are as follows:

  1. That the ministry is watching WHO announcement on carcinogenecity of glyphosate with great interest.
  2. Health Canada is responsible for food safety
  3. PMRA has published its re-evaluation of Glyphosate this year, and has considered glyphosate is unlikely to affect health if used according to label directions.
  4. The letter provides various links to Govt documents relating to i) glyphosate re-evaluation, ii) pesticide product evaluation database, iii) maximum residue limit for pesticides etc.
  5. The email ends with a suggestion that, although I am in contact with the federal Govt, I might consider contacting PMRA directly, and provides their email address.

It might have been more honest for BC Health Ministry to simply answer my question directly, such as:

A) No we have never tested food for glyphosate,
B) No we do not intend to test food for glyphosate even if labs are now available, since we believe this is Ottawa’s matter.

I decided to update the blog with this information, and then consider what next we might do.


Here are sample letters sent to two wings of the Government of British Columbia, Canada – the ministries of Health, and Agriculture, asking them to either disclose results of locally grown or sold food they have already tested for glyphosate, or, if they have not, to engage in a systematic effort to stat testing now, and to make the results available to the public

I am enclosing this sample letter so that people from other provinces and even states south of the border could consider writing to their respective local governments, and for people in our province of British Columbia could send the same or their own version of appeal to our Ministers, demanding that the government start testing our food, and to keep the people advised on results.


To: Minister Terry Lake,
Government of British Columbia, Ministry of Health
( Also, separately, to Minister Norm Letnick,
Government of British Columbia, Ministry of Agriculture
Minister Lake,
Subject: Testing of food for glyphosate contamination in BC 
I am a citizen and a resident of British Columbia.
I am concerned about possible links between glyphosate (in RoundUp and other brand herbicides) in our agriculture, and ill-health, as well as lack of information on which food contains how much of it. You are aware of a rising number of papers showing possible link between glyphosate and various illnesses, as well as World Health Organization reclassifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.My reason for writing to you is two fold.

The first is to learn if the British Columbia Government has tested food grown in BC, and/or sold in BC, for presence of Glyphosate. If it has, and if the results are available online for public, I request you to direct me there. If the results are not available, I request you to make them available to me.

The second part is a suggestion, in case the BC Government has never checked for Glyphosate in our food system. May I then request you to set up a system so that crops grown in BC as well as food sold in our stores be checked and catalogued periodically for presence of glyphosate, and the results be made available to the consumers. I am willing to assist you in this work should you so require.

I have separate communication initiated with the newly formed federal Government in Ottawa on a related issue about verifying safety of glyphosate through direct study of tests conducted on target animals instead of indirect decision based on third party statement. However, I believe, under the Canadian Constitution Act, our provincial Governments probably has enough jurisdiction to engage in direct action in ensuring that the people of British Columbia have sufficient information on what non-food elements have gotten is in their diet, especially glyphosate, which may have an adverse effect on their health. I am available to be of assistance in this effort, should the Government require.
I would here bring to your attention an emerging fact that more and more Canadian labs are now beginning to offer testing of food for glyphosate, something that was not available even a year ago.

I enclose a recently published fourth part of a series of science papers published in peer reviewed journals by two independent scientists from the US that do not take any support from the biotech industry. The paper covers their analysis of links between glyphosate and a number of diseases including cancer.
Thanking you
Tony Mitra
(contact)

Link to Samsel’s paper : Glyphosate, pathways to modern disease, part IV


MANITOBA

Here is a letter sent by Rose Stevens to the Manitoba Minister of Health, Ms Sharon Blady:

To: Minister  Sharon Blady
Government of Manitoba, Ministry of Health
Minister Sharon Blady,
Subject: Glyphosate and it ‘ s presence in MB food system
I am a citizen and a resident of Manitoba.
I am concerned about possible links between glyphosate (in RoundUp and other brand herbicides) in our agriculture, and ill-health, as well as lack of information on which food contains how much of it. You are aware of a rising number of papers showing possible link between glyphosate and various illnesses, as well as World Health Organization reclassifying glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.  I am still waiting for that meeting with yourself, Dr Thierry Vrain and myself, but have not heard back from your office in months.  This subject will make a very interesting issue during the up coming provincial elections in 2016.
My reason for writing to you is two fold.
The first is to learn if the Manitoba governement has tested food grown in MB, and/or sold in MB, for presence of Glyphosate. If it has, and if the results are available online for public, I request you to direct me there. If the results are not available, I request you to make them available to me.
The second part is a suggestion, in case the Manitoba Government has never checked for Glyphosate in our food system,may I then request you to set up a system so that crops grown in Manitoba as well as food sold in our stores be checked and catalogued periodically for presence of glyphosate, and the results be made available to the consumers. I am willing to assist you in this work should you so require.
My collaegue, Tony Mitra from British Columber has a separate communication initiated with the newly formed federal Government in Ottawa on a related issue about verifying safety of glyphosate through direct study of tests conducted on target animals instead of indirect decision based on third party statement. However, I believe, under the Canadian Constitution Act, our provincial Governments probably has enough jurisdiction to engage in direct action in ensuring that the people of Manitoba have sufficient information on what non-food elements have gotten is in their diet, especially glyphosate, which may have an adverse effect on their health. I am available to be of assistance in this effort, should the Government require.
I would here bring to your attention an emerging fact that more and more Canadian labs are now beginning to offer testing of food for glyphosate, something that was not available even a year ago. 
Over twenty thousand  Canadians have already signed this  recent petition requesting that our government disclose the safety test data on glyphosate   
https://www.change.org/p/minister-of-health-canada-justin-trudeau-health-canada-prove-glyphosate-is-safe?recruiter=16360852&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive
I enclose link to recently published fourth part of a series of science papers published in peer reviewed journals by two independent scientists from the US that do not take any support from the biotech industry. The paper covers their analysis of links between glyphosate and a number of diseases including cancer.

https://www.academia.edu/17751562/Glyphosate_pathways_to_modern_diseases_IV_cancer_and_related_pathologies?auto=view&campaign=weekly_digest

Sincerely 
Rose Stevens
Manitoba

Bill C-51

How does bill C-51 stack up for a constitutional democracy?

Should we be concerned about possible loss of personal freedom in the name of protection from terrorism?

How important is protection from terrorism? Who is out to terrorize Canada? Are we doing something around the world that we should not be doing, and are we creating enemies that we should not be creating? Are we hurting or killing innocents in far off lands using Canadian tax payers money that the tax payers have no say in? What is going on?

Well, here are a few comments on Bill C-51 – Anti-terrorism Act of Canada.

Perhaps this blog and others, covering issues that should be important for Canadian voters, will help the reader in forming an educated opinion on where Canada is heading, and where you might consider casting your vote.

I would recommend voters to know individual candidates and not go blindly for a party. Thee are great politicians and rogue politicians all across the landscape. We need good ones that keeps the Canadian constitution, its land, water, air, nature and people in mind first, and money, corporations and shareholder interest, later.

Chris George is a politician and a contestant in the coming election from Okanagan-Shuswap riding in BC on behalf of the Green Party of Canada. Here is what he had to say.

[youtube R9m3XROnHkA]C51

Alex Atamanenko is a sitting MP, for the NDP, and here is a speech he made directly in the Parliament about this bill C-51, back in Feb 2015. I got a copy of it directly from Alex. Here is a transcript. Now that a fresh election is called, members of parliament are not allowed to make any recorded talks, and hence I could not get him to read this letter out.

Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior)
2015-02-23 13:01 [p.11510]
Mr. Speaker, let me start by saying how proud I am of our leader and our party for taking a principled stand against this flawed piece of legislation.

Alex Atamanenko – outgoing MP, NDP

As I move closer to retirement, I have been reflecting on my past nine years here in Ottawa. I often think about all those individuals, not only in my riding but right across this country, who are deeply committed to the cause of social justice. As a member of Parliament, it has been an honour for me to work with them in our common struggle for a better world. The issues have been many: world peace, food sovereignty, climate change, the environment, poverty, violence against women, and many others.
As a party, we have taken principled stands against the ideologically driven policies of the current Conservative government, such as its so-called tough-on-crime agenda, the abandonment of environmental protection, and anti-labour legislation. Today our position on Bill C-51 is consistent with this proud NDP tradition.
I should say that with all this anti-terrorism and anti-Muslim hype generated by the Conservatives, it would have been easy to come out in support of this draconian piece of legislation. After all, it appears, as the polls are saying, that Canadians are afraid, and they want tougher laws to protect them against terrorists. However, as the official opposition, that would not be in the best interests of Canadians.
I believe that my party has taken the responsible approach, and I am very proud of it. After carefully listening to experts and studying Bill C-51 in detail, we have determined that the bill would be a direct threat to the rights and freedoms we currently enjoy in this country. Here I would like to offer my sincere thanks to my colleagues from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca and Alfred-Pellan and the research team for their due diligence on Bill C-51.
The following points summarize our concerns.
This bill threatens our way of life by asking Canadians to choose between their security and their freedoms. The bill was not developed in consultation with the other parties, all of whom recognize the real threat of terrorism and support effective, concrete measures to keep Canadians safe.
What is more, the bill irresponsibly provides CSIS with a sweeping new mandate without equally increasing oversight. It contains definitions that are broad, vague and threaten to lump together legitimate dissent with terrorism. It does not include the type of concrete, effective measures that have been proven to work, such as working with communities on measures to counter radicalization of youth.
We agree that terrorism is a real threat and everyone agrees that public safety should be a top priority for any government, but Canadians should not have to choose between their security and their rights. The Prime Minister is offering them a false choice.
We need concrete measures that protect Canadians without eroding our freedoms and undermining our way of life. However, time and time again, the Prime Minister goes too far and puts politics before principles.
As I endeavoured to study this bill, I read through various articles that appeared in our mainstream media. A number of them, such as the National Post editorial of February 19, dealt with the efforts of university professors and national security specialists Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, who have produced three exhaustive analyses of Bill C-51. They are concerned about the new powers granted to CSIS to engage in disruptive activities.
We have also recently learned from an internal RCMP document that the environmental movement is already being targeted as a national security threat. According to the National Post, “that does not require a particularly paranoid mind to be interpreted as evidence that the environmental movement is already being targeted as a national security threat”.
Prior to CSIS being created in 1984, the RCMP had engaged in disruptive activities that were illegal. That is why the McDonald Commission was created and why CSIS was given a mandate to collect and analyze information and produce intelligence about potential national security threats to Canada. Now, under Bill C-51, they would be able to do legally what the RCMP was doing illegally in the 1960s and 1970s. This is a direct threat to the rights and freedoms we currently enjoy.
As our leader stated:
Bill C-51 would expand CSIS’s mandate to spying on ‘interference with infrastructure and interference with economic or financial stability.
The language is so broad that it would allow CSIS to investigate anyone who challenges the government’s social, economic or environmental policies. What is to stop this bill from being used to spy on the government’s political enemy?
We have also learned that former CSIS officer Francois Lavigne is alarmed by this bill. According to an article that appeared in The Windsor Star:
He believes the measures proposed in C-51 are unnecessary, a threat to the rights of Canadians and that the prime minister is using fascist techniques to push the bill.
Mr. Lavigne was part of the barn burning, off-the-leash Mounties group whose law-breaking ways led to the McDonald Commission and the eventual establishment of CSIS in 1984. He spent years tracking dangerous radicals without the powers the government wants to give CSIS. He said:
I find it a little convenient that in the past few years that these radicalized people are the biggest threat to ever hit us. There are more people dying because of drunk drivers or because of gang violence.
It would also appear that the Conservative government is using terror to deflect us from real problems facing Canadians, such as the loss of jobs, the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, and climate change, to name a few. History is full of examples of irresponsible leaders rallying their citizens by exaggerating threats to their security. As Mr. Lavigne goes on to say:
Some of these tactics are taken right out of the fascist playbook. Create an enemy that is hard to identify. Make it an enemy that is nebulous and seems to be able to do things that nobody else can. Don’t define the enemy. Just identify. Generate fear around that enemy. Then send out the message that the only people who can deal with this enemy are us.
This is totally irresponsible and, I would say, immoral on the part of the Conservative government.
As our leader said, the NDP believes that current laws, at this time, allow the police and intelligence officers to do a good job. Providing new legislative tools is not the only solution. We must first ensure that our officers have the financial resources they need to better enforce laws.
In the end, any legislative measure to fight security threats must satisfy the following principle: the legislative measure must protect both Canadians and their civil liberties. The protection of civil liberties and public safety are both fundamental Canadian values. What is needed is a more rigorous legislative approach to fight terrorism based on evidence and facts, an approach that provides for strict monitoring of security agencies.
There is a lot of concern that this bill has been rammed through with the typical time allocation, not giving enough time for experts and the public to consult with the government, as happened in 2001 after what happened in New York City, when it took time, and committee meetings and hearings were held. This is being rammed through under the guise of fear.
I would like to quote from a disturbing article I read this morning in The Globe and Mail by Campbell Clark, which said:
Two things are clear: First, the Conservatives think this bill will help them win an election, and second, they don’t want people to understand it. That’s a bad combination for a bill that will change things in secret, in ways we won’t know for years.

Wayne James on sustainability in farming and politics

Wayne James is an organic farmer, overseeing 150 acres of ancestral farmland, and lives near the town of Beausejour, Manitoba.

He is also a Green Party candidate from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, Manitoba.

The farm was organic in his grandfathers time. During his fathers time, it followed the Govt promoted trend and became chemical dependent, toxic and unsustainable for the land and the planet.

Wayne has reconverted it back to organic. He does not do it to make a huge profit, though it pays the bills. He did it to live in harmony and in partnership with the land and the living planet and hopes to leave the land and the environment as good for the future, as it was in the past when his ancestors first stepped on this land.

He does not promise miracles for the constituents of his rural riding, but invites them to join hands with him in a responsible, sustainable stewardship of their land and environment that is recklessly being destroyed in the phoney promise of growth, development and economy that is actually pushing degradation, poverty and decay on Canada.

Here is a 7 minute video where Wayne speaks with Tony Mitra, about his views on farming, economy and why he entered politics.

[youtube Fvm-zj8pH6A]

Rose Stevens volunteers to improve voter participation in their riding

Rose Stevens is a holistic practitioner, an organic farmer, a concerned citizen and a fire breathing anti-GMO/Glyphosate activist from Manitoba. She is knocking on doors and talking to people at the dentists, the grocer, the gas station and anywhere else she finds people in their rural spread out riding, convincing people to register and vote, and vote for Wayne James of the Green party – and support the platform of clean air, clean water, clean food and clean politics.

I spoke with her and below is the ten minute talk as a podcast which you can listen to, by clicking on the play button below.

Questions for Canadian election candidates

Canadians are facing an election. It is our duty, as citizens, to be responsible in voting.

I decided to ask the candidates my question, directly, to ascertain what each candidate feels about it. Here is a copy of it.


Letter sent to :
Conservatives : Kerry-Lynne Findlay
NDP – Jeremy Leveque
Liberal – Carla Qualtrough
Green – Anthony Devellano

Dear candidate (name) from Delta,

I am a voter and a concerned citizen. I believe it to be my duty to be engaged this election season as a concerned citizen. That is the reason behind this letter, trying to understand the individual candidates of my riding.

I am against voting along party lines.

I am an engineer and have worked in multiple continents with folks from all across the world. I have also studied the economic, social and political systems of the nations of this planet within my means, and looked at them through the lens of time. In short, I believe I am not completely stupid.

I have serious reservations on the general economic model that is often pushed by the Canadian Govt. under different leaders and different parties.

Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta BC

I have decided not to vote for any logo or picture of party leaders and will vote for the person from my riding that seems to be most balanced and with good convictions that rhyme with my views. 

Jeremy Leveque, NDP, Delta BC

I am not interested in learning what a candidate can do for me. Instead, I am keen to learn what he or she will do for the long term health of Canada – its land, its air, its water and its people. Canada has been doing poorly those areas for a while now.

To that effect, I need to find answers to questions that are not being asked by the mainstream media, and what I have not heard a candidate address so far. Again, I am not so much interested in what their party leaders have to say. I am supposed to be voting for a person and not a lamp post that carries a party tag.

My questions are, briefly :

1) Canada has a huge landmass and huge reserve of resources and forestry and a small population to manage and distribute this wealth to. Yet, Canadian people are fast sliding to be at the bottom of the barrel in quality of life, public support systems towards healthcare, education, transportation, jobs, living wage, housing, poverty index, and toxicity in their environment. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

Anthony Devellano – Green Party, Delta BC

2) Canada is signing trade agreements that allows foreign corporations to trump Canadian citizen’s concerns. This destroyed our independence and democracy. Canada should not be for corporations to loot. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

3) Canadian food and agriculture is moving away from small farmers growing organic food, to mega farms producing potentially toxic food that is also patented by foreign corporations. The toxicity of these crops and pesticides have never been independently tested by Canadian institutions that are outside of influence by either the corporations or the Government. The patent rights intends to have all useful living organisms to belong to a few patent holding corporations instead of Gods own creation. Seeds will not longer belong to farmers. Trees will no longer belong to nature. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Conservative, Delta BC

4) Canada has surpassed Brazil and every other country on earth in most rapid destruction of its forestry and depletion of its carbon reserve This is disastrous and shameful. We are cooking the planet and killing ourselves. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

5) Canada, while promoting industrial chemical agriculture, has been steadily depopulating the rural landscape, forcing folks to move to towns and be unemployed job seekers, instead of reversing the trend, reducing massive corporate controlled farms and solving its employment, urban sprawl and civic services problem by repopulating its agricultural landscape with thousands of farming families and assisting rather than hindering them. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

6) Canada appears to be excessively in control of big corporations. It allowed these corporations to pay minimal taxes for taking away natural resources from our land, which essentially amounts to robbing the land. We aught to greatly increase tax revenue from these corporations, impose controls on how they do their business with regard to environmental degradation, and increase public owned firms to be involved in resource management, and thus improving the wealth of the nation instead of fattening the pocket of a few individuals and corporations and their share holders. Example to follow – Norway. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

7) I believe bill C-51 was a blow to democracy and takes away citizen rights that should have been unalienable. I believe a Canadian is more likely to be killed by a moose than by a terrorist. I believe we would not be targets of terrorism at all if our Govt stopped warmongering and bombing innocent people in far off lands that have done nothing to harm Canada, and that the best way to protect Canadian citizens is to stop bombing others and to stop supporting a military industrial model. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

8) I believe the Canadian constitution, on which elected officials should be taking oath of service, obliges the elected persons to a) abide by the constitution and b) follow the wishes of the electorate of his riding and NOT c) the wishes of the party leader. This is what I believe. Question – what do you believe ?

I shall be very happy to read your response, or speak with you either face to face or over the phone. My telephone number if 604-649 7535.

Based on my finding, I may donate, or volunteer or promote a candidate or a number of Candidates, as part of my duty as a citizen and a voter.

Looking forward to your response

Tony Mitra, a voter
(address & contact)