After my enviro-BSE-bad restaurants rant on the 27th, I felt the pain of overdoing the stitchery on the negativity blanket. But not for long, no, not for long. Yes, it’s true that (a) most Canadians mean well, (b) not all politicians or restaurants are bad, and (c) I really do think that in Canada we have a lesser chance of conformist indoctrination than in quite a few other countries, our big fat southern neighbour included, but it’s also a simple fact that while Canadians believe themselves to be somehow more “green” than their southern neighbours and believe that their impact on the planet is less than those very same neighbours, both beliefs are completely false. If there were as many Canadians as Americans, this continent would be hosed down the drain of NeverNeverLand, because we Canadians are in many ways the world’s worst wasters of water and the biggest energy pigs on the planet. (To get the full flavour of the statistics on this site, keep the population stats in mind: ten Americans for every one Canadian, and imagine if there were as many Canadians as Americans — ouch!) Canada ranks an embarassing 27th out of 29 OECD nations in terms of energy use per capita, consuming almost double the OECD average oil consumption per capita worldwide.

Furthermore, while the US has the EPA, Canada doesn’t have a comparable agency with the kind of “bite” that the EPA has. But this makes it all the more imperative to get Bush out of office, because he wants to turn all of America into the equivalent of the Canadian energy Peter Pan: the US has the EPA, but it’s also a sad and dangerous fact that the Bush administration is doing all it can to undermine that agency’s powers. If Americans re-elect Bush, there’s a danger that you’ll all turn into Canadians. Woe to us all if this happens.

Here are some other links for your edification:

Canadian water consumption

Canadian water safety and use of bottled water in Canada

The following is my current favourite story — this story will determine the EPA’s ability to be or not to be the knight in shining armour: Teck Cominco Ltd., another one of those giant Canadian mining companies without conscience, dumped lead and zinc waste into BC’s Columbia River for decades. The waste flowed south, and has polluted Roosevelt Lake in Washington State. The EPA is trying to make Teck Cominco pay for the clean-up, and the latter basically said, FU. (It’s the corporate way, dontcha know, regardless of Canadian or any other niceties.)

Teck Cominco Chief Executive Officer David A. Thompson wrote in a letter to the EPA that his company does not have to meet all requirements of U.S. environmental law because it operates entirely in Canada.More….

I hope the EPA manages to bring Teck Cominco to its knees. Everywhere these corporate criminals have been getting away with everything, and now this horrible administration in the US is trying to dismantle the only agencies we have that can fight against this.

Meanwhile, here in corporatist NeverNeverLand (aka British Columbia), the Neo-Liberal provincial government actually proposed that government should pay for studies of the feasibility of off-shore oil and gas exploration.

…Uh, lemme see: you want tax monies to pay for studies that will tell gas and oil companies whether it’s going to be a good bet to fook up the environment in a serious way by drilling for fossil fuels off-shore, so that same companies can decide whether their profit margin will potentially be big enough to offset the risk factor? Public funds are to pay for this private boondoggle? Yup, that’s what the neo-liberal corporatist government of British Columbia wants the Legislature and Parliament to do: approve approve approve, open wide and swallow, smile, it’s a beaver! (Canadian national animal… Another bad idea. Rodents with yellow teeth… Loggers… An astonishingly horrible idea…)

Look, if a Mafia don came to you and offered you “protection,” wouldn’t you be smart enough by now to yell for help? So why believe in the “protection” that corporate criminals appear to offer? Vote Them Out. Take Back The Means of Production. That was and still is what we’re fighting for: the means of production. The production of meaning, of wealth, of capital, of qualities, of quantities. Make your own if you have to. Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters….

Posted: 12|30|03 at 8:00 pm. Filed under: yulelogStories.

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