Will Canada replace the Maple Leaf with the Red Ensign?

So what's next?  Will Canada replace the Maple Leaf with the Red Ensign?  Forward to the past.  That appears to be the focus of this government.

They seem to like the old days when Canada was a colony to the Mother Country.  Must be because they are turning our armed forces into a colonial entity again.

Case in point... The Canadian Forces has become the RCAF again, the RN again and the Canadian Army.  I guess they forgot about the army when they did that retro-change.  But don't be afeared my gun-toting friends.   What used to be a private in the army will go back to being called a trooper, bombardier, rifleman, fusilier or a guardsman depending on which unit you are in.  What happened to the Sappers and the Miners, or the Gunners and the Wheelers, my honourable friends.  Did you overlook them?

Even the flags on our ships are being repositioned to mimic the British Royal Navy.

Now the familiar maple leaf rank designations for officers is about to be changed to British pips... you know, those diamond shapes that are more recognizable than the Maple Leaf.

I wonder when the Minister of Finance will be renamed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Trains, Planes and Negligence

Here we go again. I have said it before and I say it again - safety self-regulation by industry will ONLY work if a safety mindset is in place within the industry. 

Safety Management System, which was instituted to off-load the bother of inspections by Transport Canada, has been a massive failure in the train and air travel industries. Just ask Dave Winter what he thinks of SMS.  He quit his job as a federal aviation inspector over the issue.  (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/11/08/airline-safety-system-flights.html)

For those who do not understand SMS, let me offer you a simple explanation.  It is a voluntary program whereby train and aircraft operators do their own safety inspections and then submit paper work to that end to Transport Canada.  As long as you file the paper work, regardless of whether you actually did the inspection or fixed problems, then you are SMS compliant.  It is a bit like asking criminal to turn themselves in rather than having police actually solve crimes.

The most recent interviews I have seen of MP Olivia Chow concerning this have been spot on. Neither the Cons nor the Libs have a clue or the cahones to tell the truth. 

The basics of the disaster in Lac Megantic are to be found in Transport Safety Board reports going back as far as 1994. 

Single hulled tanker cars that have been called defective designs... a decision to allow a 77 car train with multiple engines to be attended (or not) by one engineer... driving trains over tracks that were not designed for the current weight of cars and materials... and on and on.  These are the causes of Lac Megantic.  One does not have to wait 6 months until a formal report is released in order to act on these issues.

How many more Canadians need to be slaughtered before action is taken?

The Unknown Heroes

I write quite a lot about heroes on the my web site.  They include a teenage girl who fought off a cougar to save her brother, a dog that helped save 92 persons in a shipwreck and Canadian Victoria Cross recipients, amongst others  What I do not write often enough about is the persons around the heroes who were heroes in their own right... just not lauded publicly.

Sgt. Navigator James Scott was one such unknown hero.

James Scott was a Canadian navigator/pilot on a Beaufort torpedo bomber flying with the RAF in WW2.  One of the first graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), Scott had been flying since 1940.  In 1941, he was merely 19 years old.


On April 5, 1941, Scott's plane, commanded by Pilot Officer Kenneth Campbell, was ordered into the skies over the the fiords of Norway in search of the German battleship Gneisenau. They found it and attacked with their unguided torpedoes.  In order to ensure the torpedoes ran straight and true, Campbell made his run approximately 50 feet above the fiord.  I am sure that Campbell had a discussion with his crew, including Scott, explaining to them that the attack he proposed could be their last.  Any number of issues could arise that could doom the plane and its crew.  They all agreed that the risk to their lives was outweighed by the benefits to the war effort.  Indeed, to that point, the Gneisenau had sunk thousands of tons of allied merchant and military shipping and caused the death of thousands of allied sailors.

You can read about the fated raid that won Kenneth Campbell the Victoria Cross and put the Gneisenau out of action for a portion of the war, on my web site.  Suffice to say that you will not find the name of nineteen year old James Scott or any of his comrades in the records.  For the record the other crew members were Sgt. William Mulliss and Fl Sgt. Ralph Hillman.

They, unlike Campbell, were the unknown heroes.

It's a local story but it is an example of larger problems.

The Strandherd-Armstrong bridge is being built in suburban Ottawa.  It links the southern neighbourhoods of Barrhaven and Riverside South across the Rideau River.  About four years ago, I sat on a citizens committee that reviewed the bridge designs.  At the end of the session, we were asked which design we preferred.  The choices were a plain-jane six-driving-lane- (plus bike and walking) flat slab or a fancy six-lane (with bike and walking) slab with arches attached to it to make it look good.

The committee was almost unanimous for the fancy arches; only one person dissented... that would be me.

I argued against the arches for two reasons.  In a climate of ice and snow for many months of the year, accumulation on the arches could fall on vehicles or pedestrians, which would not be a good thing.   My second objection was the cost and time it would require to build the arches.

Hate to say I told you so, but the bridge which was to be open in early 2013... then delayed to fall 2013... is now delayed to fall 2014.  Why the latest delay?  Welds on the arches.   The slab is finished... in fact it has been for almost 6 months.  The crossing could be finished by now.  It is the arches that are causing the delay.

Even our exalted local Con MP, Pierre Poilievre, is not talking about the bridge anymore.  He was a big booster of it, going as far as to claim that, without him, the project would have be dead.

When desire triumphs over practicality, whether it be a bridge or a stealth fighter, citizens are not well served.   

When you are a Con you can argue that a tax is not a tax... and actually believe it.

The Harper Government removed special tariff rates for countries such as China and Brazil.  This raised the rates up.  It is the importers that pay the tariff, so they, the importers, raised their prices to distributors to cover their higher costs and the distributors, in turn, raised prices to consumers.   (And don't forget that the higher prices means more GST for the government.)

So where do the increased tariffs paid by the importers go? 
It goes in to the pockets of the Harper government, of course.  To the tune of $335 million per year.

When the Canadian government collects more money from Canadians, in any form, it is a tax.  To call it anything else or deny that it exists is dishonest.

Bicycles, tricycles and wagons; children's toys; cancer-victim's wigs... almost 1,300 products from 72 countries; these are not luxury items afforded by the rich.  These are all-class items purchased by Canadians.

It is a pretty sad day for Canadians.

Hey Susan... they are going to build that pipeline

Warn your friends that the feds are brewing their message to force the Gateway pipeline through.

The latest salvo is that they are blaming the drop in pricing that Canada charges for oil exports on the fact that we sell primarily to the US.  Read here that Canada needs to expand to markets in Asia... thus the Northern Gateway Pipeline must be built.  The reality though is that the price we receive is falling because oil sands bitumen is heavy oil and costs more to ship and refine than does light or medium crude.

Just prior to that, came the message that the economy is slipping based on lower petrochemical royalties.  Unless the royalties go back up (How?  Expanding to the Asian market!  See above.) then the balanced budget promised for 2015 will have to be pushed back again.  The reality is that the structural budget deficit created by the 2% point drop in the GST is what is causing them the problem.  Combine that with the poor stewardship of the economy and the Canadian dollar, and there you go.  So much for the fiscally conservative and wise Cons!

I wrote in an earlier blog entry that the so-called Dutch Disease, where petrodollars currency inflation killed manufacturing in the Netherlands, was not the only issue with so-called Dutch Disease.  Dutch Disease also led the government to focus their effort on the petrochemical industries while ignoring other industries, such as manufacturing.  When was the last time the Cons talked about manufacturing?

The Cons are cagey.  They will eat away at the pipeline debate without ever mentioning it by name.  It is up to Canadians to stay alert, because this government does not seem to want to represent Canadians.

This government is a joke!!!

So the MPs come back to work for a few days and Harper welcomes his caucus with a speech that outlines his priorities for this session.  Law and order... no surprise.  Fiscal prudence... par for the course.  And few minor things.

But what was most important was what was missing from his priority list.  There was no mention, even casually, of aboriginal issues!!!!

The Idle No More movement is ignored.  The blockades and AFN leaders statements are ignored.  Even the commitments made to Chief Atleo are ignored.  After all, thinks Harper, he is just a little man in a funny hat?

The whole of the First Nations issues are swept out of sight!

Shameful!!

I get a warm feeling from this one!

There was an interesting headline in the Montreal Gazette last week.  It read "Can terrorists be rehabilitated?"  (http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/terrorists+rehabilitated/7875211/story.html)  The more interesting part was the article which described the conditions under which convicted extremists are being housed in the prison in Ste-Anne-de-Plaines, Quebec.

These terrorists are being segregated from the general population (not a bad idea) but they are given no treatment or rehabilitation whatsoever.  They are left with nothing except to plan what to do upon their release.  And guess what?  Once released the government or the police have no way to know where they go or with whom they associate.

So we take terrorists and throw them into a festering hole until their time is up; then we release them into the country.  Sounds like a great plan.

Canada's First Nations Shame

Chief Theresa Spence from Attawapiskat has been on a hunger strike for 4 weeks.  She ends it today.  What did she want and what did she achieve?

What she wanted was decency for her people and for all First Nations Peoples.  She wanted to meet with the Prime Minister (Remember him?  He is the one that meets with foreign dignitaries and goes to hockey games in New York but can't spare a day for his fellow country-persons!) and the Governor General... the representative of the Queen of Canada.

Why did she want to meet with the GG?  The answer is in Treaty Number 9 (the James Bay Treaty) that was signed in 1906.  It was an agreement between the First Nations of the region and... wait for it... His Most Gracious Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland - The King of the colony of Canada.

The opening paragraph of the Treaty reads as follows:

ARTICLES OF A TREATY made and concluded at the several dates mentioned therein, in the year of Our Lord one thousand and nine hundred and five, between His Most Gracious Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland, by His Commissioners, Duncan Campbell Scott, of Ottawa, Ontario, Esquire, and Samuel Stewart, of Ottawa, Ontario, Esquire; and Daniel George MacMartin, of Perth, Ontario, Esquire, representing the province of Ontario, of the one part; and the Ojibeway, Cree and other Indians, inhabitants of the territory within the limits hereinafter defined and described, by their chiefs, and headmen hereunto subscribed, of the other part: --

And paragraph seven states:

To have and to hold the same to His Majesty the King and His successors for ever.

I think that it is clear that she had a right to ask for the meeting with the GG, as the representation of a successor to the King) as well as the PM.

She got neither, so what did she achieve?

The first thing she achieved was that she got the attention of the government.  The Cabinet Minister as well as the PM were sleeping with their heads on the First Nations file until Spence woke them up.

The second achievement was that she shook up the AFN who were sitting around waiting for the government to notice them rather than advocating for their members.

The third achievement was to galvanize the First Nations People to set up the Idle No More movement.  Whether or not the movement continues is irrelevant to the fact that they woke up Canadians to the continuing issues of First Nations.

 Theresa Spence is Canada's Nelson Mandella.  Warts and all.