Oil The Humanity!

Oww, my sides would be hurting from laughing at the irony of this situation, if it weren’t a deadly serious joke that the Conservatives are playing on Canadians.

On a public relations mission to convince the public that the BC coast will be safe from oil spills, the clean-up vessel ran aground on a sandbar, and was delayed by hours.

British Columbia’s largest oil spill response vessel got stuck on a sandbar en route to a federal news conference where Monday about strengthening Canada’s oil spill defences.

This was only a test. If this had been a real emergency, your coastline would be covered in oil. Joe Oliver would be cackling.

You really have to love it when a press conference fails so badly for any politician hell bent on pitching a catastrophic idea destined to ruin lives and our environment.

When Is A Private Sale Public?

Conservatives tell us that state ownership of industry is bad… if it’s Canadian state ownership. Their actions tell a different story. “Canada is just barely holding the reins“.

S.E. writes, “You probably don’t need me to tell you that selling a controlling stake in this country’s largest energy resource to a foreign dictatorship is not really a good plan. We don’t even trust our own government with that kind of thing. I honestly thought we had a chance on this one. I guess the Harper regime’s shortsightedness is even greater than I thought possible.”

MoS says, “The Nexen sell-out obviously commits Harper to ramming through the Northern Gateway so those Chinese Tar Sands barons can get their sludge across the Pacific. The gloves are off from here on in.”

Remember that “ethical oil” is owned by the Communist Party of China, who has monks setting themselves on fire to protest it. Fortunately, there don’t seem to be Canadians willing to light themselves on fire to help others realize that we need rid of the Conservatives from government earlier than yesterday.

Private Employers Access Police Database

Here’s the really strange part… the employers didn’t hack the system to gain illegal access. The police give sometimes false positive criminal record checks to B.C. citizens seeking jobs.

“The best thing about PRIME, from my perspective, is the sharing of knowledge across North America,” says Insp. Bruce Imrie, who is in charge of informatics operational support for the RCMP.

The worst thing about that quote is that innocent British Colombians who’ve ever interacted with Police, willingly or otherwise, are open to privacy violations around North America! Forget #TellVicEverything you might as well just #TellPRIMEEverything instead.

Wong says he “didn’t know that [table guest] and I had nothing to do with that person, never met him before,” so he was shocked his personal information could be recorded in connection to a suspected gangster. He has tried unsuccessfully for two years to get the file deleted, and says he is advocating for PRIME to be reformed.

“I’d like to see that this doesn’t happen to other people,” Wong said. “The police shouldn’t arbitrarily or needlessly collect information into this database that has detrimental implications to people who have committed no crime and have done nothing wrong.”

Then there’s the case of Jose-Luis Guinea, who arrived in Canada from Peru more than 14 years ago and began working hard to build a better life for his family.

In 2008, he graduated from Kwantlen University College as a recreation co-ordinator for senior citizens. He understood that when he applied for a job he would have to submit to a pre-employment police record check. It was part of the process to screen out convicted criminals and keep them away from vulnerable clients.

Guinea was stunned when his police record check was returned to his potential employer indicating that a police file “may or may not exist” in his name. Guinea’s name had been flagged in the PRIME-BC database as having had “adverse police contact.”

“They ended my career just like that. I couldn’t get another job,” he says.

Guinea would learn, after some investigation, that his negative contact referred to an incident a year earlier when he had been visiting a friend in Richmond. The friend’s disabled daughter suffered a seizure and fell onto the sidewalk face-first. An argument ensued with the paramedics who responded and someone called the police. They attended, and recorded Guinea’s personal information, along with details of the incident, into PRIME, he says.

“It was frustrating,” Guinea said. “I knew I had done nothing wrong.”

Official Complaints: Nothing Happened

“…Nothing happened”
Elizabeth May’s passionate speech imploring our “tough on crime government to get tough on electoral crime!”

The video is a week old, but is as relevant at my writing, as it was back then. There’s been additional evidence of micro-targeting though that points to a national party being involved.

Why Actions Today Matter

“We’re destroying future generations for now, and forever.” – Jitesh, an Indian oilman.

You won’t regret watching this video, the guy’s a very good storyteller.

Common Sense, Japan’s Quake Ripples

I was up late last night, not only trying to spread word of the news in Japan and the Pacific Rim, but counter reports that there were “no advisories” for BC and North America on NOAA.gov (a website that last night was incorrectly reporting the preliminary magnitude wrong at 7.9, when everyone on Twitter already knew it was 8.9), and therefore no danger. Ha! I don’t want the last laugh in a disaster, but an hour after Stephen Taylor and some random tweeter in BC who got RTed by Miss604, there was an advisory of a watch. Then this morning that watch was upgraded to a warning (for many North American areas although not B.C.).

I agree, crying wolf isn’t a good idea, but actively telling people it’s okay and there’s no danger is irresponsible (like Conservative Minister level irresponsible) when an 8.9 magnitude earthquake is sending tsunami waves into the east coast of Japan, and there’s no land standing in the way of the quake and the North American coastline. Use some common sense! The website was not up to date, and a prediction of an advisory, after watching the Boxing Day Tsunami unfold half a decade ago, prepared me to calculate that some sort of detectable wave would impact B.C. I asked my Twitter followers to monitor news reports, and not accept that there was simply no danger because none had been calculated yet by a US government agency.

On the radio this morning, they explained that low tide was experienced on the Canadian west coast around when the first tsunami waves started to roll in around 7:00 a.m. local time.

In Japan there are photos and videos of cars, buses, planes, ships, semi trucks, and homes being swept away (some buildings on fire), like bugs in a bathtub. Hawaii will see some damages too today, and hopefully no deaths there. Hundreds are killed in Japan already, and the death toll could be in the thousands, or tens of thousands if the missing are not found alive.

Conservatives Feeling Green Heat in SGI

Stephen Harper announced $155M worth of vote buying in the SGI riding that Elizabeth May is contesting in the next election.

Despite his claims that he doesn’t want a spring election, Stephen Harper made a campaign-style spending announcement in Elizabeth May’s riding of Saanich–Gulf Islands yesterday morning.

With Conservative incumbent Gary Lunn in tow, Harper announced $155 million worth of funding for a new helicopter base in the riding.

He’s clearly pulling out all the stops to keep Elizabeth May from becoming Canada’s first Green MP.

Why? Because she’ll be such a powerful advocate for all Canadians–not just for the environment, but on a broad range of economic and social issues.

I need your help to make sure she gets elected, despite Harper’s vote-buying tactics.

Obviously the Green Party doesn’t have $155 million to spend. Fortunately our positive message of hope is much easier to sell.

Your gift of $155, or whatever you can afford, will allow us to reach out to voters who are tired of being bribed with their own tax dollars. Voters who are fed up with the cynical opportunism of politics-as-usual. Voters who are ready for a change.

Polls show that she’s neck-and-neck with Lunn. It’s going to come down to the wire. Your donation could be the deciding factor.

Together, we can elect Elizabeth May and really change the climate in parliament.

Thank you so much for your support.

Johan Hamels
Executive Director

If she’s really in line with Lunn in the polls, where does that leave the Liberals and NDP? If the three parties would simply hammer out an agreement so May can be elected in that riding instead of Lunn, then the Greens could/should assist elsewhere to elect NDP and Liberals in return. After all, the NDP and Greens both claim to want proportional representation, and it’s clear that they won’t get proportional representation so long as the parties work against that very objective by splitting votes in ridings winnable by left wing and centrist candidates.