Piglet and Pooh and a walk in the snow

Pillaged from Bond Papers
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Confirmed Canadian H1N1 influenza A cases now stand at 34.
Swine flu deaths worldwide - 13.
Deaths from other flu variants worldwide - 250,000 to 500,000 per year.
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Update : WHO doesn't want us calling it swine flu anymore.
Rick Arnold of Common Frontiers suggests NAFTA flu would be more accurate.
Laura Carlsen at the America Program, Center for International Policy, provides the reasons :

• a rapid transition from small livestock production to industrial meat farms after NAFTA established incentives for foreign investment,
• the failed decentralization of Mexico's health system along lines established by multilateral lending banks,
• lax and non-enforced environmental and health regulations as the Mexican government was forced to downsize,
• the increased flow of goods and persons across borders, and
• restricted access to life-saving medicines due to NAFTA intellectual property monopolies for pharmaceutical companies.

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Take it to Iggy tomorrow at Canada Place

Via the Canada-Colombia Project
The Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement can only pass with Liberal support. The NDP and Bloc are already opposed.
Take it to Iggy tomorrow at Canada Place at noon.

"We the undersigned are deeply concerned that Canada would abandon its values and its support of internationally recognized human rights in order to gain economic advantage for its companies at the expense of millions of displaced, impoverished Colombians."

Signed by Maude Barlow, Stephen Lewis, Ed Broadbent, Claudette Carbonneau, Alex Neve, Paul Moist, Rev. Bill Phipps, Farley Mowat, Sarah Polley, Naomi Klein, Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, the B.C. Teachers' Federation, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, the National Union of Public and General Employees and many more. h/t Rabble
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Appearing before the International Trade Committee on March 26 of this year, Colombia Senator Robeldo was absolutely scathing re the Canada-Colombia FTA :

~Approval of the CanCol FTA will effectively "absolve, pardon, and reward" Uribe for his support of human rights abuses.
~It will condemn Colombia to poverty and result in even lower labour standards than they already have in order to compete with influx of subsidized Canadian foodstuffs. Local farmers will not be able to compete and will lose their land.
~Another 49 assassinations last year. More paramilitary orgs now, not fewer.

Top ten reasons why Canada should cancel Harper's "free trade" deal with Colombia

Canada steps into the void ...
Bowling for Colombians
How much for the little girl?
A licence to kill
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Update : A couple of hundred of us I would guess at the rally on Friday. Many good speakers including NDP trade critic Peter Julian who has been a very effective critic of this FTA on the trade committee.
Dr. Dawg was inside the convention. Hi Dr. Dawg!
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The dark side of Canadian foreign policy

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy

by Yves Engler , Fernwood Publishing

A 2007 poll that Engler cites found "84% of Canadians believed Canada played a positive role on the world stage while 10 percent felt it was negative."
Being peacekeepers is a big part of the Canadian national identity.

We are at pains to differentiate ourselves from US corporate colonialism and we are pissed with Steve for his Cold War era mongering and his nonsense about "putting Canada back on the world stage." We never left, we say.

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In his new book to be launched May 3, Engler asks us to take another look at that mythology of Canadian foreign policy in dozens of countries in South America, the Middle East, Caribbean, Africa, and Palestine.

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Via The Dominion, a book review at Canuck Media Monitor.

The entry on Colombia [as the Cons shepherd the Canada-Colombia Free Trade bill through the House] :

"Colombia Canada's closest ally in Latin America is the country that has consistently had the worst human right record in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1997, Ottawa initiated a re-write of Colombia's mining code.
CIDA worked on it with a Colombian law firm and the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI). The proposals became law in 2001 and offered a familiar list of goodies to mining corporations: the weakening of environmental and labor laws, reduced royalties paid to the government, tax exemptions, and added years to mining concessions.

In the resource sector, the link between profiteering and massive human rights abuses, especially forced displacement, is very obvious. Colombia's population of internally displaced persons (3 million as of 2008) is second only to that of Sudan. Engler described how two Canadian companies, BFC Construction and Agra-Monenco, contributed to human rights violations in northeastern Colombia:

"With $18.2 million from EDC [Export Development Canada] the companies' Urra dam submerged over 7,400 hectares, including old-growth forest as well as the
lands and homes of 411 families, all of whom were without individual legal land titles, only having collective indigenous land rights. About 2,800 people were forcibly resettled to make way for the Canadian companies' project and a further 70,000 people were directly impacted. Predictably the community resisted the dam. According to Amnesty International, six indigenous people protesting the project were killed and ten additional members of the community were disappeared by paramilitary and guerrilla forces."

When Canada opposed a 2007 UN General Assembly declaration on the rights of
Indigenous people, it was not only facilitating the ongoing dispossession of indigenous peoples in Canada. It was protecting Canadian companies that have trampled on the rights of indigenous peoples around the world."

Chile? We sided with the US to cut off IMF funds to Salvador Allende but after the 1973 coup, endorsed sending Pinochet $95 million of IMF funds. By 1978 direct investments by Canadian companies in Chile totaled $1 billion.

Iran? We tried to sell them nuclear power.

Iraq? Them too.

Colombia we can still do something about. Go.

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Oh well then

Two experts on the TASER™ payroll testified at the Braidwood Inquiry that they don't believe that the five TASER™ jolts inflicted on Robert Dziekanski contributed to his death.

Dorin Panescu, an electrical engineer who received $92,896 from TASER™ last year for "consulting work " :

"With a high degree of scientific certitude, it is my opinion that Mr. Dziekanski's death was not caused by, and not contributed by, the use of a TASER X26."

Dr. Charles Swerdlow, a US cardiac electrophysiologist on Taser International's scientific medical advisory board :

"There is no medical, scientific evidence to support the conclusion that [conducted energy weapon] discharges contributed to Mr. Dziekanski's death. The circumstances of Mr. Dziekanski's death are typical of the poorly understood syndrome of sudden, in-custody death, often occurring after restraint."

That would be the "poorly understood syndrome of sudden in-custody death, often occurring after restraint" in conjunction with five applications of 50,000 volts.

The National Post, the Province and all the other cross-Canada CanWest papers helpfully ran this story under the headline : "'Experts' say Taser did not kill Dziekanski" or just "Taser did not kill Dziekanski".
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Update : Via Chunklets in comments : an item from CanWest's Suzanne Fornier, whose coverage has been excellent and who does not get to write her own headlines, although I have no quibble with this one : Alcohol allegation not backed up : doctor

"An eminent forensic pathologist told the Braidwood inquiry Wednesday that Robert Dziekanski's death -- after five Taser jolts and restraint by the RCMP -- was likely a "cardiac-related" death linked to the Tasering.

Dr. John Butt, who received the Order of Canada in 2000 for his work over almost four decades, disagreed with the report by pathologist Dr. Charles Lee that failed to mention use of the Taser but did conclude "chronic alcoholism" contributed to Dziekanski's death."

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Canada oks torture intel on Abdelrazik

G&M : "More than 16 months after Canada's security agencies cleared Abousfian Abdelrazik, government lawyers are now pressing him to admit to being a senior al-Qaeda operative, echoing American accusations apparently extracted from Abu Zubaydah, the al-Qaeda leader water boarded more than 80 times under the Bush administration."


POGGE : "While the rest of the world is coming to terms with the fact that the Bush administration was actually using torture to elicit false confessions in an effort to justify their invasion of Iraq, the Hapless Government™ is trying to use statements from a man who was waterboarded 83 times to prove that Abdelrazik is a terrorist."


In a March appearance before the public safety committee, CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O'Brian caused a media stir by refusing to unequivocally deny Canadian intelligence agencies' reliance on foreign intel obtained via torture. "Clarifications" were demanded and obtained, the media was apparently placated, and it all went away.

Indeed CSIS Director Jim Judd, appearing before the public safety committee on April 3, said :

"In the past we used information received obtained by torture. Such information is not to be relied upon. We've changed our policies. Our policy now is under no circumstances do we condone the use of torture for any reason."

and went on to emphasize that intelligence agencies take direction from the federal government. CSIS has also called for a formal probe into its role in the Abdelrazik affair to clear its name.

But here is what Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan actually said when he appeared before the same committee to offer his "clarification" on torture:

"We do not condone the use of torture in intelligence gathering and our clear directive to our law enforcement agencies and intelligence services is that they are not to condone the use of torture, practice torture, or knowingly use any information obtained by torture."

Knowingly. Also known as "don't ask don't tell intel".

The rest of us have known of Abu Zubaydah's torture just to provide a pretext for invading Iraq since April 19, so this is perhaps not the best week for the Canadian government to air its filthy laundry in a Federal court on its role in condoning intel possibly derived from torture to prevent a Canadian citizen from returning home after he has been cleared by CSIS, the RCMP, and Sudan.
And, as pointed out by Lib Andrew Kania at the same public safety committee cited above, this also sends out a message to other governments that if they're selling info derived from torture, we're buying.
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Update : Dr. Dawg and James Bow
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Insite under seige again

In May last year the B.C. Supreme Court gave the supervised-injection site, Insite, a constitutional exemption to stay open without a federal exemption from drug laws. Also known as : provincial dibs.

Over the next three days, Canada's Attorney General and Minister of Health will attempt to overturn that ruling in the B.C. Court of Appeals because their neanderthal ideology prevents them from acknowledging that Insite's clients are actually real people with a right to healthcare.

A very good doc from The Fifth Estate does not make that mistake : Staying Alive
Neither does this piece, with accompanying slideshow, from the Vancouver Courier.

So will we be hearing from your government's expert panel of scientologists and US War on Drugs shills again this time ? Or are you just gonna stick with your "angel defence"?

A Department of Justice lawyer in court today argued that : "Making drug-related laws unconstitutional because they are difficult for drug addicts to obey would be "capitulation" along the lines of changing arson laws to accommodate pyromaniacs."

Or "capitulation" along the lines of changing your high horsie sensibilities to accommodate "not necessarily opposing safe-injection sites for illegal drugs in Quebec" .
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Swine Flu Terror Advisory Scale

Currently we are at "Uh oh".
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Swine flu and factory farming

David Kirby at HuffPost :

April 5 article in La Jornada newspaper :

"Clouds of flies emanate from the lagoons where Granjas Carroll [a subsidiary of US hog giant Smithfield Foods] discharges the fecal waste from its hog barns - as well as air pollution that has already caused an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town."
More than 400 people had already been treated for respiratory infections, and more than 60% of the town's 3,000 residents had reported getting sick, the paper said. State officials disputed that claim, and said the illnesses were caused by cold weather and dust in the air.

The problems began in early March, when many neighbors of the hog CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) became sick with colds and flu that quickly turned into lung infections, causing local health officials to impose a "sanitary cordon" around the area and begin a mass program of vaccination and home fumigation.
"According to state agents of the Mexican Social Security Institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement," La Jornada reported. "Even so, state and federal authorities paid no attention to the residents, until today..

Mike Davis, The Guardian :

"This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens at blinding velocity with their fellow inmates.

Last year a commission convened by the Pew Research Center issued a report on "industrial farm animal production" that underscored the acute danger that "the continual cycling of viruses … in large herds or flocks [will] increase opportunities for the generation of novel virus through mutation or recombinant events that could result in more efficient human to human transmission."

The commission also warned that promiscuous antibiotic use in hog factories (cheaper than humane environments) was sponsoring the rise of resistant staph infections, while sewage spills were producing outbreaks of E coli and pfiesteria (the protozoan that has killed 1bn fish in Carolina estuaries and made ill dozens of fishermen).

Any amelioration of this new pathogen ecology would have to confront the monstrous power of livestock conglomerates such as Smithfield Farms (pork and beef) and Tyson (chickens). The commission reported systemic obstruction of their investigation by corporations, including blatant threats to withhold funding from cooperative researchers ."

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New swine flu info at Public Health Agency of Canada and Flu Wiki

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Blame Canada!

"Well, some of the 9-11 hijackers did come through Canada, as you know," McCain, last year's Republican presidential candidate, said on Fox News on Friday."

He was defending U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who made similar, now deemed "mis-spoken", allegations a few days ago.

So, the current head of Homeland Security and the guy who came alarmingly close to being the President of the US are both getting their intel from South Park now?
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Condi Rice : The first to ok waterboarding, the first speaker at The School of Public Policy in Calgary

"Condoleezza Rice gave permission for the CIA to use waterboarding techniques on the alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah as early as July 2002, the first known official approval for the technique, according to a report released by the Senate intelligence committee yesterday.

The revelation indicates that Rice, who at the time was national security adviser and went on to be secretary of state, played a greater role than she admitted in written testimony last autumn."

"A few days later, the Justice Department approved the use of the harsh interrogation technique."

School of Public Policy launch brings Condoleezza Rice to Calgary

"On May 13, The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary will be formally launched with a gala at the Hyatt Regency Calgary, and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will offer a keynote speech at the event.

In her keynote address, Rice will offer her perspectives on the critical issues facing North America from a global perspective and highlight the role of organizations like The School of Public Policy in providing solutions that define North America’s place in the world.

The School of Public Policy is honoured that Condoleezza Rice has agreed to present the keynote speech at our inaugural event," said Jack Mintz, director and chair of the new School of Public Policy and Palmer Chair in Public Policy. "There is no better way to emphasize the purpose of The School than to have someone with her level of practical and theoretical policy expertise present our vision to the community."

"providing solutions" ... "Our vision to the community"...

Good one, Jack.

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