July 2013

Wild Salmon Warrior News

Farmed salmon toxins proven unsafe, an industry on the ropes
by Adam S. Sealey

• I do not recommend pregnant women, children or young people to eat farmed salmon.

–Norwegian doctor Anne-Lise Birch Monsen

sockeye salmon
photo by Anissa Reed

Last month, “Wild Salmon Warrior News” explained why salmon farms must be removed from wild salmon migration routes. This month, we tell the other side of the story: how farmed salmon in BC, Norway and elsewhere is full of toxins. First some shocking news from Norway, the country where modern salmon farming originated and which owns most of the salmon farms in BC.

Norwegian doctor Anne-Lise Birch Monsen, a specialist from the clinical department at Haukeland University Hospital, recently stated to the Norwegian newspaper VG (Verdens Gang), “I do not recommend pregnant women, children or young people to eat farmed salmon. It is uncertain in both the amount of toxins salmon contain and how these drugs affect children, adolescents and pregnant women.” She points out that the types of contaminants detected in farmed salmon have a negative effect on brain development and are associated with autism, ADHD and reduced IQ.

On June 10, the International Herald Tribune published an article about farmed salmon, with the caveat, “Don’t give [it] to the children,” and the accompanying caption: “May produce brain damage.”

Twlya Roscovich, producer of documentary film SalmonConfidential.ca

Here in BC, two of many champions for wild salmon are educating the public and inspiring us all to take action to protect wild salmon and public health. Twyla Roscovich, documentary filmmaker and underwater marine cinematographer, states, “I think the biggest concern right now is the impact that salmon farm-origin pathogens are having on our public marine resources. The high density of the farms is creating dangerous mutations and amplifying pathogens, which our valuable wild fish are being exposed to. Our government, which is deeply enmeshed with industry, cannot be trusted to manage this public resource so we must take the management of salmon back to the people who depend on them. I will be releasing an ongoing series of coastal news video clips as the science unfolds. Sign up or watch the free 70 minute film at SalmonConfidential.ca”

Eddie Gardner (T’it’elem Spath) is a member of the Skwah First Nation in Chilliwack, BC. Eddie is currently an Elder-in-Residence at the University of the Fraser Valley. He is devoted to working with First Nations authorities, Salmon Are Sacred, environmental groups, scientists and the food industry to protect and restore wild salmon. He has started a series of actions to educate the public about the dangers of eating farmed salmon, especially for children. “I choose a restaurant or food outlet that sells farmed salmon and ask the manager to remove farmed salmon from their shelves. I let them know there will be a rally in front of their establishment to help raise awareness. I also give the manager information to hand out to customers. A media advisory is issued announcing there will be a boycott on a specific date at the store or restaurant and I also post the event on social media. I present a certificate of acknowledgement and appreciation if the store or restaurant joins the feedlot salmon boycott. I also reward them with a ‘cash mob’ by having 8 to 12 people show up for a meal at their restaurant. This encourages other restaurants to follow suit.”

 

Eddie Gardner (left) with supporters of the Salmon Feedlot Boycott in Chilliwack, BC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Pacific Salmon are at the root of our culture and of countless cultures since time immemorial here in BC and beyond.

I can think of no other species of animal who have given more to our collective nourishment and cultural backbone than wild salmon, can you? Now, they need us. They need you, your voice, your circle of family and friends whose lives have always been and hopefully will always be all the richer because of the presence of wild salmon.

In Norway the fish is out of the pen, so to speak, on farmed salmon and it’s dangers to human health, wild salmon health and the health of the oceans they occupy. Twyla Roscovich recently traveled to Norway and met with most of the top salmon scientists in the country where modern salmon feedlot farming was born more than 35 years ago. Those scientists consistently told her, on camera, that the disease called Heart Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI) most certainly is related to the Piscine Reovirus (PRV) that is currently spreading through BC salmon. Watch for yourself

Asking Norway about the Piscine Reovirus from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.

Our government and the foreign owned salmon farming industry refuses to allow independent testing of their farmed Atlantic salmon for PRV or Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA). When Dr. Fred Kibenge’s lab at the University of PEI found that British Columbia’s salmon were testing positive for a potentially devastating virus linked to salmon farming worldwide, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) responded by asking the Office of International Epizootics (OIE) to strip Kibenge’s lab of its international certification. The fact that the salmon eggs come from Norway where these viruses are prevalent and the fact that salmon are dying in record numbers here in BC before they can spawn tells us that we are dealing with the same diseases as well as a self-regulated and corrupt industry. Ad in a complicit government inept to do their job and duty to us and the salmon and we’re on the brink of a potential disaster that could wipe out wild salmon or at least many of the runs we enjoy here in the Pacific Northwest. Our friends in Washington state are getting nervous as they should be.

We must be The Wild Salmon Department!

Update, July 19, 2013 from Eddie Gardner and the Salmon Feedlot Boycott;

“We are proceeding with the Boycott Rally at Superstore in Chilliwack on August 1, 2013 at noon and everyone is welcome to join us.  We will have more flyers to distribute to customers that point to the high toxins/comtaminants in Farmed Atlantic salmon and urging them to contact Superstore to ask for the removal of farmed salmon from their shelves across Canada.

Wild salmon need our help now, so if you can help spread the word and seek more support, the better chance we will have for a break through in getting a major chain store to join the boycott!  The more people from different towns to get them the message, the more powerful!

All the best,

🙂

Eddie”

Contact Eddie at singingbear@shaw.ca

For more viewpoints and events, listen to Wild Salmon Warrior Radio, with host and artist Jay Peachy, Tuesdays 10:30AM. Begins July 2 on CJSF 90.1FM or online at cjsf.ca

Adam S. Sealey is passionate about wild salmon having grown up in places like the Discovery Islands where salmon farms are having a serious impact on the survival and health of migrating wild salmon young. He supports people like Twyla Roscovich, also from the Discovery Islands region who place wild salmon health above Norwegian corporate and crown owned salmon farming corporations. Adam believes that this is a struggle for life itself and that we can prevail on this issue. He can be reached via Common Ground at adam@commonground.ca

Just label it

Rachel Parent

Young activist Rachel Parent speaks out against GMOs

Rachel Parent
• Rachel Parent is the founder of Kids Right to Know – Just Label It! campaign. (www.gmo-news.com). This fearless anti-GMO activist is a grade eight student, journalist, speaker and Healthy Planet Watchdog. NOW Magazine has awarded her the distinction of “Environmental Hero.” On May 25, she spoke at the March Against Monsanto rally in Toronto. An excerpt of her speech is below.

I’m 14-years-old and I’ve been fighting GMOs for a long time. After learning more about GMOs, I realized that they not only affect our food, but also our water and our entire eco system. I felt I needed to do something. Then I heard about Proposition 37 in California to label GMOs and I knew it was the perfect time to spring into action with my first GMO Kids Right to Know Walk to create awareness. Unfortunately, Proposition 37 was narrowly defeated because over $47 million was spent on untruthful and misleading ad campaigns in the days leading up to the vote, paid for by companies that don’t want you to know the truth about what they’re putting in your food: companies such as Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Kellogg’s, Nestle, Kraft, Frito-Lay and PepsiCo to name a few.

Over 60 countries around the world have mandatory GMO labelling, including China and Russia. Canada and the US are the only two industrialized nations that don’t. In the countries that have mandatory labelling, products that contain GMOs are hardly found because people won’t buy them. In fact, over 30 countries have outright bans on GMOs.

It’s supposed to be a free country but we don’t even have the right to choose what we eat. Our freedom was fought for by the Canadian troops in two World Wars. And now Monsanto and the other biotech companies are taking away our freedom of choice… The way I see it, for us, the youth, we have no future, no democracy. I have to fight to gain that back. Not just for me, but for you and all generations to come. Because I know that this stand against our food being poisoned is the right thing to do. And I’m prepared to stand for what’s right. I’m doing it because I love the planet and all its life forms, which are being threatened and dying. I’m doing it because I love people and GMOs are making us sick. I’m concerned about my right to choose healthy food. I’m concerned about farmers being intimidated and lied to by Monsanto and the other GMO seed companies trying to gain global control of seed supply. I’m concerned about the entire eco system being affected to a point of no return.

Rachel Parent at March Against Monsanto
Rachel Parent in bee costume (third from right) at March Against Monsanto, May 25, Toronto

Companies like Monsanto use their power and money to intimidate and control our government, our media, our corporations and our farmers. They’re forcing laws to protect themselves while at the same time taking away family farms, forcing poison down our throats and taking away our right to choose healthy food… People believe that the government will protect them and wouldn’t allow food to be consumed if it wasn’t safe. Yet the government relies only on tax provided by the manufacturers selling their product. Yet Monsanto, one of the largest GMO seed companies, claims that food safety is the government’s responsibility. The truth is it’s no coincidence that since GMOs have been introduced into our food system we’ve started seeing more cases of irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut syndrome, acid reflux, infertility, cancer, autism, Parkinson’s and many other diseases. Unfortunately, it seems like we’re all a big part of a science experiment.

But the truth is out. It’s spreading and it can’t be stopped. It won’t be stopped. Just like how the truth finally came out about cigarettes causing cancer, and the big tobacco companies were branded for what they are – liars. Monsanto, with its aggressive tactics, has managed to intimidate and control farmers. They’ve infiltrated grade school science classes trying to brainwash children about GMOs being the way of the future. They’ve infiltrated universities by giving donations and sponsoring studies to gain support for GM production and that it’s needed to feed the world’s hungry. They’ve made huge political contributions and lobbied governments hard to get their way. They’ve contributed to famine around the world because their GMO crops failed to live up to promised yields. They’ve contributed to the devastation of the Amazon through deforestation and the displacement and starvation of natives in order to plant transgenic soy. They’re responsible for thousands of farmers’ suicides in India who have gotten into so much debt by buying into Bt Cotton and pesticides and not gotten the benefits promised.

Here in Canada they’re putting thousands of conventional and organic farms at risk because of contamination by GMO crops. Their herbicides and pesticides are polluting our air and water and have contributed to the collapse of over 50% of our bee colonies. They’re responsible for a whole new species of superweeds and superbugs that have become Roundup resistant so now more and stronger toxic pesticides are being used. All of this could lead up to be the most devastating, destructive, unspoken environmental catastrophe of all time. Unfortunately, the media is not talking about it because most of their advertisers are brands that use GM ingredients. In fact, over 90% of the advertised packaged goods that are advertised on TV contain GMOs, such as corn, canola, soy, vegetable oils and high fructose corn syrup.

Monsanto’s trying to change the way farming has been done for thousands of years by patenting their seeds and making it illegal to save or share seeds with other farmers. Do you know why? Because farmers have to buy new seeds from Monsanto every year. This makes it more expensive for farmers and ultimately for us, the consumers. And it gets worse because if some of Monsanto’s [seeds or pollen] fly over and cross-pollinate with seeds on a neighbouring field, Monsanto then sues the farmer for stealing their intellectual property. I know this sounds ridiculous and rather criminal of Monsanto, but it’s a reality for our farmers. Now [Monsanto is] trying to introduce GM alfalfa in Canada. Farmers are concerned that if it’s allowed it will contaminate all-natural alfalfa, which is a feedstock for animals. And so even organic meat and dairy products could become contaminated with GMOs. The funny thing is there’s no need for GM alfalfa. Alfalfa naturally, without pesticides, keeps weeds down on its own. This is another case of Monsanto creating a solution for a problem that just doesn’t exist. All so they can sell more chemicals.

But the biotech companies aren’t stopping at plants. Now they’re trying to introduce GM salmon, which is a huge environmental risk. They’re also trying to introduce non-browning GM apples in BC and GM trees for the pulp and paper industry that have built-in pesticides to kill bugs and contaminate native trees. Who knows what’s next. The problem is there’s no recall on GMOs. Once they’re out there, they’re out there for good. And there’s no turning back. If the biotech companies believe GMOs are so good, then why do they want to keep it a secret by fighting GMO labelling? Manufacturers have to list sodium levels [and] whether their product contains transfats or if it may contain peanuts. So why not GMOs?

You never hear them talking about the nutritional or health benefits of GMOs. Just that the technology is needed to feed a growing population. But they don’t say how they’re going to do that. Has the number of starving people dropped since GMOs were introduced? Have the crop yields increased? The only thing that’s increased is the use of herbicides and pesticides and Monsanto’s control on our world’s food supply – profit as well. The reality is they’re a chemical company that wants to sell more chemicals. Should we trust a company like Monsanto? Creator of Agent Orange, DDT and PCBs… Unfortunately, because of the lack of labelling, the only way to truly avoid GMOs right now is to buy organic. Every time you consume GMOs, you are slowly impacting the environment, your health and the entire eco system. So I encourage all of you and especially the youth to wake up, rise up and stand up for our future.

Today is a very special day because people around the world are taking a stand by participating in Stop Monsanto events like this one. As a matter of fact, thousands of people are united and marching in the streets to fight for our seed freedom, our food freedom, our right to eat healthy food and the protection of our environment and our entire eco system. It’s expected to be the largest global protest in history. And I’m proud to be a part of it…

This is this only world that we have and we have to take part in it. As I always say, “one planet for all, all for one planet.”

Simple tips to avoid GMOs

From Institute for Responsible Technology www.responsibletechnology.org

1. Buy organic: Certified organic products cannot intentionally include any GMO ingredients. Buy products labelled “100% organic,” “organic” or “made with organic ingredients.” You can be doubly sure if the product also has a Non-GMO Project Verified Seal.

2. Look for “Non-GMO Project” verified seals: Products that carry the Non-GMO Project Seal are independently verified to be in compliance with North America’s only third party standard for GMO avoidance, including testing of at-risk ingredients. The Non-GMO Project is a non-profit organization committed to providing consumers with clearly labelled and independently verified non-GMO choices. (www.nongmopro ject.org)

3. Avoid at-risk ingredients including soybeans, canola, cottonseed, corn and sugar from sugarbeets if it’s not labelled organic or verified non-GMO. Avoid products made with ingredients that might be derived from GMOs. The eight GM food crops are corn, soybeans, canola, cottonseed, sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya (most) and a small amount of zucchini and yellow squash.

Sugar: If a non-organic product made in North American lists “sugar” as an ingredient (and not pure cane sugar), it is almost certainly a combination of sugar from both sugar cane and GM sugar beets.

4. Buy products listed in our shopping guide: Use either IRT’s (Institute for Responsible Technology) new Non-GMO Shopping Tips brochure [see www.responsibletechnology.org] or redesigned Non-GMO Shopping Guide to help you identify and avoid GM foods. We devote an entire page in each guide to help you uncover hidden GM ingredients on food labels that often read more like a chemical periodic table. If you have an iPhone, download our ShopNoGMO guide for free from the iTunes store.

See the Non-GMO Shopping Guide at www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/shopping-guide.html


To take action

  • Write to the Minister of Agriculture and let them know your thoughts about GMO alfalfa at www.cban.ca/content/view/full/997
  • Visit www.facebook.com/MillionsAgainstMonsantoToronto.
  • Ask Rachel to speak at your school or environmental event.
  • Look for and buy ‘Non-GMO project’ labelled grocery items.
  • Ask your supermarket if they sell GMO sweet corn and tell the supermarket manager your concerns as they report back to upper management.
  • In Canada there is currently a private member’s bill C-257 introduced by the NDP (recently read at Parliament) to require mandatory GMO labelling. Visit www.avaaz.org to demand GMO labelling in Canada.
  • Donate to The Kids Right to Know, GMOs Just Label It! campaign at www.gmo-news.com

Buycott

Buycott app

a buyer’s boycott app

Buycott app
• What is a buycott?

A buycott is a consumer tool that helps you organize your spending to support causes you care for, and to oppose those that you don’t.

How does it work?

Scan a barcode with the Buycott app and it will look it up in our database and try to determine who owns it. Buycott will then trace the product’s ownership back to its top parent company and cross-check this company against the campaigns that you’ve joined before telling you whether it found a conflict.


What does a campaign consist of?

A campaign must have a goal, and a list of companies that it aims to either support or avoid (buycott or boycott). Look for campaigns organized around goals that you share, or create a campaign if you can’t find what you’re looking for.


How does it figure out all the corporate relationships?

Buycott has a rich, but ultimately limited knowledge base of corporations and products. When you scan a product not in the Buycott database, it will ask you for help in identifying the product name, brand name, and company name.


I scanned an unknown product and I want to add it to the database. How do I determine what to call the product, brand, and company?

Sometimes we will input our best guess at what the product is by autopopulating the input field. You can alter the data if you find that the information doesn’t match the product of the barcode you scanned. The company name should be the registered business entity of that product’s immediate parent company. This will almost always be on the packaging of the product. The brand name is generally the word(s) on the front of the packaging with the largest font size.


Is all the data guaranteed to be accurate?

No. Corporate ownership structure is always changing and can sometimes be complex. Most companies in our database actually own more brands than we have on record for them. That’s why we need your help maintaining and improving the integrity of the data. New users can add unknown products they scan, and also contribute contact and background information for existing companies or vote on the accuracy of information that’s already been added. The most active users have the ability to contribute more types of data to the database.

The best democracy money can buy

Natural Gas Pipleline sign

How BC’s election was bought

by Joseph Roberts

Natural Gas Pipleline sign

• In the initial news reports about Alberta’s worst flooding in history, a number of government spokespeople noted it was “the worst but not the first” and that “it could have been much worse,” waxing on how resourceful Albertans were. In downtown Calgary, the energy capital was underwater and without power yet no one spoke the unspeakable: “climate change.” It was ironic that the climate change denying spin-doctors couldn’t go downtown because the “weird weather” had drowned their offices. And just what is contributing to the change in the weather? Did anyone mention “Kalgary’s Katrina?” Harper’s PMO immediately stated it would stop collateral damage by reinforcing the PR dikes surrounding the Tar Sands and pipeline plans. As usual, “controlling the message” and organizing “talking points” to stay on message, chanting, “It could have been much worse, it could have been much worse.” Well, if the current path of massively increasing Tar Sands exploitation continues unabated, it will get worse.

Next door in BC, there was a different kind of flood. It contributed to “the best democracy money can buy.”

BC is politically unique in many ways, perhaps because it’s the most westerly province and it was the last to be colonized. And BC has special, lenient campaign financing rules that result in surprisingly undemocratic election results. After the election, the completely mistaken political pundits back-pedalled furiously. They had quoted survey results that showed huge leads by the NDP of 20 to 28%, a lead that some had described as “unbeatable.” Excuses for their blundering projections were tossed out to repair the reputation of media election specialists and of course, these experts deflected blame to the leaders, the voters and the pollsters. Theories then emerged, such as the NDP voters were complacent and didn’t vote because they believed the NDP had a massive lead. Or Adrian Dix’s image lacked the obsequious media charisma of Christy Clark. Or my favourite, “The polls were wrong.” It’s akin to a line spoken in Canada Place at the doomed NDP victory gala where a woman comforted her distraught friend, saying, “Forget it and have a beer.” The election game was a gas over at the Wall Centre where the Liberals hosted their just-dodged-the-bullet celebration. Actually, the polls were right, but the influx of big money changed the numbers really fast.

Well folks, if the election did not work out the way you planned it, it was because you did not plan it. It was planned, financed and executed professionally by those in power and that power was not people power but rather money power: floods of money coupled with brilliant political operatives and massive TV advertising. Millions of dollars came from interests outside of BC and even outside of Canada, from the rich and powerful that wanted it their way. Whether they lived here or not was irrelevant; they could still affect the outcome with their cash.

But before going into the details of “who dun it?” let’s see how it was “legally” possible.

British Columbia is one of the only provinces in Canada that allows election campaign financing from out of province. So if a special interest group of petroleum producers calls a meeting in Alberta with 130 rich corporate buddies invested in oil exploration, extraction, pipelining, refining, selling or financing and these folks are asked to protect their assets and profits by donating to ensure they get a cheerleader premier in BC, well, from their perspective, it’s not a conspiracy; it’s just damn good business. Not really democratic, but they will make the sacrifice to get what they want. It’s like politicians willing to send other parents’ children to war in order to secure access to petroleum resources in other countries. For these financial backers, BC is another land.

And there is also the item of campaign funding coming from out of country. Yes, you heard that right. BC allows election campaign funding from outside of Canada! And in seemingly unbridled, liberal amounts. Money influences election results because money buys votes. For more facts on campaign financing scams and how to make elections more democratic, visit www.integrityBC.ca

So money can come from Norway to defend its lice and disease ridden fish farms or from China for coal exports. American and European bankers finance the further debt BC will descend into paying for the infrastructure, which can be later privatized and sold cheap to the inner circle after the public has been taxed. Odd how a former director of BC Rail who was around when it got sold, found a million or more dollars for Dix TV attack ads. You might have seen the one with the weather vane flip-flopping or the nasty piece about forging a signature. Well-planned and well-executed high-profile television ad campaigning. His nice sounding group, Citizens Concerned About BC, seemed to fold after the votes were cast. Do they still care? Or was it just a proxy prop throwing up dirt? Since the deed is done, maybe they are ”moving forward” with other agendas. Is BC Hydro the next in line for privatization?

Then there was Dix’s really unnecessary and unskilful Earth Day pronouncement regarding the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Did he know just who he was up against? This pipeline has curious backers. Richard Kinder (the Kinder of the two) came to fame previously with Enron. (Please watch the movie, Enron the Smartest Guys in the Room, for details.) Richard Kinder was also a huge fundraiser for George Bush Jr.’s campaign. Oil finds its own level. Richard was also involved in the purchase with Duke Energy of the then “not-to-be-sold” public BC Gas. After the public was discarded, it seems Richard kept the pipeline part of the deal and eventually the other part of BC Gas morphed into Fortis, a corporation with Caribbean connections (better tax laws maybe?). Fortis also bought up energy assets around North America such as in Newfoundland; maybe Newfoundland has similar campaign funding rules.

Gwyn Morgan, founder of EnCana, headquartered in Calgary (recently under a bit of flood water), now has a natural gas “It’s clean energy” cheerleader with his new premier Christy Clark. Gwyn is well connected through affiliations with Rio Tinto Alcan, Lafarge, HSBC, Fraser Institute and SNC-Lavalin. Prior to the election, Clark visited Calgary for a fundraising dinner and received support from corporate interests there. And the money keeps flooding in. Just after the election, Malaysian energy giant Petronas announced plans to spend $16 billion in new pipeline and processing infrastructure for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) port in Prince Rupert. Boy, that natural gas is so popular. It’s all so international with a few multinational billionaires pleased that their campaign investments funding paid off. Are these expenses tax deductible? Gwyn Morgan wrote about this ‘potential’ in the Globe and Mail on December 16, well before the election. He stated presciently, “The $6 billion acquisition by Petronas comes with plans for a $10 billion liquid natural gas project, raising its total investment in Canada to $16-billion.”

Big bucks for sure and the math matches. Now really, would anyone from outside of BC, outside of Canada, support buying TV ads to discredit the less cooperative NDP?

A small process detail change happened on the actual election day that hampered how the wee people keep track of who actually votes. In prior BC elections, the names of people who had just voted were released in real time in a continuous flow to the parties, which then monitored the names to get their vote out. If a party supporter hadn’t voted yet, they got a call or a ride to the polls. But that was changed for BC’s recent election. Instead of being continuous, data was limited to spurts every few hours as election day sped by. This contributed to making it more difficult to monitor the active voting lists and ultimately harder to follow who had already voted, which needs be known in order to get out the vote effectively.

And then there is the First Past the Post electoral system, great for top-down money and power controlled elections, but lousy for real democracy. This colonial system is an insult in this modern computer internet era. We are still being controlled by the old-fashioned, blunt electoral process of First Past the Post takes all. When you do the math, you see how FPTP kills campaign participation, voter turnout and public democracy. Ever feel that BC is still treated like a colony?

It is a painful irony that we are led to believe that in a democracy the majority rules. But whose rules define which majority it will be? When elections morph into the minority rules, the majority are left unrepresented through FPTP. This electoral process is inherently disproportional. Some eligible voters get no representation while other get far too much. As in Animal Farm, we are all equal but some are more equal than others. It helps if you own an oil company or bank to get the kind of government you want. If 50% of eligible voters cast a ballot and it is a fairly close election, the winning 50% + of the riding gets all the power with only about 25% of the votes. With such an electoral system, in not uncommon for 70 to 80% of the electoral to be unrepresented, or, another way to say it is that they are represented by MLAs (or MPs) who don’t represent their vote or wishes. Hence, an undemocratic reality parading as democracy.

Some rich people believe government is just too useful for it to be left up to we the people. And some industrialists believe constitutional rights and habeas corpus are optional luxuries. And wars are for the poor to fight and the super rich to profit from.

But with the recent election and future floods to come, it’s time to wake up.

“The owners of this country know the truth: It’s called the American (Canadian) dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

– George Carlin

photo © Stuart Meade

Diabetes mongering

a dangerous deception

DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels

• The people’s briefing note on prescription drugs
Portrait of columnist Alan Cassels

Have you been told you have diabetes? Has someone in your family – possibly an elderly parent – been given a label of ‘pre- diabetes?’ Or maybe you’ve been on the receiving end of insulin or diabetes drugs?

If so, you might be surprised to learn the diabetes industry is shamelessly trying to get everyone – especially older people who are otherwise healthy – and their doctors to start worrying about this disease. Their ominous message is that an aging, sedentary population of people, who eat poorly or don’t get enough exercise, is set to become part of a diabetes epidemic of mammoth proportions where up to 10 percent of the population live with the disease. Right now, nearly 300 million people worldwide are said to have the disease. The Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) notes there are currently almost nine million Canadians with diabetes or prediabetes and they say that by 2020, 9.9% of Canadians will be living with diabetes.

That’s an incredulous number – nearly 10 percent of the population will have a ‘disease’ that is largely, but not completely, altered by diet and exercise? Yet an older and slower society explains only part of it. What you won’t hear from those in the diabetes industry is that the significant rise in projected diabetics is more likely due to skilful diabetes mongering than anything else. Elevations in blood sugar are used to terrify the population into checking and altering their levels in order to avoid the risks of blindness, amputations and the cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and so on) that could result. The CDA recommends screening healthy people over 40 for the disease, a recommendation that is neither supported by evidence, nor promoted by screening experts who aren’t working for or supported by the pharmaceutical industry.

This saga is a suspense driven narrative with many plot twists, but the easiest way to unravel it is by following the money. The pharmaceutical industry, for at least the last decade, has been very heavily investing in diabetes research, banking on the fact that it’s relatively easy to sell people on the idea they need to alter their blood sugars with insulin or drugs. In addition to investing in drug research, they’ve also been very heavily investing in marketing rhetoric, playing the refrain that uncontrolled blood sugars (like high cholesterol or high blood pressure) is a road to the grave, ignored at your peril. The industry gives liberally to those organizations that see their task as educating about diabetes. They fund the experts who educate doctors about the disease and lobby governments to pay for diabetes products for all people, even if those drugs are more dangerous than the disease itself, which is what we saw with former blockbuster Avandia, removed from the market in Europe and rarely prescribed here.

You can’t talk about diabetes without talking about insulin, which helps glucose (a type of sugar) enter your cells. If your pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin, you’ve got type 1 diabetes, but if your body can’t respond to the body’s production of insulin, it’s type II diabetes, in which glucose levels in your body rise.

You should never ignore the signals of extreme thirst, excessive urination or unexplained weight loss, which could be a sign of diabetes. Yet if you feel fine and are sent for a blood test and then told you are diabetic or ‘pre-diabetic,’ do you really have to follow the paradigm of “intensive glucose control?” That’s the name of the game where checking and rechecking your blood sugars and using drugs and insulin starts to become a central part of your life.

That paradigm, I’m sad to report, rests on a major deception. Despite studies in tens of thousands of patients, “intensive glucose control” does very little to alter the rates at which people go on to develop worrisome diabetes complications such as blindness or the need for amputations. The deception is that by focusing on the blood sugar, the ‘surrogate’ marker, we forget that what’s most important is the ‘hard endpoint,’ the overall health of the patient.

Dr. John Yudkin, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and former director of the International Health and Medical Education Centre at University College London, was in Vancouver last month talking about this subject. He wrote a fascinating article published in BMJ (British Medical Journal), pointing out how foolish this obsession with surrogates can be. (Google “The Idolatry of the Surrogate.”)

In relation to diabetes, he wrote, “Glycemia’s reputation as a valid surrogate end point has been tarnished by studies showing that intensified glucose lowering does not reduce cardiovascular disease.” He’s among other critics who say that drugs or insulins may alter a surrogate marker (the level of your blood sugar), but have no effect on whether people live longer or healthier lives.

Worse yet, it is possible to alter a surrogate point and cause other forms of illness. That’s what we saw with Avandia, which could alter your blood sugars but was linked to heart failure (as well as liver damage, weight gain and anaemia.) Yudkin explains that the “hard” end points generally show much smaller responses to interventions than surrogate markers [and so] many of the widely accepted strategies for diabetes may be based on artificially inflated expectations.”

So if altering blood sugars with drugs is such a potential boondoggle, why have the newest and most heavily marketed drugs for type 2 diabetes been doing so well? These include the drugs exenatide (Byetta), liraglutide (Victoza), sitagliptin (Januvia), saxagliptin (Onglyza) and linagliptin (Tradjenta), which stimulate the body to produce insulin and hence alter your blood sugars. The market leader in the class is sitagliptin (Januvia), living in blockbuster territory –with sales at $4 billion per year – even with growing concerns that there are no long-term effectiveness data, no data to prove the drugs prevent death or cardiovascular disease and concerns they cause adverse effects, primarily to the pancreas.

A report last month in BMJ cited two of these new drugs, noting that those called DPP-4 inhibitors –Sitagliptin (Januvia) and saxagliptin (Onglyza) – are now being used by millions of patients and have potentially harmful effects. As they face lawsuits over patients who say they were harmed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and the European Medicines Agency are looking closer to see if the drugs could lead to pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer.

Adverse effects seen in post-market reports are controversial because you can never be really sure if the drug or something else caused them. The US drug watchdog group, Quarterwatch, examined adverse drug reports made to the FDA over 12 months ending in June of 2012 and found all five of these agents showed a “marked signal for reported pancreatitis,” compared to other antidiabetes drugs, including over 100 reported cases of pancreatic cancer among the five.

BMJ identifies a recurrent theme we’ve seen with antidiabetes drugs, stating, “The story is familiar. A new class of antidiabetes agents is rushed to market and widely promoted in the absence of any evidence of long-term beneficial outcomes. Evidence of harm accumulates, but is vigorously discounted.”

Let me add to that: high blood sugars are paraded as the enemy that needs to be brought down at all costs, despite the ‘collateral damage’ that may be inflicted on other organs in doing so. Intensive monitoring of blood glucose is very good for the drug and insulin industry, but not so good perhaps for your pancreas, which you can’t live without.

Closer to home, it appears the Therapeutics Initiative at UBC, which has been providing physicians an independent voice on drugs for the past 20 years, has finally been dealt its deathblow. The administration at UBC, where drug research money abounds and where the Dean of Medicine, incredibly, sits on the board of LifeSciences British Columbia, the main lobby group for BC’s pharmaceutical industry, doesn’t seem to be too worried about our pancreases.

They are doing the Liberals’ bidding and letting the TI die a silent death, even as TI would have warned our doctors of the dangers of these new drugs. It’s a shame that the one homegrown solution to save us from the dangers of new drugs may have been the worst casualty of the last election.

—

Alan Cassels is the author of Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease. Follow him on Twitter @AKECassels or www.alancassels.com

Why WikiLeaks was created

Free Assage

Free Assage
• This article has been adapted from a conversation that took place during a secret five-hour meeting between WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, under house arrest in rural UK at the time, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The following individuals were also in attendance: Jared Cohen, former member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and advisor to Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton; Scott Malcomson, former director of speechwriting for Ambassador Susan Rice at the U.S. State Department and current Communications Director at the International Crisis Group; and Lisa Shields, vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations.


Schmidt and Cohen requested the meeting, they said, to discuss ideas for their new book The New Digital Age, published in April of 2013. This is part one of a series that will explore and expose the nature of media, publishing, the internet, political power and the people who are really being protected by government classified materials vs. open communications. These courageous whistleblowers are committed to getting the truth out without either propaganda or spin, by releasing hidden source documents for citizens to read and consider. Much of what WikiLeaks releases is material that has been intentionally denied from public view. The conversation gets more interesting as you follow the threads. Please honour these individuals by visiting their website at wikileaks.org and reading the source material firsthand.

I wanted there to be more just acts and fewer unjust acts. And one can sort of say, well what are your philosophical axioms for this? And I say I do not need to consider them. This is simply my temperament. And it is an axiom because it is that way. And so that avoids, then, getting into further unhelpful discussions about why you want to do something. It is enough that I do. So in considering how unjust acts are caused and what tends to promote them and what promotes just acts I saw that human beings are basically invariant. That is, that their inclinations and biological temperament haven’t changed much over thousands of years and so therefore the only playing field left is what do they have? And what do they know? And “have” is something that is fairly hard to influence so that is what resources do they have at their disposal? And how much energy they can harness and what are the supplies and so on?

But what they know can be affected in a nonlinear way because when one person conveys information to another they can convey on to another and another and so on in a way that [is] nonlinear and so you can affect a lot of people with a small amount of information. And therefore you can change the behaviour of many people with a small amount of information. So the question then arises as to what kinds of information will produce behaviour which is just? And disincentivize behaviour which is unjust? So all around the world there are people observing different parts of what is happening to them locally. And there are other people that are receiving information that they haven’t observed first hand. And in the middle there are people who are involved in moving information from the observers to the people who will act on information. These are three separate problems that are all coupled together. I felt that there was a difficulty in taking observations and putting them in an efficient way into a distribution system which could then get this information to people who could act upon it. And so you can argue that companies like Google are involved, for example, in this “middle” business of taking… of moving information from people who have it to people who want it. The problem I saw was that this first step was crippled. And often the last step as well when it came to information that governments were inclined to censor.

We can look at this whole process as the Fourth Estate. Or just as produced by the Fourth Estate. And so you have some kind of… pipeline… So I have this description which is… partly derived from my experiences in quantum mechanics about looking at the flow of particular types of information which will effect some change in the end. The bottleneck to me appeared to me to be primarily in the acquisition of information that would go on to produce changes that were just. In a Fourth Estate context the people who acquire information are sources. People who work information and distribute it are journalists and publishers. And people who act on it… is everyone. So that’s a high level construct, but of course it then comes down to practically how do you engineer a system that solves that problem? And not just a technical system, but a total system. So WikiLeaks was and is an attempt – although still very young – at a total system.

… Not for all three phases, but for the political component, the philosophical component and the engineering component in pushing out [the] first component… Technically, that means anonymizing and protecting sources in a wide variety of ways. Politically, that also means protecting them politically and incentivizing them in a political manner. Saying that their work is valuable and encouraging people to take it up. And then there is also a legal aspect. What are the best laws that can be created in the best jurisdictions to operate this sort of stuff from? And practical everyday legal defense. On the technical front, our first prototype was engineered for a very adverse situation where publishing would be extremely difficult and our only effective defense in publishing would be anonymity. Where sourcing is difficult. As it still currently is for the national security sector. And where internally we had a very small and completely trusted team.

Making the primary source material public is what I mean by publishing. It was clear to me that all over the world publishing is a problem… Whether that is through self-censorship or overt censorship.

It’s mostly self-censorship. In fact, I would say it’s probably the most significant one, historically, has been economic censorship. Where it is simply not profitable to publish something. There is no market for it. I describe [it] as a censorship pyramid. It’s quite interesting. So on the top of the pyramid there are the murders of journalists and publishers. And the next level there is political attacks on journalists and publishers. So you think, what is a legal attack? A legal attack is simply a delayed use of coercive force.

Which doesn’t necessarily result in murder but may result in incarceration or asset seizure. So the next level down, and remember the volume…of the pyramid! The volume of the pyramid increases significantly as you go down from the peak. And in this example that means that the number of acts of censorship also increases as you go down. So there are very few people who are murdered, there are a few people who suffer legal…there [are] a few…public legal attacks on individuals and corporations and then at the next level there is a tremendous amount of self-censorship and this self-censorship occurs in part because people don’t want to move up into the upper parts of the pyramid. They don’t want to come to legal attacks or uses of coercive force. But they also don’t want to be killed.

So that discourages people… and then there are other forms of self-censorship that are concerned about missing out on business deals, missing out on promotions and those are even more significant because they are lower down the pyramid. At the very bottom – which is the largest volume – is all those people who cannot read, do not have access to print, do not have access to fast communications or where there is no profitable industry in providing that. Okay. So we decided to deal with the top of this censorship pyramid. The top two sections: the threats of violence, and the delayed threats of violence that are represented by the legal system. In some ways, that is the hardest case. In some ways, it is the easiest case. It is the easiest case because it is clearcut when things are being censored there, or not. It is also the easiest because the volume of censorship is relatively small even if the per event significance is very high…

Although of course I had some previous political connections of my own from other activities, we didn’t have that many friends. We didn’t have significant political allies. And we didn’t have a worldwide audience that was looking to see how we were doing. So we took the position that we would need to have a publishing system whose only defense was anonymity. That is, it had no financial defense, it had no legal defense and it had no political defense. Its defenses were purely technical. So that meant a system that was distributed at its front with many domain names and a fast ability to change those domain names. A caching system, and at the back tunnelling through the Tor network to hidden servers…

How WikiLeaks did it

We had sacrificial front nodes that were very fast to set up, very quick to set up, that we nonetheless did place in relatively hospitable jurisdictions like Sweden. And those fast front nodes were fast because there was… very few hops between them and the people reading them. That’s… an important lesson that I had learned from things that I did before, that being a Sherman tank is not always an advantage, because you are not manoeuvrable and you are slow. A lot of the protection for publishers is publishing quickly. You get the information out quickly; it is very well read [and] the incentive for people to go after you in relation to that specific piece of information is actually zero. There may be incentives for them to go after you to teach a lesson to other people who might defy their authority or teach a future lesson to your organization about defiance of authority.

—

wikileaks.org

photo © Thomas Dutour

Transformative festivals

Love

Prayerformances and sharemonies

MUSIC RISING by Bruce Mason

Love

• “You are Home,” say the Bundschuh family and they mean it. They host Shambhala – Canada’s premiere Electronic Music Festival – at their pristine 500-acre Salmo River Ranch, inviting “Farmily” to “join the self-expression, play and dance!,” adding they “can’t wait to see all our Shambhalovlies in August!” and “Until we meet again, keep spreading the Shambhalove!”

By way of explanation and translation, let’s start at the beginning. Back in the early 90s, Rick and Sue Bundschuh transplanted their family to the Kootenays, setting up a cattle ranch and modest lumber milling operation. By 1998, their children, Jimmy, Corrine and Anna, had other ideas and another enterprise in mind: a 500-person party with two stages that they dubbed Shambhala, after the mythical kingdom in Buddhist traditions.

Without any corporate sponsorship, their spark has skyrocketed. With more than 2,000 volunteers, performers, keen participants and ticket sales capped at 10,000, Shambhala spreads out over six stages and five nights (August 7-12) to become the biggest community in the West Kootenays, featuring, among many other things, a $100,000 water treatment system that rivals nearby cities. When the show is over, the ranch reverts back to a working farm. Cows roam and the farm dogs, horses, pigs, chickens, miniature donkeys, gardens and hay fields return to normal. The small sawmill – the main gate during the fest – provides the biggest buzz for the rest of the year.

Ndidi Onukwulu
Ndidi Onukwulu performs at Burnaby Blues & Roots, August 10.

In 2010, the Bundschuhs reached their self-imposed guest capacity. The next year Shambhala sold out in advance of opening the gates; online tickets for 2012 were snapped up in just 17 days in November of 2011. A ticket for this year’s festival is one of the hottest and hardest-to-find, anywhere.

Volunteers arrive weeks or months in advance, creating six sprawling stages – each harnessing about 100,000 watts of sound – impressive art installations and expansive lighting rigs (projectors, lasers, strobes). They paint murals on myriad surfaces, create mazes, nooks and crannies for meditation, workshops and crafts.

An organic garden is expanding to supply food vendors, who are vetted to ensure local, ethical and fair trade goods. Recycling and composting is a priority. Oh, and as well, the very best in top-tier and up-and-coming electronic music talent from around the world comprises the artist performance list that goes on for pages; visit the gorgeous www.shambhalamusicfestival.com, a site worthy of the award-winning family (make that ‘farmily’) run festival that defies imagination and big-bucks, global-goliath festival gatherings.

Trombone Shorty
Trombone Shorty performs at Wanderlust.

The Bundschuh family and their 10,000 fellow Shambhalites shun corporate sponsorship. They want to “maintain creative freedom of the event, rather than cater to a corporate image, and the fullest creative freedom of expression, whether it takes the form of a sign, a costume or dancing naked on the beach.” They also want to keep the event free from logos and influences that they say we’re used to in our everyday lives. Shambhala is also alcohol-free.

“It’s all about the people on the dance floor!” they explain. “We lay the groundwork; the festival is what our guests make it, the most important piece of the puzzle. It’s up to them to spread Shambhalove in kindness to fellow Shambhazens, with laughter and creative costumes. They alone have the power to make Shambhala the best it can be, for themselves and everyone else on the farm.”

A generation raised on Rave culture is spontaneously reconstructing Woodstock Nation with a lot less idolatry, bad trips, carbon and other footprints, etc., at events as varied and colourful as their names: Symbiosis, Lightning in a Bottle, Sonic Boom, Diversity, Mystic Garden, Faerieworlds, Boom, Beloved, Burning Man, Water Woman, Knowphest and Lunacy, to name a few.

“What is brewing that is the antidote for what’s missing in modern materialist society?” asks Jeet-Kei Leung at the end of his highly articulate, enthusiastic, inspiring and viral TEDX TALK. Leung is the co-producer and director of the new documentary web series, The Bloom, described as “illuminating the emerging culture and immersive participatory realities that are having profound life-changing effects on hundreds of thousands of lives.

Love and prayer girl
Love and prayer girl. Photo by Zac Cirivello.

“Amidst the global crisis of a dysfunctional old paradigm, a new renaissance of human culture is underway… Around the globe, The Bloom: A Journey Through Transformational Festivals, explores the alchemy of themes that weave a true story of genuine hope for our times – a new blooming human consciousness emerging through creativity, love and joy and an emerging culture pointing the way to a bright and promising future.” (Common Ground will have much more on the project as the dust settles on the festival season. In the meantime, visit and bookmark www.thebloomseries.com)

Leung has identified Vancouver and BC as hubs – second only to San Francisco and California – in the morphing of music events into so much more, as millions of Earthlings seek temporary sanctuary from ubiquitous corporate greed and too much information and too little wisdom to party and dance all night with like-minded souls. They are rediscovering and reinventing the most ancient and spiritual community rituals and communing with nature, in unadulterated ecstasy.

Music is a common draw and a major thread in the weaving of this magical new tapestry, overlooked by myopic and increasingly maligned (or ignored) mainstream media, much like global warming, GMOs and creepy, creeping inequity and injustice. In the meantime, Transformative Festivals and transformed traditional festivals are finding new shapes and niches, shaking all over.

Festival Fire has produced a graphically stunning and informative festival guide. Download it at www.festivalfire.com/fg2013

Wanderlust is the largest celebration of its kind in the world, emblematic of the ongoing boom in the number, scope and dramatic evolution of festivals. With hybrid combinations of live music, yoga, outdoor adventures/challenges, organic food and wine and inspirational speakers, Wanderlust festivals are set in the really, really great outdoors in places like Stratton Mountain, Vermont, Copper Mountain, Colorado, Squaw Valley, North Lake Tahoe, California and Whistler, BC (August 1-4). Here, the well-heeled and mindful turn an ear to the likes of Moby and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, who in turn line up with the likes of Seane Corn, Shiva Rea, Rod Stryker and Deepak Chopra.

The sum is greater than its parts so two new locations are being added this winter: Termas de Chillan in Santiago, Chile and Turtle Bay Resort on O’ahu.

North America’s largest free Yoga and Kirtan event is back (Saturday, August 10, noon to dusk) in one of the world’s most beautiful settings: Second Beach in Stanley Park. Five non-profit organizations are supported by the event, which features yoga lessons, live music, a Vancity sponsored Green Bazaar and vegetarian and vegan meals (www.kirtanvancouver.com).

The Do Lab tent at Boom Festiva
The Do Lab tent at Boom Festival. Do Lab produces large installations at various events. Photo by Aaron Gautschi, www.aarongautschi.com

The sky’s the limit. All sorts of folks are digging something precious in them hills and creating new alloys and models for community including in out-of-the-way sites such as Wells where the stuff of festival runs deep.

“2013 is our 10th ArtsWells Festival; the first was informal, on the edge of town, up at the dike and performers agreed to come with no promise of money,” reported co-director David Harder from the little mountain town, 74 kilometres east of Quesnel, population 200. “It’s evolved into the ‘Festival of All Things Art.’

“Wells’ culture has always been vibrant, rich in resident artists and artisans, including a school of the arts and galleries,” he added. “Long ago, mine owner Fred Wells told his workers they wouldn’t always be digging dirt, especially pay-dirt, and he sought employees who could also entertain and lift spirits, especially energetic artists and musicians. That’s always been a big part of who we are. In the 30s, popular musical arts performed in the same community hall where many of this year’s shows and exhibitions are being staged.”

The town’s namesake would be kicking up his heels at the discovery – or rediscovery – of a rich, new vein, experiences worth their weight in gold, once again drawing folks from far away by the thousands. Festivals like ArtsWells are catering to crowds that want to go beyond mere consumption of music and are searching for more on the menu. They want to co-create memorable experiences in the moment, help build community – a basic human need – if for just a few days.

“We blur the lines between artists and festival goers and provide opportunities for collaboration at all levels, ages and walks of life,” Harder explained. “’Expect the Unexpected.’

“We’ve booked 90 acts for 12 stages, from folk, roots and pop, to jazz, country and hip-hop. Bulat Gafarov is a one-man band and throat singer from Russia who has collected 300 musical instruments from around the world and is himself considered a national treasure. Fred Penner will not only perform, but also collaborate with songwriters and C.R. Avery is returning for the 10th anniversary, having performed at the first ArtsWells.

What keeps artists and “audiences” coming back and spreading the word about ArtsWells is collaboration and features such as a One Minute Play Festival; write and produce one on the spot and you’ll be onstage, front and centre. An Artwalk is packed with surprises at every turn, including artists painting together in groups, poets and violinists fiddling around, film screenings and plays. There are crafts and stages for kids and more than 20 workshops, from belly to contact dancing, laughter yoga to lyric writing, extending to historic Barkerville, eight clicks up the road.

If you haven’t acquired a taste for electronic dance music (EDM) and the only yoga position you seek is a folding chair and if Wells and other rural environs are beyond your bike or bus route, check out the one-day 14th Annual Burnaby Blues & Roots Festival. (Saturday, August 10, noon to 10PM.) Everything you want and need to know is at www.burnabybluesfest.com

Dip your feet into Deer Lake or tap them on the shore to 12 acts on three stages, including Blue Rodeo – celebrating 25 years together – Charles Bradley, “The Screaming Eagle of Soul,” the always delightful Ndidi Onukwulu, blues-hop/soul singer ZZ Ward, R&B’s Shakura S’Aida, multi award-winning guitarist David Gogo, folk-rock and reggae duo Jon and Roy, gospel trio The Sojourners, Emmy-nominated John Lee Sanders, folk-rocker Vince Vaccaro, singer-song writer Shaun Verreault, and the six-piece Brickhouse. One more feast being cooked up close to home.

As Will said, “If music be the food of love, play on.” But in 2013, it’s just one ingredient. Stay tuned.

—

Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca

Great cities have great public transit

Portrait of David Suzuki

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki

• What makes a city great? New York City is world class and not just because it’s a driver of global finance and a hotbed of cultural innovation; it’s also known for its green spaces, like Central Park and the award-winning High Line.

San Francisco is celebrated for its narrow streets, compact lots and historic buildings. These contribute to the city’s old-world charm, but they’re also the building blocks of a more sustainable urban form. They facilitate densification and decrease the cost of energy and transportation for businesses while improving walkability.

When it comes to urban sustainability, cities in the US and Canada are employing innovative programs and policies to improve the health and well-being of residents and their local environments, like reducing waste and improving recycling (Los Angeles), containing urban sprawl (Portland), conserving water (Calgary) and passing policies to combat climate change (Toronto).

But most cities in Canada and the US are lacking in infrastructure to move millions of people safely and affordably. With some notable exceptions, such as Vancouver and Calgary, no successful rapid transit infrastructure projects have been built in Canadian cities for decades. A recent survey of urban experts and other “city-builders” across Canada concluded the abysmal state of public transit is the Achilles’ heel of urban sustainability and is holding many cities back from achieving greatness.

Toronto residents spend more time battling congestion to get to and from work than in any other city in North America. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as successive governments have failed to sustain and expand transit systems even though the region has grown by about 100,000 new residents a year. Toronto now scores 15th of 21 on per capita investment in public transit among large global cities – well behind sixth-placed New York City, which spends twice as much.

Fortunately, politicians are starting to respond. Ontario’s government plans to spend billions to expand its regional transit system in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area under a plan called the Big Move. It’s also looking at new financing tools to ensure funding levels are adequate and continue into the future. But before we spend enormous amounts on improvements, we need to ensure projects contribute to a region-wide rapid transit network using the latest technology and adhering to the highest sustainability standards. They should also move the most people in the most cost-effective way.

That’s why a proposal to use diesel trains for the Air-Rail-Link plan to connect downtown Toronto with its international airport in Mississauga is concerning. A rapid transit link with the airport is long overdue, but heavy diesel trains emit particulates and other contaminants, including known carcinogens. The proposed rail line would be close to dozens of schools and daycare centres, several long-term care facilities and a chronic respiratory care hospital.

Numerous experts, including Toronto’s Medical Health Officer, have urged the Ontario government to abandon its diesel plan in favour of electric trains that could be better integrated into a region-wide rapid transit network.

Vancouver, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and New York City have consistently ranked among the most liveable cities on the continent, in part because they take the environment into account for planning decisions. They all have world-class public transit systems that move residents in a safe, affordable and sustainable way. It’s time for Toronto and its suburbs to do the same. Effective transit and transportation solutions can spur economic productivity, protect the environment and improve quality of life.

—

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Ontario and Northern Canada Director General Faisal Moola. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Campy comedy flies high

I’m So Excited movie

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead

I’m So Excited movie
Flying high in I’m So Excited. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

• With his high-flying comedy, I’m So Excited (5th), Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar is back in the campy, over-the-top comedy territory of his early career. When a passenger flight, on its way from Spain to Mexico, experiences landing gear problems, the preening stewards (Javier Cámara, Carlos Areces, Raúl Arevalo) move into action to stave off panic.

First, they sedate the economy class with drugs. Then they distract the business class by breaking out the booze and launching into a song-and-dance routine down the aisle, performed to the Pointer Sisters’ titular hit. As the booze flows, the cabin becomes a hotbed of sex and spilled secrets. With a cast that includes many Almodóvar alumni – Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Cámara, Lola Dueñas, Cecilia Roth and Blanca Suárez – the frothy, feel-good film should appeal to fans of Almodóvar’s particular brand of sexually charged humour.

Sexual transgression takes on a much more serious and uncomfortable tone in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt (19th), a drama based on a child psychologist’s files. Mads Mikkelson, playing against type – he was the icy villain in Casino Royale – is a kindergarten teacher in a close-knit, rural Danish community who finds himself demonized by virtually the whole community, including his deer hunting buddies, when one of his students falsely claims that Lucas exposed himself to her. As rough justice is meted out, Lucas’s difficulty in proving his innocence begs important questions about community and family values.

Injustice is also at the fore in Fruitvale Station (26th), a dramatic recreation of the tragic story of Oscar Grant (played by Michael B. Jordan), who was killed, allegedly by accident, by a police officer at the Fruitvale rapid transit station in Oakland, California in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2009. Ryan Coogler’s debut film has been picking up awards on the festival circuit and praised for its strong performances and the director’s deft handling of race issues that play such an important part of the story.

On a lighter note, Sebastián Silva’s Crystal Fairy (due out on the 26th) is a satirical, coming-of-age comedy starring Michael Cera (of Arrested Development fame) as Jamie, an obnoxious, uptight American on a quest to experience the hallucinogenic properties of a San Pedro cactus. At a party on the eve of his expedition, a wasted Jamie invites far-out flower child Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann) and then regrets it when he sobers up, but his three Chilean companions won’t let him dump her. As the group venture into the Chilean desert on their drug-infused adventure, the loosely improvised road trip revolves around the personality clash of impatient Jamie and free-spirited Crystal, with a message about assumed identities in the final act.

Fans of anime will welcome the return to the Cinematheque of a major retrospective of 16 epic anime films by the world renowned Studio Ghibli, entitled “Castles in the Sky.” The Cinematheque said the original retrospective in December was its most popular large-scale series in years so it’s back with the addition of a further two films – children’s favourite Ponyo and the recently released From Up on Poppy Hill. The fantastical animation series also features the studio’s debut feature Castle in the Sky and the mesmerizing hit Spirited Away.

—

Robert Alstead writes at www.2020Vancouver.com

The “body” in body/mind

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young

Portrait of Gwen Randall-Young
• “To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise, we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.”
– Buddha

Often, when we talk or read about the body/mind connection, it is in terms of how the mind affects the body. We know that conflict and stress suppress the immune system and can result in anxiety and depression, as well as exacerbate bowel conditions such as IBS or Crohn’s disease. And stress can raise blood pressure, making one vulnerable to heart disease and stroke.

It is less common to consider that what is happening in the body can affect the mind. We are exposed to so many toxins in our modern world: air pollution, chlorine and fluoride in our water, off-gases from building materials, carpets and new cars, pesticides used on our food, antibiotics fed to animals and mercury in dental fillings.

Scientists have found more than 200 environmental toxins in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. It is virtually impossible to avoid many of them.

Many toxins are poisonous and can interfere with the ability of the body to function at its best. Some toxins, such as heavy metals, are very difficult for the body to remove on its own. They can affect the ability of the body to absorb nutrients and make it difficult for elements such as calcium to move through cell membranes, resulting in calcified build-up in tissues and joints.

Unfortunately, the medical/pharmaceutical industry looks more at reducing symptoms than eliminating underlying causes. Consequently, people suffer from chronic conditions like arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and bowel issues and just do not get better. Have you ever heard anyone talk about finding a cure for arthritis? Why not? Because it is assumed it comes with aging and we must live with it.

Similarly, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are associated with plaque or protein that builds up and kills neurons. Arterial plaque causes heart problems. The body is its own ecosystem. If the system is “polluted,” it becomes sluggish, systems become blocked and bad stuff accumulates. When this happens, we have low energy, depression, our minds lose clarity and memory declines. The body becomes stiff and we develop aches and pains.

There are many things we can do to optimize our system, eliminate toxins and prevent many of these chronic diseases. We need to become the experts of our own bodies and take responsibility for doing our own research and educating ourselves. No one physician or alternative practitioner has all of the answers. Each may have a piece, but we need to become empowered and not give the care of our body over to someone else. They can be consultants, but best as we can, we must be the directors.

The internet provides a wealth of information and credible sources about the care and feeding of our bodies. Look for reputable sites and scientific research, rather than those that are heavily pushing supplements.

We must detoxify our minds by releasing negative, judgmental and critical thinking as well as worry thoughts. We must also detoxify our bodies so the entire system can return to the harmony it had when we were young and carefree, active and creative. It is never too late to start growing younger.

—

Gwen Randall-Young is an author and psychotherapist in private practice. For articles and information about her books, Deep Powerful Change hypnosis CDs and new Creating Healthy Relationships series, visit www.gwen.ca. See display ad this issue.