Word is circulating on both sides of the border that Canada’s Conservative government is planning to close the Canadian consulate office in Buffalo, New York.

The office has, for decades, been an important cog in the wheel of cross-border relations for business, for heritage and culture, sporting events and for other interests and concerns Canadians and Americans alike who live, work and play on both sides of the border. 

Not much has been said by politicians and businesses on the Canadian side of the border, but according to a story on the front page of the Buffalo News today, business and political leaders in the Buffalo area, and all the way up to and including Charles Schumer, an influential U.S. senator for New York State, who was quoted in the paper saying; “I fully plan on pushing the Canadian government to reverse this decision. …. This office is an important resources for business throughout Western New York and ought to stay open for  business in Buffalo.”

Niagara At Large will be updating this post with more commentary before the end of the day.

“Something’s happening here, What it is ain’t exactly clear,  There’s a man with a gun over there, telling me I’ve got to beware.”
- from the old Sixties classic ‘For What It’s Worth’  by Buffalo Springfield.

It seemed like almost every time I turned on the television news this past week I was treated to images of police outfitted in riot gear, clashing with protesters in the streets.

Young people protesting in the streets of Quebec. Where are the rest of us?

‘Must be Syria’, I caught myself thinking.  Nope. It was the streets of Montreal where, what started out about fifteen weeks ago as a student strike against proposed tuition fee hikes, has escalated into an all-out youth movement against a Jean Charest government in Quebec (and maybe against governments in general) that appears to be even unpopular than the Dalton McGuinty government in Ontario.I would turn on the news again and there was more footage of or police wearing Darth Vader masks and wielding clubs and shields in a crackdown on demonstrators at the G20 summit in Toronto two years ago this June. These scenes were being rebroadcast because of a report released late last week by the Office of Independent Police Review.

This report, like the one Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin produced in December of 2010, concluded what at least some of us who took the time to listen to citizen eyewitnesses rather than simply take the word of the authorities knew almost from the start – that the policing operation got so out of control, it resulted in one of the worst cases of civil liberty assaults in Canadian history, with the arrest and detention of more than 1,000 citizens, many of them jailed in makeshift cages a humane society for animals might condemn and where they were never read their rights over even allowed to call a lawyer until they were ultimately let go with no charges ever being filed against them. Then there was the reprehensible “kettling” of people, including people that were doing nothng more than shopping, like the herding together of dolphins for a slaughter in the streets of a City of Toronto we Canadians were once so proud to boast about as one of the world’s most civil metropolises.

As much of a stain as the  G20 summit mess is on Canada’s reputation as a peaceful, freedom-loving democracy, it is the burning fire of protest in the streets of Quebec I want to get back to at the moment and a Draconian law, passed in haste in recent days by a desperate (likely not to get reelected) Charest government that, among other things, bars more than 50 people protesting in public space at a time unless they give the police a couple of days’ notice, and if anyone in the gathering deviates from the protest actions or messages they defined in their report to the police, they could face criminal charges.

Of course, there are those among us who will say; ‘Good. If these people don’t want to get in trouble with the government, then they should just stay home, close there curtains and hunker down to watch a hockey game, and basically shut up.’ I’ve heard that from many readers who dismissed my complaints in the past over the police actions at the G20 fiasco – and please, I’m not blaming the police. It is our federal and provincial governments that make their orders – and all I can say to them is read a classic history called ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ by William Shirer, then come back and talk about how it is so much better to hide in your house rather than engage in any protest that we, in a democracy, should have every right to attend.

It has always mystified me that many of the same people who lash out against protesters are slamming the government themselves for dissolving their entitlements.

What we all ought to consider as we watch the situation play out in the streets of Quebec is that when it comes right down to it, we only have the right to assemble and speak our mind in this country if our exercising of them is not in conflict with the ideology of the government of the day. The moment it is, government will begin to take those rights ahead of ourselves.

Yes, there have been acts of violence and vandalism on the part of some of the demonstraters that are inexcusable. But most of these young people are reportedly demonstrating peacefully and are youth who see their opportunities for the same entitlements many of their elders, including the Baby Boomer generation had, to an affordable education, a decent paying job and a quality environment diminished by the actions of at least some of their elders.

If we don’t get that, then we may be in for more fire on the streets of this country.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post below. Remember that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last names.)

The Heritage Committee of Thorold, Ontario has released a brochure that showcases 48 of the community’s designated buildings and sites – some of them dating back to the area’s history as a battleground during the War of 1812 and as a key mill town during the fledgling years in the history of the first Welland Canal.

The Keefer Mansion Inn in Thorold, Ontario, going back to the 18th century and owned by a founding family of the community that played a key role in the construction of  the first Welland Canal.

This brochure, produced by this dedicated committee of volunteers on a shoe string budget, is now available at Thorold’s Tourism Center at Lock 7, at its main library, at the Keefer Mansion Inn off St. David’s Road in the community, the Quebec Bank Gallery and City Hall You can also find it by visiting the Heritage Committee’s website   http://www.heritagethorold.com/designatedproperties.html  

Pamela Minns, the secretary-treasurer for Thorold’s Heritage Committee and a long-time, passionate advocate for protecting and preserving all of our greater Niagara region’s heritage sites, says the committee wishes “to extend our thanks to all of our designated heritage property owners for their commitment to stewardship of some of Thorold’s finest heritage sites.

We, in Thorold, are very proud of our extensive built and natural heritage, and we invite you to view this latest display of our heritage on our web site, or pick up a copy of the brochure at the locations mentioned.”

“Even better, adds Minns, “use the brochure to take a tour of these sites using the maps supplied.

Minns finishes by sharing a quote from Ontario’s Ministry of Culture which goes like this;

“Every community in Ontario has its own unique culture and heritage. Each City, town, township or county has places, spaces and stories that enrich it, inspire it, enlighten it and guide it in its growth and development.  These places are integral parts of the identity of our communities, but they also play a significant role in economic development by helping to enhance a community’s quality of life, strengthen its distinctiveness, stimulate revitalization and attract tourist dollars.  Formal designation of heritage properties is one way of publicly acknowledging a property’s heritage value to a community”

Let Niagara At Large simply add that wonderfully, dedicated volunteer groups like Heritage Committee in Thorold, Ontario deserve our full support. Most of them do their work out of passion, on a shoestring and will little or no support from the politicians-that-be in their communities. Yet the positive legacies they are leaving to present and future generations likely add up to far more than any that those politicians that nickel and dime budgets for heritage preservation leave.

Call or email our local members of municipal government to make sure they understand that we want our tax dollars being invested in enrichment programs for our communities like this.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post below.)

If you dig history, heritage and fabulous architecture, then Doors Open Niagara is back – celebrating its 10^thyear on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border in this region, and you can once again soak in all the riches it has to offer for free. 

Two-century old Benjamin Long Homestead, at western head of Erie Canal system in Tonawanda, New York, is on Doors Open tour list

This event – scheduled to take place this spring between Friday, June 15 and Sunday, June 17 – offers residents who live and visit this region an opportunity to view some of the finest historical homes, institutions and historical site in Niagara for none of the charges that usually apply to these sites. It is a chance to remind ourselves, or possibly discover for the first time, how rich a history and heritage we have right here.

Doors Open Niagara, along with a ‘Heritage Peace Garden Trail’ launching in recognition of the 200^th anniversary of the War of 1812 that divided a fledgling United States and an evolving Canadian nation, before bringing us together in peace, is being sponsored by the Canada\/U.S. Binational Tourism Alliance, a not-for-profit organization representing businesses and tourist venues on both sides of the border.

Here is the Binational Tourism Alliance’s recent media release on these events. Enjoy them.

Binational Doors Open Niagara & Heritage Peace Garden Trail For U.S. and Canadian Media/Publications                                  

Written by Arlene White, Executive Director, Binational Alliance

General 2012 Doors Open & Peace Garden Trail Information

2012 is a very special year in our cross-border region.  We are kicking off the War of 1812 Bicentennial – an event that played a major role in defining Canada, the United States and the 200 years of peace we have shared since that war ended.

The Battle Ground Hotel Museum on Lundy Lane in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and across from the Drummond Hill Cemetary where War of 1812 heroine Laura Secord is buried, is on the Doors Open tour list.

The Binational Alliance invites you to join us this June to celebrate the 10^th Anniversary of Doors Open Niagara and launch of the Binational Heritage Peace Garden Trail – an 1812 Bicentennial

Legacy Project permanently connecting the built heritage, architecture & garden landscapes of  the Southern Great Lakes.   

You’ll enjoy ten amazing days of special events, tours, exhibits and performances, culminating in the free Doors Open Niagara weekend  between Friday, June 15 and Sunday,  June 17. 

June 8, we’ll be kicking off Architecture Week in the binational Niagara Region, with a special focus on the architecture of the 19^th century.   Jackson Triggs  Stratus and Southbrook Wineries in Niagara-on-the-Lake will be offering architectural tours of their sites and Jackson Triggs is the location of our special Doors Open Niagara 10^th Anniversary celebration on Saturday evening,

June 9.  We’ll be highlighting the architecture of binational Niagara through video, photographic and architectural exhibits and opening the doors to the next decade of Doors Open Niagara through dance and music in a new cross-border collaboration of Canadian and American dancers from Toronto’s Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Buffalo’s Configuration Dance Theatre, and the works of artists Amy Taravella, Lacey Smith and Veronica Lake.   Tickets go on Tuesday, May 22 – go to doorsopenniagara.com. 

Visit Buffalo, New York’s classic Bontanical Gardens during Doors Open Niagara

Between June 9 and 14, the 35 heritage sites and Peace Gardens involved in 2012 Doors Open will be offering a variety of special exhibits, lectures, tours and programs and from Friday June 15 to Sunday June 17, they will offer free entry to all visitors to these sites during the Doors Open weekend.                                                                                                                     

The 2012 Art of Architecture and Architage photography contests are open to all visitors and participants in Doors Open and there will be a variety of prizes and opportunities for the winning photographers to exhibit their works in galleries and museums on both sides of the border.

And a special downloadable passport  will entitle participants to enter into a grand prize

 getaway in Niagara later this summer.  For complete details about the Doors Open 10^th

Anniversary celebrations and to purchase tickets to the June 9 event at Jackson Triggs, go to doorsopenniagara.com.

Niagara Doors Open & Peace Garden Sites – Open Free June 15 to 17 

U.S. Sites:

1. The Benjamin Long Homestead
2. Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens and Peace Garden
3. Colonel William Bond-Jesse Hawley House
4. Connecticut Street Armory NY National Guard
5. Das Haus Heritage Museum
6. Erie Canal Discovery Center and Penny Gallery
7. Hull Family Home & Farmstead and Peace Garden
8. Lehigh Valley Historic Site
9. Lewiston Peace Garden
   1. Market Arcade
   2. McClew Interpretive Center at Murphy Orchards
   3. Niagara County Historical Society Campus: Out water Building (1863), Washington Hunt Law Office (1835), Kandt House (1880) and Pioneer Building (1899)
   4. North Tonawanda History Museum’s The Lumber City History Center
   5. St Anthony of Padua Church
      1. Saint Adalbert Basilica
      2. The Mansion on Delaware
      3. Town of Porter Historical Museum –Youngstown Red Brick School
      4. Youngstown  Peace Garden

 Canadian Sites:

1. Fort Erie Historical Museum
2. Niagara Historical Society & Museum
3. Willoughby Historical Museum
4. St. George’s Anglican Church
5. St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canal Centre
6. Jordan Historical Museum
7. The Fry House
8. 3800 Main St, Jordan
9. Niagara Apothecary Museum
10. Morningstar Mill
11. Holy Trinity Anglican Church
12. RiverBrink Art Museum
13. Grimsby Bicentennial Peace Garden
    1. Grimsby Museum
    2. Battleground Hotel Museum
    3. Niagara Bruce Trail Association
    4. Willoughby Community Centre

 June 9 Doors Open Niagara 10^th Anniversary Celebration at Jackson Triggs NOTL

 The Binational Alliance invites you to join us to celebrate ten years of Doors Open Niagara and two hundred years of Peace between Canada and the United States on Saturday, June 9 at Jackson Triggs Niagara Estate Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake. 

You’ll enjoy a magical evening of local wine and food, architectural exhibits from the University at Buffalo Architecture & Education program, photography exhibits from the first decade of Doors Open Art of Architecture and Architage contests,  the Unbuilt Niagara video retrospective – the best designs never built, and a special binational dance showcase featuring dancers from Toronto’s Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Buffalo’s Configuration Dance Theatre and artists Amy Taravella, Lacey Smith and Veronica Lake.  We’ll be premiering two new Peace Dances choreographed by Gerry Trentham of Pounds per Square Inch and danced to a new musical composition by Julia Aplin and her band Heartsong.

The event begins at 6 p.m. and guests can take advantage of the wonderful culinary options provided by Jackson Triggs – enjoy an exquisite barrel cellar dinner with wine-paired courses or relax on the patio with the barbeque selections provided by the on-site chefs under the direction of David Penny and recommended Jackson Triggs wine for tastings or by the glass.

Ticket prices start at $55 for the winery exhibits and amphitheatre dance performance and wine and food samples, with VIP tickets available for those who would like to take in the barrel cellar dinner and end the evening in the executive lounge with a private gathering to meet the artists and take away a special memento of the evening at the winery.  For complete details and to purchase your tickets go to doorsopenniagara.com.                                                                                                                      

Other Binational Heritage Peace Gardens Launching in 2012

1. May 27 – Victor, NY
2. June 1 – Burt, NY
3. June 15 – Leamington, ON, Niagara University, NY
4. June 16 – Sacket’s Harbor, NY
5. June 21 – Tecumseh, ON
6. June 22 – Thamesville, ON
7. June 29 – Youngstown, NY
8. July 1 – Fort Erie, ON
9. July 4 – St. Marys, GA
10. July 19 – Windsor, ON
11. July 20 – Colchester, ON
12. July 22 – Lancaster, NY
13. Aug 9 – Reif Winery, NOTL, ON
14. Aug 26 – Black Rock, Buffalo, NY
15. Sept 1 – Winery, Colchester, ON
16. Sept 8 – Olde Sandwich Towne, Windsor, ON
17. Oct 13 – Amherstburg, ON

What a shame it is that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has declared a “firm and final end” to Canadian’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

A member of the NATO force wades through about the only thing Afghanistan seems to have going for it – fields of poppies for its world-wide illicit opium trade.

At least Harper, at a NATO meeting held in Chicago this May 21 promised Canada’s NATO partners that it will go on investing $110 million annually to assist Afghanistan in paying for its own army forces. Why would Canada rather spend that money in its own country on such things as environmental protection or maybe building a proper functioning water treatment plant in Native communities back here that have all the earmarks most of Afghanistan has of struggling in Third World dilapidation and poverty? 

Yet seriously, how outrageous it is that Harper and company took this long to say Canada is pulling out of the Afghanistan quagmire. If your memory serves well enough to take you back to the mood of many of us Canada, the United States and other western nations in the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the former Liberal government of Jean Chretien agreed that Canada should join a NATO invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his band of Al Qaeda psychos, believed to be based in that country at the time. But bin Laden slipped away and our U.S. allies under then president George W. Bush decided it to invest most of their military resources on an invasion of Iraq.

Had Harper been Canada’s prime minister at the time, he would have joined Bush’s so-called “coalition of the willing” in the Iraq mess. He and his then-opposition Conservatives, openly expressed their all out support for the Iraq venture from its beginning in 2003. As much as we may not care for the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin in other ways, at least they did not engage Canada in that costly, tragic mess. 

But then Harper and Company inherited the Afghanistan mission and have stayed there long enough to cost the lives of 158 of young and brave Canadian and leave many more with injuries they will be burdened with for the rest of their lives. Even Harper pointed out that Canadian troops have been in this God-forsaken rock pile of a country (not his words for the place, of course), with its chronically corrupt government, its warlords and its multi-billion dollar illicit drug trade, for more time than Canadians and Americans fought in World Wars I and II combined.

So why haven’t we gotten completely out of Afghanistan like, at least, yesterday, and why are we going to continue to send hundreds of millions of dollars of our hard-to-get tax money for programs in our own country when we do?

If it is to help support the Afghan army in a continued fight against the Taliban, then consider a couple of things. Plenty of experts on that region of the world, including the former U.S. secretary of state for Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski have said that if the Afghan army had any real will to fight for the corrupt government it is serving, why is it taking so many years to train it to do so? After all, no one appears to be spending anywhere near that amount of time and money to train the Taliban rebels they are apparently supposed to be defending the government against. 

And finally, why can’t the Afghan government and its friends in the drug trade fund its own army? After all, we are talking about a country that is the undisputable largest producer and exporter of illicit opium in the world – a business with a reported export value of more than $4 billion annually – and the world’s producer of hashish. Is this what Canada, is helping to defend?

Think about it folks. We have a Harper government that has recently passed a crime bill that calls for mandatory sentences for individuals caught with enough marijuana that there might be enough there to peddle. And at the same time, we are investing young lives and our dollars to support the world’s major pusher of illicit drugs?

We should not spend one more breath of our time or our money to this place now. Let’s invest those resources in improving the quality of life for our own people.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post.)

From the Peace Bridge Authority

BUFFALO, NY/FORT ERIE, ON, May 21, 2012– Today the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority (Peace Bridge Authority) announced that it has engaged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to exchange information on previous air quality improvements at the Peace Bridge corridor and also share ideas and best practices regarding future “green” stewardship opportunities at the port.

Traffic lineups at the Canada/U.S. Peace Bridge crossing.

“Much has been done at the Peace Bridge over the last ten years to mitigate traffic and environmental impacts on the host communities,” said PBA Chairman Sam Hoyt. 

“However, with the help and guidance of the EPA, NYSDEC, and other community organizations, we believe even more can accomplished on this important issue.”

“The EPA is very pleased to be working with the Peace Bridge Authority to help identify ways that they can reduce the environmental impacts of the bridge on the environment and particularly on neighborhoods around the bridge,” said U.S. EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck.  “I look forward to continuing to work with the authority

in a way that fully engages the public to make this project a model of environmental sustainability.” During preliminary conversations between the PBA and EPA, a number of suggestions were offered regarding ways to immediately address related buffering and commercial idling concerns at the port.  Such proposals include:

 Expansion of the “Spare the Air” idling reduction program sponsored by the PBA.

 Added landscape buffering in and around the corridor.

 Greater idling enforcement by the New York State Department of Environmental

Conservation within the plaza and adjacent neighborhood areas.

 Clean construction specifications and approaches.

 Utilization of a “green” consultant to assess building plans and operations to

identify new opportunities for sustainable practices.

 Potential affiliation with the SmartWay Program to encourage commercial fleet efficiencies and fuel savings.

In addition, the PBA expressed an interest in promoting a fleet upgrade/retrofit grant program or similar port-specific project, as has been implemented by EPA at numerous other land and marine trade hubs throughout the United States.  The Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, a binational bridge authority, has owned and operated the Peace Bridge since 1933. The bridge, which was opened to traffic in 1927, spans the Niagara River between Fort Erie, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York, and is a key international border crossing.

For more information on the Peace Bridge Authority visit www.peacebridge.com . You may also visit -

□ Facebook: /PeaceBridge □ Twitter: @PeaceBridgeAuth □ 

□ YouTube: /PeaceBridgeAuthority □ Traffic: Mobile.PeaceBridge.Com □ 

Niagara At Large invites readers on both sides of our Niagara River border to share their views on this post. Remember that we only post comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.

At a time when too many of us feel a bit sour on the state of Canada – not that we don’t have some reason given the almost total lack of inspiration and hope for the future from our political leaders – it is important to remember that there are still plenty of good stories out there about the country and its people.

Niagara native and award-winning Canadian documentary producer Kevin McMahon.

This show is produced by a Niagara native and an old friend and colleague of mine from our days in journalism days going back to The St. Catharines Standard in the 1980s. His name is Kevin McMahon and as leader of Primitive Entertainment, a film company based in Toronto, Ontario, he has made some great award-winning documentaries on everything from our Great Lakes (‘Waterlife’) to Marshall McLuhan and the crash of this country’s Cod fishery. 

I am pleased to post the following note from Kevin and links to ‘Made Canada’ below. Hope you get a chance to watch it.

A new TV series about innovation, invention and discovery

Premiering Friday, June 1, 2012 at 8 pm on History Television

From Kevin McMahon

Hello friends, colleagues and acquaintances, 

In keeping with our mission to boost all things Canadian, we are launching a new TV show called Canadian Made. It’s a celebration of Canadian invention, innovation and genius. It’s full of wonderful and surprising stories about our home and native land. 

It turns out that one of the very few things we Canadians do not do so well is blow our own horn. So we are hoping you will help us do that!

We are on on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#%21/CanadianMadeTV , on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CanadianMadeTV , and on a contest website where you can answer skill testing and/or nonsensical questions for the chance to win our Ultimate Canadian Made Prize Pack: http://canadianmadetv.com/featured/join-the-i-am-canadian-made-contest/ .

So please spread the news!  And check out the show starting June 1 on History Television!!

Thanks so much.

all the very best, Kevin McMahon
Visis Primitive Enertainment’s home site at www.primitive.net .

CANADIAN MADE premieres on History Television, Friday June 1st at 8:00 pm!  It’s fun for the whole family!!

Also, see our award-winning views of the Great Lakes:
http://waterlife.nfb.ca/  … and Canada’s wilderness: http://www.nationalparksproject.ca/

Words impact people and help to win elections.  The word “conservative”, for example, denotes “conservation”, and evokes images of environmental conservation, economic, prudence and so on. 

This word does not, however, describe our current federal regime, as it dismantles environmental protections, deregulates markets, subsidizes transnational corporations, bails out banks, and weakens the public sector at every turn.  The word that does, however, describe our current federal regime, is “neoliberal”.  Beneath the surface, the Harper regime, with its Reform party roots, is actually a “neoliberal” government.   

Not surprisingly, the term “neoliberal” is rarely used in the corporate media, just as the phrase “human-caused climate change” is rarely found in corporate media.

The big question is why? And the answer is fairly straightforward. Huge corporate entities make the rules and frame the discussions. 

Neo-liberalism is an economic theory that benefits about 20 per cent of the population, while it is a disservice to the rest.  It is also the economic theory that created the catastrophic crash of the financial markets in 2008, as well as the economic devastation elsewhere in the world.

Hallmarks of this theory include privatization, deregulation, the rolling back of the public sphere, and the enrichment of the 1%.   

It preaches a “laissez-faire” market approach, but it relies for its success on huge public subsidies and bailouts.  It creates a casino, boom/bust economy that is insured by unwitting public citizens.

It plays havoc with environmental stewardship (gutting environmental regulations); it

plays havoc with financial markets (unregulated financial transactions ( i.e hedge funds/derivatives); and it plays havoc with solidarity movements such as unions. Most insidious of all, though, it becomes stronger where democracy is weak or non-existent.  Democracy and neoliberalism move in opposite directions.

Chinais a flourishing capitalist, “neoliberal” country, but when democracy tried to break out atTiananmen Square, the students and their democratic ideals were wiped out …. literally.  The bodies were burned, and nowChinais a strong capitalist, but aggressively anti-democratic country.    

Russia, too, is now a capitalist country with a “neoliberal” economy, but its democracy is very weak. 

So, the unseen, un-named influence in the Harper regime, and to a slightly lesser extent, the McGuinty government, is neoliberalism.

In some respects, apart from the lack of respect that it demonstrates to working people, neoliberalism is also evil.

The military-industrial complex grows by creating fear and by waging war.  So, in 2003 when the U.S and the U.K unleashed weapons of mass destruction onIraq(a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, terrorism, or the alleged weapons of mass destruction), the corporate media barely mentioned the thousands (over 100,000) of American anti-war protestors in the streets.  Not surprisingly, CBS was owned by Westinghouse, and NBC by General Electric, two major weapons manufacturers, when the Iraq War started.

According to Iraq Body Count, from 106, 695 – 116,548 (likely more) innocent, non-combatants have lost their lives so far since the criminal invasion ofIraq. 

The military industrial complex also affectsCanada.  Lockheed Martin, the sole source provider of the F-35’s will likely cost Canadians billions more than expected.  This, at a time when public services such as health care are under-funded and dysfunctional. 

Even as neoliberalism fosters these maladjusted priorities, it is still a winning formula for the exploiters though: they use public money to undermine the public sphere, so the largely unaccountable transnational corporations can profit.  This insinuation of the private sphere into what has traditionally been the public sphere is happening at an alarming rate now, and it will continue to drive up prices for ordinary citizens, especially in the realm of health care.

Canadacurrently has record levels of economic disparities, record levels of planned environmental devastation, and record levels of democratic deficits: all hallmarks of neo-liberalism. 

Yet even as this exploitative system crashes economically, and forces “austerity” on the 99%,   it is still fairly intact ideologically. It is still wearing the mask of “conservatism”, and it is still a taboo topic for the corporate media.  

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

Mark Taliano is a Niagara native and frequent contributor of political essays and commentary to Niagara At Large.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post below. We also welcome others to contribute commentary to this site if they have a commentary on the good, bad and ugly of our times that is dying to get out.)

“How do you mend a broken heart …”

Some who read Niagara At Large for heavier commentary on our greater Niagara region and beyond, may wonder why I take a few moments to remember Robin Gibb, who died of cancer this May 20 at age 62.

Yet sometimes it is nice to stop and pay tribute to people who have brought the world some joy through music, and we have been losing too many of them lately, including Levon Helm of The Band earlier this spring and only a few days ago one of the greatest singers from the 1970s Disco era Donna Summer.

Now we learn that Robin Gibb, one of the three founding members of the Bee Gees that included brothers Barry and the late Maurice whose passing in 2003 drew the curtain on the group’s trademark three-part harmonies. 

I find it upsetting that in some of the obituaries now out in the mainstream media, Robin and the Bee Gees are only being cited for their 1970s Disco hits like ‘Stayin’ Alive’, ‘More Than a Woman’ and ‘Nights on Broadway’ from the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ days. But Robin and his brothers also crafted and performed some of the most popular hits of the mid- to late 1960s, including tunes like ‘Too Love Somebody’, ‘Massachusetts’, ‘Got To Get A Message To You’, ‘I Started A Joke’, ‘Words’, and the list goes on.

Few artists these days are demonstrating the talent to write and perform music that was so instantly fun to listen to than these guys did in the 60s, 70s and beyond. 

Thanks for all of the joy you gave us through the music Robin.

Believe it or not, Canada used to be a world leader when it came to environmental protection.

Many Canadians under the age of 40 may have a hard time believing that, given how much our country’s environmental protection services have been hollowed out over most of their adult lives. But back in the 1970s and 80s, Canada was truly a beacon on the green front.

This wack job of a Canadian Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver, might just as well be walking around with tomb stones in his eyes, as the old Steppenwolf song goes. Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper lets this moron go around calling environmentalists enemies of our country. How nuts can you get.

Not any more.

One government after another, beginning with the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney and continuing with the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, chipped away at the budgets of Environment Canada and its sister agencies. Their services were sliced and diced to a point where they are barely a shadow of what they were when, a mere three decades ago, their scientists – our Canadian scientists, I must emphasis were doing leading edge research on a number of fronts, including toxic pollution in the Great Lakes that played a major role in motivating governments in both Canada and the United States to launch cleanup programs for savng treasured water bodies like the Niagara River from near ecological death.

Yet as much as the governments of Mulroney, Chretien and Martin let our environmental services emaciate through one budget cut after another, they now almost seemed greener than the Green Party compared to the government that is calling all of the shots in Ottawa in now.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper –more unleashed than ever since racking up a majority of seats in in last year’s federal election – has done everything but come right out and declare a war on the environment.  It is cutting and gutting environmental programs and regulations with a glee this aging environment writer has   not seen since the Mike Harris government in Ontario in the 1990s.

It confirms that these characters, going back to their Reform Party days, never believed human activity has anything to do with climate change and have always believed that the ‘tree huggers” are nothing less than a cancerous assault on the unfettered exploitation of our natural resources. These tree huggers, as Harper’s natural resources minister Joe Oliver recently put it, are enemies of this country with “radical ideological ends.”

Indeed, Oliver could not have got away with such Joe McCarthy-like-of-U.S.-black-list-fame’ comments about environmentalists without them first being filtered through the prime minister’s office. By now, we should all now, that everything almost up to and including one of his Conservative MPs clearing their throat, is filtered through the prime minister’s office.

So Oliver, no doubt received clearance to dissolve environmental groups in Canada of any charitable status they may have for raising fundng if they oppose projects like pipelines that carry that crude crud from the Alberta tar sands to the U.S. or to the B.C. shores where it can be shipped on for refinement to fuel the wealth of countries there. Notice, there is zero interest on the part of this supposedly business-smart federal government to refine this stuff here, to make our country more energy independent and put more Canadians back to work at the same time.

David Suzuki, a Canadian scientist, environmentalist and host of CBC’s award-winning nature of things, took the threat of the loss of charitable status seriously enough that he recently quit his own David Suzuki Foundation, an organization that, according to its own mission statement, “work(s) with government, business and individuals to conserve our environment by providing science-based education, advocacy and policy work.”

Sad to say that when Suzuki left his foundation so he could speak more freely on environmental issues, some of our fellow Canadians wrote to blogs for major newspapers saying things like; Thankfully, Canadians are getting rid of a snake oil salesman,” he’s a “stooge,” a “scammer” and a “shanky, enviro wacko, fear-mongering alarmist.”

I’d still like to think that the people who wrote those notes are in a minority. I spoke to a large class of university students recently and I did not get the impression most of them felt it’s a good idea for our government to pull out of the Kyoto Accord on climate change or gut a federal Fisheries Act that has been a powerful tool for protecting our waters and a vital web of the foodchain we depend on for our survival.

There is something terribly wrong when a government of a developed country in the 21^st century can’t see one wit of sense in balancing economic growth with good stewardship of natural resources that made Canada such a great country to live and work in the first place.

Is this where we want to go as a nation? Canadians who have some love for our wealth of natural resources – our Great Lakes, our forests and diversity of wildlife – have got to stand up against the war this government is waging on our environment.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post below.)