Undermining Canada, Undermining the World |
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Justice News |
Saturday, 12 May 2007 10:25 |
Undermining Canada, Undermining the World
PFP - C. L. Cook - Canada is ready to fall. Following years of backroom machinations with representatives of foreign corporations on all levels of government, national sovereignty has become an illusion. Recent moves to "harmonize" more of the nation's laws in preparation for the so-called North American Union are in an advanced state, yet still governments remain mum, and the media refuses to press the issue. www.pacificfreepress.com Undermining Canada, This is accomplished through a legal implement similar to the controversial Chapter 11 provision of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which holds government liable for lost business revenues due to environmental, or other regulations. This liability is for "projected" as well as real lost revenues. That is to say: If a corporate entity feels it could have made X millions, (or billions) of dollars privatizing and selling the resources within the authority's area, but was denied that because of existing laws, then the authority is on the hook to supply those "lost" monies. The details of payment will be decided by a tripartite panel of industry and government stakeholders without public oversight or participation. As with the drafting of these agreements, settlements too are to be held in camera, beyond the purview of those who ultimately pay the penalties, the people. The Tilma provisions go one further than Chapter 11, disallowing municipal and regional development plans on such things as building height restrictions, heritage designation and, in British Columbia, denying the Agricultural Land Reserve, a system set up in the 1970's to protect dwindling farm lands from suburban sprawl. But, at its heart Tilma is designed to do what Chapter 11 too accomplishes, a manifest and insidious coercion of city councils and municipal boards to preemptively devolve legal protections and public priorities for fear of falling afoul of prohibitively large lawsuits. In simpler terms, this is called: Blackmail. Though Tilma will not come into full effect until 2008, giving municipal, city, and provincial governments the time they will need to shred and reconstruct all laws that they may, in Tilma's terms: "...ensure that its measures do not operate to impair or restrict trade between or through the territory of the Parties, or investment or labour mobility between the Parties."
Beyond provincial borders, the deal is hailed as a triumph of Canadian good business practice and ballyhooed by the federal government as a model that should be adopted by all provinces, where they too should shred existing laws and regulations to make way for a wave of corporate investment and free flows of labour through "mobility." Everyone Singing from the Same Hymn Book As ominous to political sovereignty the portent of the looming full implementation, and perhaps spread, of Tilma is, some don't have to wait to see the rights of their home and native land erased. In British Columbia, the radical pro-business premier, Gordon Campbell, in the year 2002, quietly signed into law a piece of legislation guaranteeing the pre-eminent right of business over the citizenry. Under the so-named 'Mineral Tenure Act' of 2002, according to Kendyl Salcito, of The Tyee, mining corporations, best represented in the province by massive, supra-national corporations, can stake a sub-surface mineral claim on-line, show up at your house, and start digging. No private property rights here. "[...] last year the province created an online staking system that allows anyone with internet access and $25 to acquire a miner's license and then, at $0.17 an acre, buy mineral rights to land. It doesn't matter whether that land belongs to a neighbour, the Crown, or the "miner" himself. Once you own the mineral rights, you are free to "explore" your claims, wander the property, "poke at a few rocks," in the words of MP Tom Christensen. And once you decide to start drilling and digging, even the landowner's dwelling and buildings are at risk. That's the law under the Mineral Tenure Act as of 2002, when the section prohibiting miners from "obstruction or interference" with activities (or buildings) on private land was repealed." In his, 'A Rancher's Radioactive Hell,' Salcito chronicles the battle between rancher Joe Falkoski and the Zena Capital Corporation, an outfit that showed up one day and began digging up Falkoski's [sic] land. Seems Zena Corp. is on the hunt for Barite, a mineral found in and around Kettle Valley.
But it's not just in the wilds of the province that this kind of land grab can happen, (as witnessed by some wag who tried to push the point with the premier by staking a sub-surface claim on Campbell's own palatial Vancouver area property) no-one's land is exempt. In another case of land usurpation, Rob Westie's rural family home was invaded by a neighbour, he found wandering his land with a spray paint can, marking prospective dig sites. He then discovered he could do nothing to stop this trespass [sic] because a "neighbour" squatting and prospecting on the land adjacent had staked sub-surface exploration rights. "[...] it probably comes as a big surprise to them that they don't own the rights under them. If they're moving up there then they are obligated to know what they're buying and what they're getting into... I can't help it if somebody moves up there with stars in his eyes and doesn't know what he's buying into."
Kendyl Salcito notes, the "educational" materials necessary are housed in the Mining Ministry's 'Access Centre,' conveniently located in Cranbook, about 400 miles from Rob Westie's embattled homestead. According to the Friday, May 11th Ottawa Citizen, it was at this point, Benoit "threw down his pen" and declared the meeting adjourned, before "storming out" of the room. The remaining Liberal members and the vice-Chair voted to continue the meeting, and record Laxer's testimony (absent government representation). "It's shocking the extent to which the Conservative party will go to cover up information about the SPP."
For its part, the feds say they welcome "civil-society" groups to offer input.
While the government welcomes your e:mail, they're not so crazy about civil servants returning the favour. Wednesday saw the arrest in Ottawa of Environment Canada media analyst, Jeffrey Monaghan, plucked from his cubicle and led out of his office in manacles by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). "What I can tell you is that the proposed charges against me pose a profound threat to the public interest."
A fittingly descriptive trio; the pillars of the wobbly stool that has become Western Democracy, defining exactly what modern polity has boiled down to under the auspice of America's leadership. Monaghan is not alone in his persecution; Friday also witnessed, as a parting act of filial devotion by departing leader of that other ally in George W. Bush's Global War on Terra, Tony Blair, sentencing of two government whislteblowers under Britain's Secrecy laws. "These are days of troubled sleep. As in a dream, you walk familiar streets, living out your ordinary life |
Last Updated on Saturday, 12 May 2007 10:25 |