The devil, they say, is in the details, but here in Ontario, the devil apparently is in the Ontario government. Outside of this province, I’m not certain how well known the tale of bureaucrat Sanjay Madan is, so here is a quick summary: Madan was the $176,608-a-year IT boss on
Continue readingTag: Ontario government
Politics and its Discontents: Lethal Legacy – Part 2
In Part 1, I wrote about the lethal consequences for many who have worked at GE Peterborough. A toxic workplace that has resulted in crippling disease or death for many is not the kind of legacy these men and women anticipated. To compound the tragedy of the situation, Ontario’s Workplace
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Lethal Legacy: A Province’ s Version Of Neoliberalism
The Toronto Star has run a heartbreaking series, very well-worth reading, on the fate of many of the employees of Peterborough’s GE plant, whose lives were either cut short by, or are riddled with, disease thanks to exposure to a toxic brew of chemicals during their working lives. Entitled Lethal
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: On Nestle’s Unslakeable Thirst
I have written previously about the deplorable government ‘stewardship’ of our natural resources that allows rapacious companies like Nestle to take Ontario’s groundwater for literally pennies as it makes obscene profits on bottle water.
Unfortunately, the story keeps getting worse.
Corporate giant Nestlé continued its privatization creep on Thursday as it won approval to take over another Canadian community’s water supply, claiming it needed the well to ensure “future business growth.”
Nestlé purchased the well near Elora, Ontario from Middlebrook Water Company last month after making a conditional offer in 2015, the Canadian Press reports.
In August, the Township of Centre Wellington made an offer to purchase the Middlebrook well site to protect access to the water for the community. Consequently, the multinational—which claimed it had no idea the community was its competitor—waived all its conditions and matched the township’s offer in order to snag the well for itself.
Happily, this is not going unnoticed by the Council of Canadians, which has proposed a boycott of the company, one that I encourage everyone to sign. Part of the boycott reads,
“Groundwater resources will not be sufficient for our future needs due to drought, climate change, and over-extraction. Wasting our limited groundwater on frivolous and consumptive uses such as bottled water is madness. We must not allow groundwater reserves to be depleted for corporate profit.”
For her part the extraordinarily unpopular Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who has often acted as if she is surprised by Nestle’s pillaging, is now sounding a cautious note.
“As we look at the water bottling industry, that has to be a question because we’re talking about what we could argue is our most precious resource,” she said.
“There is much pressure on our water, so as we have this discussion about our water, the status of and the treatment of water bottling companies, that needs to be taken into consideration.”
Hardly a stinging rebuke.
For its part, Nestle has this to say:
Nestle, which has 2,500 employees in Ontario, has said it is prepared to pay more if rates were increased, but only if all companies with water-taking permits face the higher fees.
The fact that this multinational company feels free to stipulate conditions on government decisions tells you all you need to know about who is really running the show, doesn’t it?
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pathetic Political Posturing
Yesterday, I posted about the outrageous pillaging of our groundwater made possible by a government that seems oblivious to anything but its corporate clientele. It is a sad situation which I and many others have known about for a long time; it is the …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pathetic Political Posturing
Yesterday, I posted about the outrageous pillaging of our groundwater made possible by a government that seems oblivious to anything but its corporate clientele. It is a sad situation which I and many others have known about for a long time; it is the …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Where Is The Outrage?
Buy land, they’re not making it anymore. -Mark TwainThe above quote, attributed to Mark Twain, is self-evident. What doesn’t appear to be self-evident is that the same applies to all the water that exists in the world. Water is not, as some seem to bel…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: UPDATED: Where Is The Outrage?
Buy land, they’re not making it anymore. -Mark TwainThe above quote, attributed to Mark Twain, is self-evident. What doesn’t appear to be self-evident is that the same applies to all the water that exists in the world. Water is not, as some seem to bel…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Shape Of Things To Come?
Over the past several years, I have become a bit of an aficionado of bourbon. Given that most of my life I have never cared for the taste of straight liquor, how I came to fancy it is something of a mystery, but it is now my hobby that whenever I see a…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Measuring Democracy
One of the concerns that has motivated me throughout the years I have written this blog is public accountability. Far too often, whether examining politics at the federal, provincial or local level, it is evident that public accountability, when it oc…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Not An Obsession
Looking at the sidebar that lists the tags on my blog posts, I see I have written well over 100 entries on the police, most of them dealing with their abuse of authority; some of those abuses include the murder of unarmed or barely armed people, others…
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Pretty much every time I hear Canadian Prime Minister Stephen…
Pretty much every time I hear Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or one of his Conservative minions speak, I think of this song: “Propaganda” by the defunct punk/Oi! band Blitz. The same goes for when I hear Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne or one of her provincial Liberal hacks spew BS
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: "You’re either with working women and men or you’re…
“You’re either with working women and men or you’re against them.” – Peter Kormos (1952-2013) It has been one year since we lost Peter Kormos, a former Ontario MPP who died too young, at the age of 60. Kormos, who died on on March 30, 2013 of natural causes, wasn’t
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Breaking News! No Relief In Sight For Unpaid Internships!
Like the proverbial hot potato being passed around as rapidly as possible, the Ontario Government, true to their corporate puppet masters, has vowed to do nothing about the growing problem of unpaid internships, preferring instead to palm the problem off to the education industry. As reported in a followup story
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Irony: The Canadian job-killer Gord Nixon, president and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), is…
Irony: The Canadian job-killer Gord Nixon, president and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), is also the head of the Ontario Liberal government’s Jobs and Prosperity Council. What an insult. For continuing coverage of RBC’s latest attacks on Canadian workers, see http://www.facebook.com/BoycottRoyalBankOfCanada
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Last weekend, Canada lost a beloved, well-respected, honest,…
Last weekend, Canada lost a beloved, well-respected, honest, persuasive, gruff-voiced, hard-working, non-conformist, friendly, principled, down-to-earth man of the people who drank and smoked, wore cowboy boots, stood up for the little guy and was re-elected several times. No, I’m not talking about that asshole Ralph Klein, whose merits and accomplishments
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: There’s been so much bullshit and insanity in the Canadian…
There’s been so much bullshit and insanity in the Canadian political scene lately, it’s hard to keep on top of it all. Here are just a few recent examples: fraud and theft being officially endorsed in the Canadian senate prime minister Stephen Harper and his stooges lying through their teeth
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Here are a few photos from the January 25, 2013 protest against…
Here are a few photos from the January 25, 2013 protest against the incompetent, unethical, non-progressive Ontario Liberal Party, outside their leadership convention in downtown Toronto. Hopefully our new temporary premier, Kathleen Wynne, will admit to the many mistakes that she and the Dalton McGuinty government have made, and will
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Julian Fantino: once a dirty cop, now a dirty politician The…
Julian Fantino: once a dirty cop, now a dirty politician The dishonourable Julian “Mussolini” Fantino, Canada’s minister of international cooperation, was recently busted for ordering a pro-Conservative propaganda letter (signed by him) to be published on the website of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), a non-partisan federal agency. After
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Ignorant scapegoating: a feel-good pastime for the thick-headed…
Ignorant scapegoating: a feel-good pastime for the thick-headed and big-mouthed Anyone who doubts that racism and religious bigotry are alive and well in Canada in 2013 simply needs to read the online comments for articles about natives or Muslims, or listen to the callers (and sometimes the hosts and guests)
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