Subject: Water: Macleans "figure out how to sell it to them"
de
The disease is Public-Private-Partnerships. As explained by
Jane Jacobs, corruption is a symptom of the disease and we have
corruption in epidemic proportions. The disease (P3's) is at the root
of almost all of the issues being fought by groups such as ours:
transgenics, globalization, water, energy resources, democracy, intensive
livestock operations, etc.
If we don't get rid of the idea that
Public-Private-Partnerships are acceptable in democratic government, we will
not be able to protect the water supply against exploitation. It is a
very large election issue. This is about water; it could as well be
about seeds or other components of the commons.
CONTENTS (1)
COMMENTS - WATER, PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND ELECTION (2) MY
LETTER TO MACLEANS MAGAZINE (3) REGISTER ELECTION ISSUE (4)
**** THE OFFENDING ARTICLE, NOV 24, MACLEANS MAGAZINE "tone down the emotion
and figure out how to sell it to them" (sell water to the
U.S.) (5) EVOLUTION OF 2 SETS OF ETHICS, ONE FOR THE POLITICAL FUNCTION
AND THE OTHER FOR THE COMMERCIAL FUNCTION IN A SOCIETY (EXCERPT FROM EMAIL
DEC 10, "SMART REGULATIONS -
values").
=================================================
(1)
COMMENTS - WATER, PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND ELECTION
The front
cover of the Nov 24 Edition of Maclean's magazine has a large picture of
George Bush drinking a glass of water, "America is thirsty".
The lead-in
reads: "They're already looking for ways to take our water. We should tone
down the emotion and figure out how to sell it to them." Set this
article by STEVE MAICH (#4 below) into what is known about Canada
today.
We have high levels of chronic corruption in Government. But
"corruption" is NOT the issue; it is an EFFECT, not a CAUSE. Corruption
is the consequence of the failure to keep the commercial and governing
functions in a society separated. Public-Private-Partnerships ("P3's or
PPP's) are the problem. (Reference #5 below.) Deal with P3's and we
will bring down corruption.
Steve Maich advises us to start selling
water to the U.S.. What we know about a Government that embraces
Public-Private-Partnerships is that the commons is sold off, or sacked at the
expense of the society in general.
The abolishment of PPP's is an
Election issue. If they are allowed to continue, water WILL be sold the
same as other natural resources - the rape of the commons with all the
benefits going to transnational corporations.
Steve Maich says that we
should "sell, or see (Canada's) most vital resource siphoned off from the
south. (by the U.S.)".
From email Nov 11, "Water: Thirsty Uncle
looks north & Baltimore Sun, Lack of Water hinders growth":
"It's not the crude: What the U.S. most needs is our water. We must not
let it flow through our hands, says former Alberta premier PETER
LOUGHEED
Friday, November 11, 2005 Page A19, Globe & Mail I
(Lougheed) predict that the United States will be coming after our
fresh water aggressively within three to five years. We must prepare, to
ensure we aren't trapped in an ill-advised response. It would be a major
mistake for Canada to handle this issue badly. With climate change and
growing needs, Canadians will need all the fresh water we can conserve,
particularly in the western provinces. ..."
The article in Macleans is
extremely problematic. Canadians need to clean up their act vis-a-vis
the environment and water in particular.
What's the answer, what's our
response to the growing water shortage in the U.S.? ... We have seen in the
"developed nations" a large drop in the number of children per family.
More young women choose not to have families. Is that part of the
answer? ... a more even distribution of wealth and better public education
that enables people to achieve the potential with which they have been
endowed, in order to bring about a reversal in population growth? Some
problem-solving that looks at the long-term?
RE: Nov 24, Steve Maich, "America is thirsty They're
already looking for ways to take our water."
Steve's idea "We should tone
down the emotion and figure out how to sell it to them." is a recipe for more
Government corruption and the theft of the water supply in Canada.
Think it through:
Public-Private-Partnerships (P3's) are entrenched in
Canadian Government, started by the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney in the
early 1980's and continuing under the Liberals. The corruption that
accompanies them - a system where the Regulator is a co-investor with
the Corporations-To-Be-Regulated leaves us with no effective
regulation. You have only to study a few web-sites of the Government of
Canada in order to see the "client" relationship and mentality. (P3's
figure prominently in Agriculture and in Health Canada in the sphere of
biotechnology (e.g. the contractural arrangement between Ag Canada and
Monsanto to develop herbicide-tolerant wheat).)
The Government of
Canada suffers from chronic and high-level corruption. The corruption is
predictable: Jane Jacobs' "Systems of Survival, the Moral Foundations
of Commerce and Politics" sets forth a framework for understanding that the
system of governance will succumb to corruption if we fail to appreciate the
functional roles of two separately evolved sets of ethics, one for the
commercial function in a society and the other for governance
(guardianship).
"Societies need both commercial and guardian work . the
two types are prone to corruption if they stray across either their
functional or moral barriers."
The formation of Public Private
Partnerships is not only "straying across" the functional barriers, it is the
having of intercourse between the two. With corruption, people of power and
influence sack "the commons" at the expense of others in the society.
Democratic governance disappears. Look in Africa - the same process is
at work here in Canada. The Government does not know that its
responsibility is to citizens, not to corporate interests. It does not know
that its job is to protect the commons.
Jacobs says: "The
relationship between a regulator and the regulated. must never become one
in which the regulator loses sight of the principle that it regulates only
in the public interest and not in the interest of the
regulated."
Steve Maich's prescription for selling water is to abandon
our water supply to corporate and "power" interests. The entrenchment
of the Public Private Partnership system of governance in Canada ensures that
it can be no other way. Oil and gas reserves, forests, and other
natural resources are being sold off in a fire sale; water is to be next on
the auction block.
Thanks Steve, but I'll stay and fight for water.
No one has a "stake" in the water supply - it belongs to us all and to other
life forms. If the Government won't protect it, citizens will.
It's not up for sale or exploitation. There's nothing emotional about
it - it's a matter of recognizing the realities of our world.
Yours
truly, Sandra Finley (contact info)
(3) REGISTER ELECTION
ISSUE
There are a number of web-sites where election issues can be
raised. The Macleans article (below) scares me. I will start a
list of web-sites where we can go to enter P3's as an Election issue and
circulate it to everyone.
By the way, I have been in a quandary as to how
I would vote in the 2006 Election. Last time around I voted for the
Green Party. I have heard two interviews on CBC Radio that gave me reason for
optismism and both were NDP candidates: one interview was with 70-year
old Ed Schreyer, former Premier of Manitoba and Governor General of Canada
from 1979 to 1984. I will try to find a transcript of the interview; it
was the most down-to-earth straight-forward statement of the ills that beset
Canada that I've heard from a politician. Schreyer wants those, the
real issues, debated. The phenomenal depletion of natural resources was
addressed. Ed Schreyer is running in Manitoba,
Selkirk-Interlake.
The second interview was with Helen Yum who is running
in Wascana against Ralph Goodale. Yum's Father died not too long after
the family arrived in Canada, leaving her Mother with young children.
They were on social assistance. From that humble beginning Helen earned
a BA in Journalism from the University of Regina and a law degree from the
University of Saskatchewan. She is a now a lawyer, married and with one
daughter. She has been employed in both the private sector and with the
government of Saskatchewan. As a journalist, she worked in rural Saskatchewan
and in Hong Kong. (Information courtesy of CBC, http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/riding/240/#HelenYum
.) Helen struck me as another down-to-earth, sincere candidate who has
the potential to make a difference. Her motivation is right, as is
Schreyer's - the public interest.
Ralph Goodale, Liberal Federal
Minister of Finance has helped to move a lot of Government money into the
hands of the biotech companies. (Reference: page 49, "The Real Board of
Directors, The Construction of Biotechnology Policy in Canada, 1980 - 2002"
by Devlin Kuyek. (http://www.ramshorn.bc.ca/Real_BoD.pdf.)
To rid Canada of the menace of Public-Private-Partnerships, I will try to
work in the Wascana riding after Christmas. Unfortunately, locals know
that Ralph sends a lot of money to Saskatchewan. "Goodale was first
elected MP for the former riding of Assiniboia in 1974. ("Electoral
boundaries changed and the new riding is Wascana). His most recent win, in
2004, was by 11,858 votes over Conservative Doug Cryer. Goodale has held a
number of cabinet portfolios, including agriculture, natural resources, and
public works and services. He is currently finance minister." - info courtesy
of the CBC.) Yum has a huge battle on her hands.
America
is thirsty They're already looking for ways to take our water. We should tone
down the emotion and figure out how to sell it to them.
by STEVE
MAICH
On the border between Nevada and Arizona sits Lake Mead, the
biggest man-made reservoir in the United States, created when the Hoover Dam
was built in the 1930s. It is the shimmering oasis that makes urban
life possible in the middle of the bleached desert landscape of the Mojave.
It's also the epicentre of North America's burgeoning water
crisis.
All around the 880 km of Mead's rocky shoreline, a bright white
calcium deposit, known to locals as the bathtub ring, marks a high water
level that is a quickly fading memory. Drought has dropped the surface of the
lake 20 m below the bathtub ring over the past five years. Boulder Beach,
once a popular day trip destination for nearby residents, is now about 300 m
from the water's edge. The boat launch and fuel pumps of what used to be a
marina are abandoned in the middle of what now looks like a parking lot. The
marina and its luxury yachts chased the water to a new location a couple of
miles down the road more than a year ago.
It would all seem funny if
it weren't so scary. Lake Mead is the principal source of drinking water for
the Las Vegas valley -- the fastest growing urban area in the United States.
In all, more than three trillion gallons of water have disappeared due to
drought, evaporation and overuse in five years, raising profound questions
about the sustainability of growth in the U.S. southwest. The Colorado River,
which not only feeds Lake Mead but also drives the turbines of the Hoover
Dam, is a critical source of drinking water and power for much of southern
California and Arizona. And between 2000 and early 2005, its flow dropped by
almost half.
Las Vegas has responded with some of the most aggressive
water conservation measures on the continent. Every drop of indoor water is
treated and either reused for irrigation or returned to the Colorado. Strict
limits are placed on all outdoor spraying, and the water authority pays
homeowners US$1 per square foot to pull up lawn grass and replace it with
less thirsty desert vegetation. All this helps, but it doesn't fix a thing.
"This drought has been a huge wake-up call," says Patricia Mulroy, head of
the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "But conservation alone cannot solve the
problem. If we continue to grow as we have, at some point we simply need more
water in the system." That's why Las Vegas is steaming ahead with a highly
controversial plan to build a US$2-billion, 400-km pipeline to transport
groundwater from the northern part of the state to slake the thirst of a city
whose population is expected to double over the next decade.
The
problems facing Las Vegas are part of a developing crisis slowly tightening
its grip on much of the world. As the global population grows and developing
economies expand, the demand for safe, secure water will accelerate just as
it has in the fastest-growing pockets of the U.S. In response, much of the
world is embracing the need for large-scale water trade and transport, just
as Las Vegas has. Last year, Turkey and Israel finalized a deal to ship 50
billion litres a year from the Manavgat River to help supply Israel's growing
population and agricultural needs. Several countries, including Greece and
Cyprus, already import water and more are making plans and striking deals to
ensure their farms and cities continue to thrive. North America is no
exception. Engineers agree that, if Nevada can pipe water 400 km south,
eventually it could pipe it all the way from the Canadian border.
But
Canada, the most water-rich nation on the planet, wants no part of this new
world. And that puts our priorities on a collision course with the needs of
our biggest trading partner and most essential ally. Already the White House
has mused about the need to open the Canada-U.S. border to water exports, and
dozens of communities are lining up to reform a 96-year-old treaty that
limits the amount drawn from the Great Lakes. This country is in a position
to provide a solution that would yield enormous economic and humanitarian
benefits for the entire continent, even the world. For now, though, the
forces aligned against trade in water are firmly in control. A 2002 survey by
the Centre for Research and Information on Canada found that 69 per cent of
Canadians are opposed to water exports, and Ottawa has obediently bowed to
public pressure, instituting a blanket ban on exports from boundary waters
three years ago. That was a politically savvy move at the time, but the day
may be coming when Canada will face an even starker choice: sell, or see its
most vital resource siphoned off from the south.
The first hint of water
tension surfaced in 2001, when U.S. President George W. Bush made an offhand
comment that he'd like to begin discussions with Ottawa about a framework for
international trade in water to alleviate shortages. Canadian reaction was
swift, shrill and unequivocal: "We're absolutely not going to export water,
period," then-environment minister David Anderson said. The issue quickly
faded from the headlines, but not from the public consciousness. Whether it's
inherent distrust of corporations, latent anti-Americanism, or simple fear of
ecological destruction, Canadians recoil at the very thought of treating
water like oil or natural gas, or any of the other commodities that form the
bedrock of the Canadian economy. In the words of Maude Barlow, national
chairperson of the Council of Canadians and the country's leading water
crusader, "Water is part of the Earth's heritage and must be preserved in the
public domain for all time. Instead of allowing this vital resource to become
a commodity sold to the highest bidder, we believe that access to clean water
is a fundamental human right."
But even if that's true, and water is
not a commodity like any other, then it's a right being denied to much of the
world's population, even in rich countries. All across the U.S., communities
are drying out. Drought has cut the flow of the Missouri River by a third,
and intensive farming in the Midwest has substantially drained the enormous
Ogallala aquifer that stretches from South Dakota to Texas. Even in northern
climates like Wisconsin and Illinois, residents are dealing with dry wells
that have failed to keep pace with soaring demand. When the U.S. government
surveyed the 50 states in 2003, more than two-thirds said they expect to face
some sort of water shortage within the next 10 years. The situation is even
worse in the developing world. The United Nations estimates that by
2025, two-thirds of the world population, or almost 5.5 billion people, will
face chronic water shortages, and scientists expect global warming will only
make things worse.
In this context, Canada is a country of
unbelievable water wealth. This country boasts more than 20 per cent of the
world's fresh water, and the flow of rain, spring water and snowmelt that
courses through our waterways represents seven per cent of the planet's
renewable water supply -- all to satisfy the needs of just 0.5 per cent of
the world's population. This fundamental gap between global demand and
Canada's ready supply has already attracted several business consortiums over
the past two decades with plans to skim lake water for export. A couple even
managed to garner the support of provincial governments in Newfoundland and
Ontario in the 1990s, but those plans were quickly scuttled by public outcry
and federal intervention.
But as the global water crisis deepens over the
next two decades, this country's intransigence will prove increasingly
difficult to maintain. Canada is offside even the UN's position on the
matter. In 1997, the UN said that international water markets and trade are
likely the only way to alleviate chronic shortages worldwide, while
discouraging water waste in areas where it's plentiful. But it's not just a
humanitarian issue: there is an enormous commercial opportunity and economic
imperative at stake. If Canada insists on opting out of international water
trade, that decision will almost surely do severe damage to the country's
economy and standard of living.
Water is "liquid fuel for growth,"
says Robert Glennon, a professor of law at the University of Arizona, and one
of the world's leading authorities on water policy. Just as human beings
can't survive without moisture, economies can die of thirst. And if the U.S.
economy continues to be plagued with shortages, the implications for Canada's
No. 1 export market will be devastating. "Water is no longer perceived as a
gift from God, but a commodity for which one has to pay," says Dr. Isabel
Al-Assar, an international trade expert based at the University of Dundee,
Scotland. "Water will become like oil one day, I have no doubt about
it."
If Al-Assar is right, then Canada, through a miraculous stroke of
lucky geography, is sitting on a liquid gold mine. Pinpointing exactly how
much Canada could reap by selling fresh water depends heavily on a long list
of questions: what price would buyers be willing to pay? How would it
be transported? How much could be safely withdrawn without damaging
sensitive ecosystems? But in 2001, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy,
a Winnipeg-based think tank, constructed a theoretical business model
showing that if Manitoba could sell 1.3 trillion gallons of water per year
(roughly the amount that drains from provincial rivers into Hudson Bay in
only 17 hours) at the same price charged for desalinated sea water in
California, the province could reap annual profits of close to $4 billion. In
1992, the World Bank estimated that worldwide trade in water could be worth
US$1 trillion within the next generation. Even the opponents of water
trade acknowledge that much of that market could belong to Canada.
The
alternative is not pretty. As water shortages worsen around the
world, increasing attention is sure to focus on Canada's water usage, and
this country has a woeful story to tell. Canada has already been singled out
by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as one of
the world's most profligate wasters of water. On a per capita basis,
Canadians consume 1.6 million litres of water a year -- twice as much as
people in France and four times as much as the average Swede. The vast
majority of that is lost through primitive irrigation techniques in the
agriculture industry, but personal waste is also a major culprit. And we're
getting worse, while most of the world is learning to be more responsible.
Between 1980 and 1999, Canada's total water use rose by 25.7 per cent, while
water consumption in the U.S. declined over the same period. Several experts
have suggested that the abundance of water in Canada and the fact that
Canadians pay little for access to it has contributed to a culture of waste.
And if the country refuses to share its water wealth in the decades ahead,
it's not hard to anticipate the reaction around the world. Canada will look
like the neighbour who leaves his sprinkler on all night while the rest of
the street dies of thirst.
A tarnished reputation, however, is the
least of Canada's concerns. Already, pressure is building in the U.S. to tap
new sources of water, and replace supplies depleted through years of
intensive farming, population sprawl and explosive economic growth. And as
George W. Bush hinted four years ago, Canada is seen as the logical solution
to the looming crisis. "I predict that the United States will be coming after
our fresh water aggressively within three to five years," former Alberta
premier Peter Lougheed wrote in a recent article for the Globe and Mail. "I
hope that when the day comes, Canada will be ready."
If water is
indeed to become a flashpoint in Canada-U.S. relations, the Great Lakes are
almost sure to provide the spark. The importance of the lakes to both
countries is obvious. They collectively supply drinking water to more than 45
million people and irrigation for a quarter of Canada's agriculture, and they
provide the lifeblood of the industrial economies in Ontario, Quebec, New
York, Michigan and Illinois. But vast as they are, the lakes are fragile.
They were created by receding glaciers, and only about one per cent of their
volume is replenished by rainfall each year, which means substantial
withdrawals from the system have far-reaching impacts.
Already, the city
of Chicago pulls more than two billion gallons of water a day from Lake
Michigan and flushes it into a sanitary and shipping channel that drains into
the Mississippi River. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has capped the amount
of water the city can withdraw, most experts agree little can be done if
Chicago decides to increase its take to satisfy a population expected to grow
by 30 per cent in the next 20 years. And Chicago isn't the only community
clamouring to tap the enormous bounty of the Great Lakes. Several counties
that currently straddle the watershed in Wisconsin and Illinois have
petitioned to get access to lake water to shore up dwindling groundwater
supplies, and environmentalists worry that if they get access, it could open
the door to a never-ending escalation of demands from further and further
afield.
Provincial and state governments are currently negotiating a deal
that would place limits on transfers of water out of the watershed. But even
if it is approved, the agreement would be non-binding, and the International
Joint Commission that administers border waters has already received a
legal opinion saying that the states and provinces do not have the authority
to prohibit transfers of water to other parts of the country. Similar
demands have recently bubbled up in the West, with U.S. communities
demanding greater access to cross-border water supplies, including the
Souris, Milk and St. Mary's rivers.
The vulnerability of Canada's
southern watersheds was highlighted by the recent Devil's Lake controversy,
in which North Dakota diverted potentially dangerous lake water into the Red
River system that drains into Manitoba. Canadian officials complained but
were ultimately powerless to stop the diversion, which many fear will have
serious consequences for the health of Lake Winnipeg. The lesson was that
Canada's water systems can only really be protected through co-operation, not
litigation. If Canada chooses to fight rather than share, legal experts agree
there is little to stop the U.S. from abandoning the border waters treaty. As
Adèle Hurley, director of the program on water issues at the Munk Centre for
International Studies, has said, "It seems likely that the U.S. will act
aggressively to ensure its water security." And if that determination were to
result in large-scale diversions from the Great Lakes, or intensive mining of
underground aquifers that straddle the border, the effect would be like
dozens of giant straws draining the lifeblood of Canada's environment and
economy.
Still, the vast majority of Canadians would prefer to keep
fighting with tighter controls, and more ironclad assurances that Ottawa will
never allow water to flow across the border, rather than facing up to the
irresistible forces of supply and demand now shaping the world order in
water. Even Lougheed, one of the staunchest proponents of the Canada-U.S.
Free Trade Agreement, recently came out against water trade. "We Canadians
should be prepared to respond firmly with a forceful 'No. We need it for
ourselves,' " Lougheed wrote.
Many of the objections, however, are
based on misinformation. Most Canadians, for example, believe Canada has no
water to spare -- despite the fact that, of the 18 principal watershed
systems in Canada, 15 are currently providing less than 10 per cent of their
annual renewable supplies to human uses, according to StatsCan. There is also
a widespread belief, fostered by anti-trade activists, that if Canada were to
agree to sell any portion of its water, the U.S. could demand unlimited
access to the resource under NAFTA. But several legal opinions have debunked
this notion. The University of Arizona's Glennon points out that NAFTA and
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) both include specific
passages allowing countries to limit trade in any good to safeguard
threatened ecosystems or to protect human health. Both treaties also state
that countries can limit trade to conserve exhaustible natural
resources.
Nevertheless, ultra-nationalists like Barlow continue to play
on Canadians' fears of losing control and ending up dry. To the critics of
water trade, deficits in the rest of the world are simply not Canada's
problem to solve. In this country, stories of U.S. water shortages conjure
images of golf courses in the desert, and evoke little sympathy. Andrew
Nikiforuk, Toronto-based author of Political Diversions: Decision Time on
Taking Water from the Great Lakes, and a vocal opponent of water trade, puts
it bluntly. "As for the water crisis in the Southwest, tell them to move," he
says.
That kind of talk rankles Dr. Dale Devitt, a soft-spoken professor
of soil and water at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, who has spent most
of his career studying the science behind Nevada's water challenges. He
advises the region on ways to conserve water, and is working with companies
to find ways to reduce the amount needed to support plant life in the desert.
"It's easy for people to criticize and say we don't use our water well," he
says. "But people in the north rely on heating oil to survive winter. People
in Florida and Louisiana get hit regularly by hurricanes, and in Oklahoma by
tornados. Here we have problems with water -- but every place has natural
challenges to overcome."
As far as Devitt is concerned, water markets
are the only way that the profound gaps in water supply will be solved. New
technologies in water filtration and desalinization will help, he says, but
only by allowing water to flow freely will the world ensure that all those
who need water get it, and all those who have it, use it responsibly. "I hope
that marketing of water will happen at some point," he says. "Because it's
only going to get tougher. If we think things are tight right now, wait 10 or
20 years. It's going to get downright nasty."
To proponents like
Devitt, Glennon and Al-Assar, the status quo is as hypocritical as it is
unsustainable. If it's okay to use water to irrigate crops that are then
shipped across national borders; if it's okay to bottle millions of litres a
year for sale in corner stores around the world; if it's okay to divert water
to make steel or refine oil that is then shipped across national borders,
then why not the water itself?
Pat Mulroy agrees, but she isn't holding
her breath waiting for Canadian exports to quench her region's considerable
thirst. "People are irrational when it comes to water. They get very
emotional about it, and that's not going to change." For now, she and
scientists like Devitt keep working to stretch what they have and delay that
day of reckoning, when there simply isn't enough water to go around. And
while they look to the skies and hope for a little relief, Canada's treasure
of Blue Gold stays safely locked away from those who might sell it, and those
who might drink it.
(5)
EVOLUTION OF 2 SETS OF ETHICS, ONE FOR THE POLITICAL FUNCTION AND THE OTHER
FOR THE COMMERCIAL FUNCTION IN A SOCIETY (EXCERPT FROM EMAIL DEC 10, "SMART
REGULATIONS - values").
The outcome is EXTREMELY predictable.
You have only to read Jane Jacobs' "Systems of Survival, A Dialgoue on the
Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics".
Your work and mine is
dependent upon a properly-functioning system of democratic governance.
Jacobs' analysis sets forth a framework for understanding that the system
will succumb to disintegration if we fail to appreciate the functional roles
of two separately evolved sets of ethics, one for the commercial function in
a society and the other for governance (guardianship).
"Societies need
both commercial and guardian work . the two types are prone to corruption if
they stray across either their functional or moral barriers." The
formation of "Public Private Partnerships" is not only "straying
across" the functional barriers, it is the having of intercourse between the
two. The consequences are exactly what Jacobs tells
you: corruption. Look in Africa - the same process is at work here in
Canada. With corruption, people of power and influence sack "the commons" at
the expense of others in the society.
"The relationship between a
regulator and the regulated. must never become one in which the regulator
loses sight of the principle that it regulates only in the public
interest and not in the interest of the regulated."
Jacobs
warns: " ideally ethical behavior is understood and embraced by
a majority of citizens in a society - a more efficacious state than
legislated standards. It is very costly for a society to recover
a lost moral fabric."
Then we have Justice Krever, Commission of
Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada, 1996 "Industry can't be regulated
by government - and for environmental and health reasons they must be - if
that government is in bed with them."
Mae-Wan Ho, Genetic engineering -
Dream or Nightmare?, 1998 "To reassure us, they lie to us, and then treat us
as idiots by insisting on things we all know are untrue. Not only does this
prevent a reasonable debate from taking place, but it also creates a very
unhealthy relationship between citizens and their
elected representatives."
John Ralston Saul, "Health Care at the End
of the Twentieth Century", 1999 "The Panel identified. serious concerns about
the undermining of the scientific basis for risk regulation in Canada due to.
the conflict of interest created by giving to regulatory agencies the
mandates both to promote the development of agricultural technologies and
to regulate it."
From John Kenneth Galbraith's "The Economics of Innocent
Fraud - Truth for our Time", published in 2004 : "... As the corporate
interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves,
predictably, the corporate interest. That is its purpose. ...One obvious
result has been well-justified doubt as to the quality of much present
regulatory effort. There is no question but that corporate influence extends
to the regulators. . Needed is independent, honest, professionally competent
regulation ... This last must be recognized and countered. There is no
alternative to effective supervision. ."
Globe & Mail editorial
following the Westray Mine disaster, Dec. 2, 1997 "Science is not bad, but
there is bad science." Genetic engineering is bad science working with
big business for quick profit against the public good.
SO: our
experience and the thinkers of the day tell us the same thing:
the corruption and break-down of the rule of law in Canada have their
roots in "public-private-partnerships". The most egregious examples are
in the area of biotechnology where the Governments have taken to bed the most
corrupt and corrupting of partners - the chemical/pharmaceutical/biotech
complex of companies. (Monsanto fined $700 million in Alabama, Dow Chemical
fined $1 million by the Attorney General of New York State, Monsanto found
guilty of bribery in Indonesia, Monsanto and attempted bribery over Bovine
Growth Hormone in Canada, Senate Hearing, Bill Moyers' documentary on PBS,
"Trade Secrets", Intervenors on the side of Monsanto in the Schmeiser case
are BioTec Canada and AgWest Biotech, both are "Government fronts"
(publicly funded organizations but their name doesn't tell you that), etc.
etc.)
========================================= Email from: Sandra
Finley Saskatoon, SK 306-373-8078 sabest1@sasktel.net
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