Archive for News

It’s disturbing to consider that the decisive factor in delivering a Conservative government in the last election was a personal decision by RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli to name Ralph Goodale in a criminal investigation in the middle of the election period.   Mr. Goodale was later cleared of wrongdoing.     Read more »

I find this article about Omar Khadr summarizes my views:

The civilized world condemns the recruitment of child soldiers. Yet Canada sits quietly by as one of its citizens, Omar Khadr, is prosecuted by the United States for war crimes he allegedly committed at age 15 as a member of al-Qaeda.

It is impossible to square. Al-Qaeda’s recruitment of child soldiers is immoral and abusive; consequently, it is immoral and abusive to prosecute as a war criminal a child recruited by al-Qaeda, and punish him accordingly. We can’t have it both ways.     Read more »

At Chris Tindal’s victory party at the Pear Tree restaurant on Parliament Street last night, we were all pretty excited.  When the polls opened up at 10 pm, the clear leader was Bob Rae for the Liberals.  Chris was just behind Don Meredith, the Conservative candidate, but far ahead of El-Farouk Khaki of the NDP, who looked like he wouldn’t clear 10%.  Then, Chris edged into second place and kept pulling further ahead.  He was at 15% to the Conservatives at 12% and the NDP just about at 10%.  As the polls rolled in, the Conservatives kept losing ground, the NDP kept gaining, but with 2/3 of the polls in, Chris maintained the second place position.  At that point, the Greens were beating the NDP in 3 of the 4 byelections.  Then, Chris was behind by 7 votes to Mr. Khaki.  Then they were tied, then Chris was briefly in the lead again by 6 votes, then behind again.  We left and walked home to discover that with 8 polls left, Chris was leading again, and leading even more with 7 polls left.  Then, with 5 polls left, he was behind by 4 votes.  He ended the night in third place, 36 votes behind the NDP’s Khaki.

The Greens finished in 3rd place in 2 of the 4 ridings.  In 3, we ran very competitively against the NDP.  In one we beat the Conservatives.  This morning, the Star reported on Green Party gains     Read more »

Chris Tindal is a clever boy.  He’s planned a whole urban community with its own farm.  It recycles its water and generates part of its energy needs.  It is a living machine, as communities should be.  The entire community would replace the armoury buildings in Moss Park.  I would vote for the boy, if I still lived in Toronto-Centre.  And if you do live in Toronto-Centre, you have an opportunity to do so on Monday.

I hoped the coming energy revolution was going to be a whole lot more exciting than this.  This is more of the same, only bigger.  More atoms to split, more energy produced, bigger transmission lines.  Also more cost overruns, more nuclear waste, higher risks of accidents, more expensive energy.  Big, BIG, BIG.  This isn’t revolutionary, it’s stupefying.     Read more »