The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is expressing alarm over wild Russian boar in Western Canada. The agency in a confidential memo said feral pigs have become an “invasive pest” that threaten farmers: “This critter is costing producers”.
Environment Canada is researching first-ever federal regulation of the tire industry, complaining of a lack of data on toxic waste from factories in four provinces. The disclosure follows a manufacturer’s lawsuit against the department over restrictions on a tire additive rated an ecological risk.
Environment officials in a confidential report concluded tire manufacturers “did not have details” on emissions. The report was released through Access to Information. Industry executives contacted by Blacklock’s did not comment: “There is no available information on water effluent”.
Ethanol producers are disputing criticism a federal regulation mandating use of renewable fuel in every litre of gasoline is costly and pointless for consumers. The Canadian Renewable Fuels Association insisted the ethanol order has brought billions in benefits: “Biofuel support programs have been a dismal failure”.
A federal judge has upheld Environment Canada’s powers to seize artifacts under an international treaty outlawing trade in endangered species. The ruling followed an appeal by a Northwest Territories collector who tried to import antique whalebone carvings that predate the commercial whaling ban: “I wouldn’t do this again”.
Cash-strapped VIA Rail spent more than $100,000 on junkets for Canadian travel writers this year despite a record deficit. Junketeers included the National Post, Montreal Gazette and Canadian Geographic magazine: “Good grief”.
Canada Revenue Agency is suing Swiss-based UBS Bank for records on suspected Canadian tax evaders who’ve hidden cash offshore. The tax department filed an application in Ottawa asking that a federal judge compel the bank’s Canadian subsidiary to surrender documents on certain depositors: “Their identities are known”.
Researchers report slow progress in a landmark program to restore one of Canada’s heritage rivers. New Brunswick’s St. Croix River, once bounding with fish on its run across the border with Maine, has seen the return of a few thousand alewives this season: “It’s more about the ecosystem as a whole now”.
Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson said, “The Arctic is the centre of the world and we think it is the edge.” Stefansson made the North his life; he once ate only meat for an entire year to prove the Inuit diet was nutritionally sound. Stefansson lived to 87.
Canada and the Changing Arctic notes the North remains marginalized as a land of “symbolism and mythology.” Only symbols vary: the midnight sun; an inukshuk lawn ornament; the plucky Arctic Rangers, “a militia unit comprised of local volunteers who are given a minimum of training, a red sweatshirt, a rifle and some ammunition.”
Looming above all is the symbol of an Arctic “cold rush,” the dreamlike prospect of untapped petroleum resources at the top of the world, complete with sloganeering. “Use it or lose it,” the Prime Minister said in 2007. The authors, three professors from the Universities of Toronto, Waterloo and Calgary, lament such “alarmist rhetoric” in the absence of hard facts: no one is sure how much oil there is. And no one knows how much it will cost to exploit it.
And like it or not, Russia and the United States are also Arctic nations: “Rather than setting this up as a ‘polar race’ destined to end in a resource feeding frenzy that will ignore international laws and norms, the federal government should make more effort to clarify Canada’s actual claims.”
So, we lapse into a kind of phony war where Canada declares itself threatened and then pretends to care.
The Prime Minister uttered his “use it or lose it” phrase in a photo-op at CFB Esquimalt, flanked by sailors in Navy whites. Stephen Harper was announcing plans for a $3.1 billion Arctic patrol fleet. Yet the North still has few commercial harbours. And years later not a single new Arctic patrol vessel has been built. No irony was intended.
“Canadians have become convinced that our sovereignty is on ‘thinning ice,’” reports Canada and the Changing Arctic. “This provides senior decision makers, based in southern Canada and possessing a distinctly southern world view, with a convenient pretext to devise ‘stand up for Canada’ strategies that play to a southern audience. Diplomacy and dialogue are marginalized, and a positive short-term outcome – defined as strong political optics with the aura of decisive action – becomes more important than process.”
The professors have ideas. Perhaps Canada might create a Secretary of State for the Arctic; maybe we could pursue co-operative stewardship with other Arctic nations; say, what if Canada embraced the Arctic not as a symbol but a defining reality?
“The time has come for southern Canadians to internalize their responsibilities for the North, not because it is in danger of being stolen away but because it is integral to who we are as a country. A Northern Vision has the potential to unite us all.”
Vilhjalmur Stefansson could not have said it better.
By Holly Doan
Canada and the Changing Arctic by Franklyn Griffiths, Rob Huebert and P. Whitney Lackenbauer; Wilfrid Laurier University Press; 340 pages; ISBN: 978-1-55458-338-6; $34.95
The federal Treasury Board is hiring consultants to help manage an employees’ pension plan that auditors warn could put the budget at risk.
The board said it seeks a “funding policy proposal” to sustain the plan that pays retired public servants an average $33,800 a year: “The plan does not have an explicit funding policy”.
In an unusual ruling a court has overturned a Highway Traffic Act conviction over the conduct of a hectoring judge. A motorist saw his conviction for speeding dismissed after the judge in the case badgered his legal representative and complained the trial was taking too long: “How many trials do I have to do for speeding before people understand?”
A federal anti-trust agency is claiming partial victory in an ongoing three-year court battle for the sake of discount real estate brokers. The Supreme Court yesterday sent the case back for review of the conduct of the country’s largest real estate board: “We’re very happy”.
Rising costs of the justice system amid a declining crime rate point to dysfunction at court, say analysts. The country now spends more than $850 million a year detaining accused without bail before trial, according to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association: “They make mistakes all the time”.
Health Canada must adopt a “bill of rights” for naturopathic medicine, says an award-winning actor who has sued the department over the Food And Drugs Act. Nick Mancuso said federal regulations requiring tests of natural food products that make medicinal claims are arbitrary and harmful: “We have the right to heal our bodies as we wish”.
Industry Canada is being panned over an “unambitious” scheme to promote broadband hook-ups nationwide, including rural subscribers. Analysts said announced investments fall far short of earlier promises of internet service from coast to coast: “This is not a very efficient way to use funds”.
Eight years into a smoking ban in federal prisons, the Correctional Service of Canada is renewing a contract for hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Nicorette gum for inmates. The service declined comment on the contract to supply the nicotine-laced chewing gum: “No one is contesting that second-hand smoke is harmful”.
