Skip to main content

A response to the response

I’m getting pretty tired of not being able to read the news without an urgent need to write a letter to at least one if not several levels of government regarding the wrongheadedness of their pursuits. 

Today, at least, I got a little encouragement. PM Carney’s office replied to me regarding *one* of my messages, assuring me it had been read. Of course, it was the one where I thanked them for deciding to recognize Palestine and stayed mostly in the realm of positivity. 

So *I* replied:

Thank you, Mr Carney, for your attention to this letter. 

Please also note all the other letters I have sent regarding the illegal occupation and gross criminal violation of human rights situation Israel is creation, where I have demanded a real arms embargo (as you have promised we had, knowing it was a flat out lie) and a real refugee evacuation program that is possible to participate in (not full of impossible-to-comply-with procedures).

Please also note that Canadians voted for “elbows up.” Even (most) Conservatives support an “elbows up” approach to the Americans at this moment. Yet all we see from you is roll over and beg. 

Canada absolutely should not join any USA defense programs (the “golden dome” would be a ridiculous concept even if it weren't proposed by Donald Trump and is even worse when it is). 

Canada should not spend another cent on the fighter jet boondoogle (again, especially when it makes our national defense vulnerable to American intervention). If you like planes so much, please purchase waterbombers instead. Those are actually useful for building up not merely causing wanton destruction. 

Canada should not double down on fossil fuel extraction. Aren’t you “the green banker”? Weren’t you making a case for the urgent need for investment in green energies and pulling back from the fossil fuels that are literally destroying the world as we know it? Manitoba has experienced a summer out of hell, driven inside for multiple days in a row due to unbreatheable air on account of forest fires from worsening climate change (and that’s just Winnipeg – to say nothing of the folks wasting time and money being evacuated from their homes for weeks on end). It’s not just ridiculous, it’s downright offensive to talk about military defense and fossil fuel extraction at a time like this.

You *promised* to govern for all Canadians in your victory speech on election night. But all I see so far is governing for short-term growth of capital. This needs to change now. 

Show us those “values” you wrote about in your memoir: humility, honesty, compassion.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our pensions for ICE? Stop it now!

A campaign from LeadNow with a few spicy sentences from me. The CPP is funded by the wages of 22 million people across the country, LeadNow says, and the Investment Board has a responsibility to ensure those savings are not used in ways people fundamentally reject. Dear Mr. John Graham, CEO of CPPIB, and CPPIB board members, I am writing as a contributor to the Canada Pension Plan—one of millions of people whose wages fund this plan and whose future depends on it. This is our CPP, and it must answer to us. I am horrified that CPP investments include companies linked to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In effect, the people who pay into CPP are having their own money used to help fund Trump-era immigration enforcement and the harms associated with it. Canadians are appalled by the actions of ICE. What a betrayal you would use our own money to fund these bullies violating human rights.  CPP is not abstract capital—it is our deferred wages. Contributors should not ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stop the bank

World Beyond War is leading a campaign endorsed by 32 other organizations including Mennonite Action Canada to oppose the Defense, Security and Resilience Bank.  Learn more about the campaign here Or use their template to send your own letter as I did (with tweaks) World Beyond War letter template I am calling for you – Mr Carney, M Champagne, Mr Long, Mr McGuinty – to reject the DSRB. (My MP I trust, is already opposing it.) The proposed war bank would provide a steady flow of public and private funds to weapons manufacturers to facilitate a rapid expansion of military production. Making money off death! The institution’s mandate – to raise public-private funding towards increasing the manufacturing and procurement of weapons – is fundamentally at odds with hopes for a peaceful world. Moreover, the DSRB will mark an escalation in public spending on weapons and militarism, drawing money away from critical spending.  The DSRB would redirect public money away from urgent social ...
Post a Comment
Read more

More genocide

Israel is now committing a second genocide.  Funny thing, when you turn a blind eye to human rights abuses because you think the folks it's happening to are expendable, the abuser doesn't stop; they move on to a new victim.  Israel is seeking to permanently depopulate a large swath of southern Lebanon, ordering the evacuation of all Lebanese south of the Litani River. On Sunday Defence Minister Israel Katz said the IOF will “accelerate the destruction of Lebanese homes in the line of contact villages, to thwart threats to Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah,” which are cities in Gaza that were largely flattened. Since the start of the month Israel has killed over a thousand Lebanese and destroyed large swaths of Beirut. Before Hezbollah launched a half dozen rockets in response to the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Israel violated the fifteen month ‘ceasefire’ 10,000 times, killing 300 Lebanese, according to the UN mission in Leb...
Post a Comment
Read more