What Gets More Expensive When Oil Prices Rise

Plastic

About 40% of an oil barrel yields gasoline; the rest generates a variety of other petroleum-based products, according to the Department of Energy. Anything made out of plastic is derived from petrochemicals--chemical products made from petroleum--and therefore, its production depends on the price of that barrel.


The How's and Why's of Replacing the Whole Barrel

Petroleum-based products are around us, in us


Health Care

Besides delivery charges, the cost of manufacturing certain medical products depends on oil prices. Heart valves, artificial limbs and other kinds of medical equipment contain petroleum-based plastics. Antihistamines, antibiotics, antibacterials, analgesics and many other items found at pharmacies and hospitals use petrochemicals. 

Medicine After Oil

Cosmetic And Household Products

Deodorants, soaps and lotions are all made from petrochemicals. Vinyl flooring, floor wax and lots of house-cleaning supplies also contain oil. If manufacturers need to pay more to produce these products, their prices at retail stores will likely increase as well.

Petroleum Products
Products Made From Oil

Shipping

It might make sense to buy things online and have items delivered to your front door instead of burning gas on shopping trips. But shipping companies also use planes, trucks, ocean vessels and railroads--all of which require oil. FedEx and UPS make customers pay fuel surcharges in addition to regular shipping costs in order to offset increases in the price of oil.

FedEx : Fuel Surcharges

UPS : Fuel Surcharge

Shopping

Unfortunately the items you see in stores don't grow on shelves. Most products were once on a truck. As gas prices go up, so do delivery costs. Shop owners will offset an increase in costs by charging you more for their goods.

Small firms prep for rise in gas prices


Things That Grow From The Ground

Farmers need fuel to run their tractors. This means you'll be paying more for fruits and vegetables. You'll also be spending more to maintain your home landscaping--lots of lawn equipment burns fuel. 

Fabric

Nylon and polyester are made in part from petroleum-based fibers. This means the cost of your workout attire might be affected by the price of oil.

Plane Tickets

Deutsche Bank analyst Micheal Linenberg recently predicted that to offset higher fuel costs, airlines will be increasing fares and decreasing the number of flights and sale offers. If you are thinking of vacationing anytime soon, book your plane ticket now.

Car Maintenance

Petroleum-based lubricants--such as transmission fluid, grease and motor oil--are what make your automobile function properly. High petrol prices mean that these materials will likely cost more to produce. When you go to the repair garage, don't be surprised to see higher fees for maintenance costs. 

Public Transport

If you live in a city, then you probably expect to pay a certain rate for using public transport. Increased oil prices will likely affect that fare in the long run.

Once-Peaceful Canada Turns Militaristic

Once-Peaceful Canada Turns Militaristic; Blowback Follows

Long-awaited anti-terror legislation introduced today by the Conservatives would strengthen protection of intelligence sources, but it stops short of shielding an identity crucial to proving someone's innocence.

As expected, the government bill also gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service more latitude to obtain a court-ordered warrant authorizing security investigations abroad.

In addition, the legislation tweaks the CSIS Act to prohibit the naming of individuals who might be involved in covert operations in the future.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=5712979

CSIS powers beefed up under new bill tabled by Steven Blaney

Experts cautious about boost in powers for spy agency

13 Weird and Wacky Facts About Toronto's Mayors

Rob Ford, you'll never out-weird your predecessors

6 Toronto mayors who behaved badly before Ford

List of mayors of Toronto

William Lyon Mackenzie

Toronto's first mayor helped lead the Upper Canada Rebellion against the colonial regime that dominated the country in his day. Rebels marched down Yonge Street with plans to reach the home of Lt.-Gov. Sir Francis Bond Head. Mackenzie and the rebels were intercepted at Montgomery's Tavern and defeated. Future mayors would rob his home and try to shoot him.

George Gurnett
Toronto's fourth mayor tortured an opposing candidate by having him stripped, beaten, tarred and feathered. The feathers were so stuck to the candidate's body that he had to peel off his own skin to get them off.

John Powell
Toronto's fifth mayor had been involved in putting down the Upper Canada Rebellion. He killed a rebel, then tried to shoot William Lyon MacKenzie, Toronto's first mayor, but the gun jammed. He was elected anyway.

George Monro
How many times has a sex scandal vaulted a mayor INTO office? That was true of George Monro, Toronto's sixth mayor, who won the job after it turned out that the incumbent, John Powell, had rented out a property to be used as a brothel.

Henry Sherwood
Poor William Lyon MacKenzie. Not only had John Powell tried to shoot him, but Toronto's seventh mayor, Henry Sherwood, broke into the man's house! He led a drunken mob, which proceeded to destroy a printing press at MacKenzie's newspaper office and throw it into the harbour.

William Howland
And you thought Rob Ford's crusade against graffiti was puritanical. Hogtown's 25th mayor came up with the motto "Toronto the Good" and campaigned against liquor, gambling and prostitution. It was like having "Boardwalk Empire's" Nelson van Alden as your mayor.

Ernest Macdonald
Can't fault a man for trying. Toronto's 30th mayor finally landed the job after running for public office 17 times. Ernest Macdonald's reign was brief (one year) but eventful: he was boorish with city commissioners, who refused to hand over documents that would allow him to deliver his inaugural council address. He died of syphilis after losing a bid for re-election.

Thomas Church
Toronto's 37th mayor (at left) despised bilingual money and was mocked by Ernest Hemingway.

Pretty Mean City

A new “biography” charts the dark side of Toronto’s prosperity

Thomas Foster
Toronto's 40th mayor was so tight with money that he preferred to pay back robbery victims rather than add to Toronto's police force.

Sam McBride
Toronto's 41st mayor helped to create the Toronto Transit Commission. He was also known for taking swings at council members, even smacking them with agenda packages. He even slammed a councillor's head against a wall. Oh, and he also cheated on his taxes.

Allan Lamport
Rob Ford wasn't wrong about city hall excess, he was just several years too late. Allan Lamport (right), Toronto's 50th mayor, spent an estimated $373,000 of taxpayers' money on booze, cigars, dinners and room service at the lavish Royal York Hotel.

He was also known for bizarre quotes such as, "The only thing you'll catch swimming in Lake Ontario is dead fish" or "If anyone's going to stab me in the back, I want to be there."

Meet a Toronto Mayor: Allan Lamport

Mel Lastman
It's tough to know where to begin with Mel Lastman, Toronto's eccentric 62nd mayor. For now, let's just recall that he welcomed famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma to city hall with — what else? — a yo-yo.

Pretty Mean City 


David Miller
David Miller, Toronto's 63rd mayor, went to school with Prince Andrew.

Why David Miller doesn't read the papers

U.S. Meat Products That Are Banned Abroad

American Beef

Much of the U.S. beef cattle are fed synthetic hormones in the feedlots prior to slaughter. The chemicals are essentially growth hormones meant to increase the net amount of meat produced from each cow, but numerous concerns have been raised (by the National Cancer Association, no less) about the high incidence of hormonal cancers produced as well. As early as 1989, the EEC (European Economic Community) put its collective foot down and said that’s not okay, and banned the treated beef from being sold in any E.U. country, though some of those restrictions have since relaxed depending on the hormones used. There have also been other issues like mad cow disease, leading to China also banning American beef products. Ironically, the U.S. has banned much of the Europe’s beef products, too, because of mad cow disease. 

The Daily Meal: 10 Countries That Banned McDonald's


North Korea
Bolivia
Macedonia
Ghana
Zimbabwe
Iceland
Yemen
Bermuda
Montenegro
Kazakhstan

Ractopamine

Pigs, Cows, and Turkeys Fed Ractopamine 
Safety have slammed the U.S. for its continued use of ractopamine saying it can cause anxiety and an increased heart rate in humans. As noted by the FDA, it can also increases injury and lameness in pigs. The U.S.’s position is that the use of ractopamine favors agricultural trade over the health risks. 

Farmed Salmon

As overfishing of our oceans is a serious environmental concern, the U.S. errs in favor of farmed salmon for mass consumption. However, like many other American meat products, farmed salmon is raised on a concoction of grain, antibiotics, and other drugs rendering it not at all as wholesome as we may think it is. Factory-farmed fish are intensively confined and are fed a steady diet of antibiotics and other drugs  to combat the unnatural and squalid conditions of the pens. This often results in gray-colored flesh, which is then counteracted by dosing the fish with synthetic astaxanthin made from petrochemicals — which is banned in Australia and New Zealand. 

Arsenic-laced Chicken Meat

Last year the FDA finally admitted that American chicken meat contained cancer-causing arsenic. Despite the fact that arsenic is a well-known toxin and carcinogen it’s often added to chicken feed in the U.S. to help promote growth and kill parasites. In 1999, serious health concerns prompted the European Union to ban arsenic-based feed additives. Even some states, like  Maryland, have pushed back on using arsenic in the feedstock — but, by and large, it’s still widely used. 

10 Foods and Drinks Banned in America


Haggis, Casu Marzu, Sassafras Oil, Pig’s Blood Cake, Shark Fin, Fugu (Japanese Blowfish), Unpasteurized Milk, Absinthe, Horse Meat, Foie Gras.

Chicken Washed With Chlorine

Generally speaking, American-raised chickens are bred in incredibly cramped conditions. Thousands of birds are literally stuffed inside massive warehouses and spend their lives standing, sleeping, and eating in their own waste. It makes sense then, that the meat picks up a lot of pathogens. After the chickens are slaughtered, they’re washed in chlorine to rid them of some of nastiest germs. The European Union is not having it.  Convinced the process is dangerous to humans because the chlorine likely lingers in the meat, they’ve banned these chemical baths across the E.U. They’ve also banned the chlorine-bathed chicken from the U.S., to boot. 

Milk From Cows Given rBGH

Some of the mercurial concoctions of growth hormones that are routinely pumped into U.S. meat products are not just constrained to the meat alone. rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), for example, is commonly fed to cows to dramatically increase milk production. While legal in the U.S. since being approved by the FDA in 1993, rBGH is not permitted in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and the entire European Union due to human health concerns. 

Schools Ban Junk Food

Justin Trudeau's new memoir, "Common Ground"

The book contains a number of surprising revelations about the Liberal leader and his family that aren't generally known, despite a lifetime lived in the public eye.

Here are 10 things you may not know:


— When youngest brother Michel was swept by an avalanche into B.C.'s Kokanee Lake in 1998, his death had a profound impact on the family, especially Trudeau's father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. A lifelong devout Catholic, Pierre "seemed angry with God;" his faith was weakened, as well as his physical constitution.

"The lights began to dim in my father's soul when Michel died," Justin writes of his father, who died two years later.

By contrast, Justin, a "lapsed Catholic" at the time, says the tragedy caused him to "welcome God's presence into my life" and to "reaffirm the core of the Christian beliefs I retain to this day."

— When Pierre was diagnosed with prostate cancer and chose not to pursue treatment, he did not tell his eldest son. Justin, who was teaching at a school in Vancouver at the time, was told only when it appeared the disease had entered its terminal phase.

It had been "Dad's orders to keep me in the dark," Trudeau writes. "My father knew I would drop everything I was doing in Vancouver and return to Montreal the moment I heard about his condition. He didn't want me to quit on my students before the school year was over."

— Trudeau's mother, Margaret, enrolled him in ballet classes when he was six years old. She gave up on the classes after literally having to drag him kicking and screaming out the door and being admonished by a workman at 24 Sussex to "give the kid a break."

— At their "austere" art deco home in Montreal, Pierre had a floor that was "strictly off limits to all but him," housing his bedroom, his study, a library and a hallway lined with mementoes and photos from world leaders.

Pierre imposed rules about the language to be spoken on each floor. The top floor, which included the kitchen and living room, was strictly French. He would reprimand Justin and his friends if he heard them speaking English on that floor.

The three brothers had their own floor where they engaged in much play-fighting, including judo and wielding sticks and swords.

"There were few rules, other than no punches in the face and no biting, and if someone got hurt, we stopped."

— The play fights sometimes became real. On one occasion, when Justin was driving his brothers to their mother's cottage, "for some bizarre reason, we got into a raging argument about who would control the car windows."

"It got so heated that I pulled over to the side of the road and we all piled out of the car to have a real, not play, fight. Michel and Sacha teamed up to pin me to the ground."

When their father heard about it, "he read us the riot act. 'No matter what happens, the three of you need to stick together,' he told us."

 

— Trudeau has had little contact with his half-sister, Sarah Coyne. He saw her a few times as a baby, a few more when she was a toddler and he took delight in seeing his father, "approaching 80, carrying Sarah around on his shoulders." Justin went rock climbing with Sarah a few days before his father's death in 2000.

"After the funeral, with Dad gone, we lost touch. I remain proud of my half-sister and look forward to connecting again in the future."

— For all his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana and his admission to having smoked joints a half dozen times, including once after becoming an MP, Trudeau drinks little and learned to be wary of both drugs and alcohol while working as a bouncer at a B.C. night club.

"Being dependent on drugs and alcohol for your happiness is a trap that has ruined too many lives and I resolved long ago that it wouldn't ruin mine."

— Trudeau was so happily off-balance during his first date with wife Sophie Gregoire that he "actually walked into a lamp post." He proposed to her that same night.

"I'm 31-years-old, so I've been waiting for you for 31 years," he told her. "Can we just skip the boyfriend/girlfriend part and go straight to engaged since we're going to spend the rest of our lives together?"

— Before he made the final decision to toss his hat into the Liberal leadership ring in, Trudeau and his inner circle seriously discussed whether the Liberal party ought to continue to exist or merge with the NDP to ensure defeat of the Conservatives.

"We owed it to ourselves and to our country to ask the questions directly and seriously," he writes. "Was the Liberal party in the way? Did our continued existence perpetuate Conservative rule and therefore imperil much of what our party had fought for over the years?"

Trudeau ultimately decided his disagreement with New Democrats over "critically important, substantive matters," such as the rules for negotiating the secession of Quebec, were too profound for a merger to work.

— Trudeau admires the way Preston Manning created the Reform Party, precursor to today's Conservative party, around the rallying cry, "the West wants in," in the aftermath of exclusionary policies such as his own father's reviled national energy program.

"In the entrepreneurial fashion that has come to rightly typify the West, the local response to a political movement that excluded them was to create one that couldn't live without them, and to build that movement until it governed the whole country. When you take a step back and think about it, it was an awesome achievement, maybe unparalleled in our political history."

He believes, however, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, one of the original Reform MPs, has "forgotten this basic element of the Conservative party's success."

 

 

Ebola virus myth-busting

Ebola is highly infectious and even being in the same room as someone with the disease can put you at risk

Not as far as we know. Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms begin, and it spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of patients. It is not, from what we know of the science so far, an airborne virus. So contact with the patient's sweat, blood, vomit, feces or semen could cause infection, and  the body remains infectious after death. Much of the spread in west Africa has been attributed to the initial distrust of medical staff, leaving many to be treated at home by loved ones, poorly equipped medics catching the disease from patients, and the traditional burial rites involving manually washing of the dead body. From what we know already, you can't catch it from the air, you can't catch it from food, you can't catch it from water.

World Health Organization : Busting the myths about Ebola is crucial to stop the transmission of the disease in Guinea


You need to be worried if someone is sneezing or coughing hard

Apart from the fact that sneezing and coughing aren't generally thought to be symptoms of Ebola, the disease is not airborne, so unless someone coughed their phlegm directly into your mouth, you wouldn't catch the disease. Though medical staff will take every precaution to avoid coming into contact with the body of an infected person at all costs, with stringent hygiene there should be a way to contain the virus if it reaches the UK.

Cancelling all flights from west Africa would stop the spread of Ebola

This actually has pretty serious implications. British Airways suspended its four-times-weekly flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of March, the only direct flight to the region from the UK. In practice, anyone can just change planes somewhere else and get to Britain from Europe, north Africa, or the Middle East. And aid agencies say that flight cancellations are hampering efforts to get the disease under control, they rely on commercial flights to get to the infected regions. Liberia's information minister, Lewis Brown, told the Telegraph this week that BA was putting more people in danger. "We need as many airlines coming in to this region as possible, because the cost of bringing in supplies and aid workers is becoming prohibitive," he told the Telegraph. "There just aren't enough  seats on the planes. I can understand BA's initial reaction back in August, but they must remember this is a global fight now, not just a west African one, and we can't just be shut out." Christopher Stokes, director of MSF in Brussels, agreed: “Airlines have shut down many flights and the unintended consequence has been to slow and hamper the relief effort, paradoxically increasing the risk of this epidemic spreading across countries in west Africa first, then potentially elsewhere. We have to stop Ebola at source and this means we have to be able to go there.”

Liberia attacks British Airways for suspending flights to Ebola-hit country

Temperature screening at airports is an effective way to stop those who have the disease from travelling

The screening process is pretty porous, especially when individuals want to subvert it. Wake up on the morning of your flight, feel a bit hot, and you definitely don't want to be sent to an isolation booth for days and have to miss your flight. Take an ibuprofen and you can lower your temperature enough to get past the scanners. And if you suspect you have Ebola, you might be desperate to leave, seeing how much better the treatment success has been in western nations. And experts have warned that you cannot expect people to be honest about who they have had contact with. Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola victim who died in Texas, told officials he had not been in contact with anyone with the disease, but had in fact visited someone in the late stages of the virus, though he said he believed it was malaria. The extra screening that the US implemented since his death probably wouldn't have singled out Duncan when he arrived from hard-hit Liberia last month, because he had no symptoms while travelling.

Some Ebola experts worry virus may spread more easily than assumed

Border staff should stop people coming in to the country who are at risk

They're not doctors, and it's a monumental task to train 23,500 people who work for the UK Border Agency how to correctly diagnose a complex disease, and spot it in the millions of people who come through British transport hubs. Public Health England has provided UK Border Force with advice on the assessment of an unwell patient on entry to UK, but they can't be expected to check everyone.

Screening at British airports should be implemented to stop unwell people coming in from affected areas

As mentioned before, the UK, especially London, is a major transport hub. Unlike the US, most of those coming from west Africa will have crossed through Europe, so infected people could be coming from practically anywhere,  not just flights directly from those countries. This would require the UK to screen every returning traveller, as people could return to the UK from an affected country through any port of entry. This would be huge numbers of low risk people, at vast, vast expense.

Ebola doesn't have a cure

There are several cures currently being tested for Ebola. They include the ZMapp vaccine which was administered to British sufferer William Pooley and two other Americans who caught the disease in west Africa and they all recovered. Supplies of the drug have now run dry, and it has not been through clinical trials to prove its effectiveness. Mapp Biopharmaceutical, the company that makes ZMapp, says the drug's supplies are exhausted and that it takes months to make even a small batch. But an Ebola cure is very much on the horizon, and would have come sooner had it been seen as any kind of priority for drug companies before it started reaching the western world.

Ebola is a death sentence

It is true that certain strains of Ebola have had a death rate of 90%. However, with this particular epidemic the stats are more positive, a death rate of around 60%. Those who have decent, strong immune systems, are able to access intravenous fluids and scrupulous health care are far more likely to survive, which is why the survival rate of westerners who contract the disease is far better. Experts have suggested that, rather than waste money on pointless airport screenings, funds could be used to improve infrastructure in the affected nations to help halt the spread of the disease at source.

 Ebola turns you into a zombie

Just, no. 

The Life Of Elizabeth May

I was raised by parents who believed that each citizen had a duty to speak up for justice and a better world. My grandmother had a saying ‘Thought without constructive action is demoralizing.’ And my mother raised us on the same principle. This slide shows two eras of protest. The first is the British Aldermaston march in 1960 opposing nuclear weaponry in the Cold War era. People came from over one hundred nations. My mother walked the whole six days from Aldermaston, UK  (where the nuclear weapons research took place), to Trafalgar Square. The rest of us, my dad, my younger brother and I, stayed with my paternal grandparents in my father’s hometown of Barnet. On the last day I was allowed to walk with my mother to Trafalgar Square, where she – representing the North American movement – spoke to a crowd of 100,000.

The tradition of family involvement continues as this photo of Thanksgiving weekend in 2010 shows. We held a 10-10-10 event (see 350.org for details) to take climate action by planting trees on my step-daughter Jo’s front lawn in Haliburton, Ontario, where my extended family had gathered for Thanksgiving. Pictured with me and local Green candidate Susanne Lauten are my daughter, Victoria Cate and her two older sisters, Nadya and Jo, plus several grandchildren and local supporters.”

(2) My mother was a co-plaintiff with 17 Nobel Prize winners in a law suit against the governments of the UK, the US and the USSR for carrying out nuclear weapons testing, distributing cancer-causing radionuclides (Strontium 90) globally in the atmosphere. The press conference was in Washington, DC. I am seated next to my mom, far left. In the centre of the table, speaking, is Dr. Linus Pauling. 

Chatting with my mother, another co-plaintiff, Bertrand Russell (photo taken at his home in Wales). Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing ended with the signing of the Test Ban Treaty in 1963.

(3) We moved into this house in Bloomfield, Connecticut when I was one year old. My father had started work with Aetna Life and Casualty in Hartford. We had seven acres and, as I got older, had an increasingly large menagerie.

 (4) Menagerie!

(6) My god-father is actor Cliff Robertson, here pictured with his former wife, Dina Merrill, and my younger brother Geoff. The other picture is of my mum and Paul Newman at a fundraising event for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. Paul Newman was enormously generous with his time and my mum worked closely with him. They were both delegates for McCarthy to the 1968 Democratic convention, which I attended with her at age 14.

(7) A trip around the Cabot Trail in 1972 changed our lives and by 1973 we had moved, lock stock and barrel (with two ponies, an elderly wether, three dogs and two cats) to Cape Breton Island. My parents sunk their life savings (and then some) into a derelict tourism business at Margaree Harbour. We put in a sewage treatment plant, re-furbished a restaurant on board an old Bluenose fishing schooner (build in 1918 by the same Lunenburg firm that built the Bluenose), and renovated a log cabin gift shop to look like Dickens London. We hired a staff of 50.

As you can see, my dad and brother grew beards and wore kilts, as well as learning Gaelic. We were a hit with customers, but lost our shirts — and our socks. I could not afford to go to university, so cooked and waitressed until 1982. The Schooner Village operated seasonally until 2002 when the NS government expropriated us to build a new bridge. The 1918 schooner, plus Farley Mowat’s “Boat who Wouldn’t Float” which he had given us to have on display, were demolished and hauled them to the dump. Heartbreaking.


(8) In 1980 I discovered that Dalhousie Law School had a programme for mature students, opening the possibility to go to law school without an undergrad degree. From 1975-1979, I had been a key organizer with many others of a grassroots effort to prevent the aerial spraying of Cape Breton Island with toxic (now banned) chemical pesticides. The fight to stop spraying was seasonal, and fortunately was the opposite season from my work in the restaurant. In the fall of  1985, as soon as we closed for the winter, the pulp company demanded the government approve the spraying. The infestation of spruce budworm could only be sprayed in the early larval stages, so the government decision was demanded by spring. By spring 1986, the government agreed with the citizens and turned down the application.

Every year, until the budworm epidemic collapsed of natural causes in 1979, the pattern was repeated. Every year, we succeeded in persuading the NS government not to spray. I worked in the background for the first few years, but by 1978 the media noticed I was running a major conference we organized in Halifax and from then on I was doing media interviews.  Dalhousie took into account my volunteer environmental work and my desire to be an environmental lawyer. That, plus doing well in LSATs, got me back on track for what I had always wanted to do. In my second year at law school, my first book chronically our successful campaign to prevent spraying was published. (Budworm Battles, Four East books, 1982).

While in law school, I still worked summers in the kitchen in the Schooner Restaurant. That made it difficult to stop an approved spray programme with Agent Orange in June 1982. Spraying was demanded not to kill insects, but for killing hardwood trees – “competing” with the coniferous trees favoured for pulp. Agent Orange was already banned in the US and in Sweden where the pulp company was based, but legal in Canada.  At first, the NS government appeared to have yielded to the public outcry and cancelled the permits. It turned out to be trickery, as they silently re-approved spraying with Agent Orange from the ground.

With less than ten days until the spraying was planned, we, local residents, myself included, raced to court for emergency help. Residents from areas near all the spray blocks in eastern NS and Cape Breton Island sought an interim injunction to stop the Agent Orange spray programme, with no concept that it would eat up two years of our lives, force us into brutal financial sacrifices, and pit us against forest industry giants and the pesticide industry. I worked as volunteer lawyer, hired the real lawyers, raised the money to pay them, and was a co-plaintiff. In the course of the court case, my family lost 80-acres of land overlooking the Bras d’Or Lakes. We managed to gain an interim injunction, preventing spraying for the 1982 and 1983 seasons. Once the NS court ruled Agent Orange and dioxin were “safe,” it turned out that it was no longer possible to spray it. The US government had reached a “voluntary” agreement with the manufacturer Dow Chemical, preventing Dow from selling any of its old stock to places where it was still allowed  — like Canada. So, even though we lost the court case, they never did spray eastern Nova Scotia with Agent Orange. I missed my graduation from law school because I was cross-examining an expert witness.”

I practiced law in Halifax with the firm of Kitz, Matheson, Green and MacIsaac, first articling and then as an associate from 1983-1985. An offer to serve as Associate General Counsel to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, moved me to Ottawa.

(9) In June 1986, as the World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Commission) held hearings around the world, Canadian NGOS from environment, development and peace orientations held a major conference in Ottawa — The Fate of the Earth. Over one thousand people participated, including Guujaw, Nobel Laureate George Wald, poet Dorothy Livesay, Margot Kidder, and singer Pete Seeger. I was co-chair of the FOTE conference. These photos were taken by noted photographer, Robert del Tredici.

(10)

(11) By summer of 1986, the federal Minister of Environment, Tom McMillan had persuaded me to join his staff as Senior Policy Advisor. Photo of the Hon Tom McMillan, Dr. Gro Harlem Bruntdland, Prime Minister of Norway, and me, taken at the landmark June, 1988 climate change conference in Toronto, “Our Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security”.

Second photo of South Moresby Signing Ceremony in Victoria, July 12, 1987.

(12) Photo of celebrations of the negotiation of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer in September 1987.

(13) Celebration after saving South Moresby.

That same week as the 1988 climate change conference in Toronto, I resigned with great sadness from the Minister’s staff, due to the approval of two dams in Saskatchewan without environmental assessment.

Once I was suddenly out of work (resignation on principle is like that), I was offered contract work with Canada’s leading academic honorific academy, the Royal Society of Canada. In that period Tara Cullis phoned to say her husband David Suzuki had just phoned her in tears from the Amazon. She said we needed to raise money for a brave indigenous leader, Paiakan of the Kyapo people, who was attempting to stop a major dam on the Xingu River.  He would be making a tour of Canada in October 1988 and we needed to drop everything to organize a fundraising tour. I threw myself into it, as did many others. We raised $80,000 with concerts in Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto. We raised the money without any organizational structure, although many groups (like WWF and Nature Canada) helped. The primary reason for our success was that the concerts featured Gordon Lightfoot. These photos were taken in February 1989 with Gordon Lightfoot in the indigenous village. We met Sting in that village, although the photo with Sting was taken later in Toronto. With Sting is my friend Peter Dalglish, founder of Street Kids International, currently working for the UN in Afghanistan.

(14) Pictured, my step-step daughter, Clare (now Executive Director of Women In Need Community Outreach, Victoria), my mother and father, brother his wife Rebecca Lynn, their son Andrew, and Victoria Cate’s dad, Ian. August, 1991.

(15) I was on the board of Friends of the Earth Canada and Paul McCartney was promoting FOE in his world tour. As delightful as I could have imagined, he was very taken with Victoria Cate, then three months old. The next day, strangely enough, Victoria Cate and I spent with a business leaders forum on sustainability, hosted by HRH Prince Charles, at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club with a reception after on the Royal Yacht Britannia.

(16) December, 1991 in Miami. The event was a strong precursor to the June, 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which I also attended. Pictured here, the driving force of the event, former Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Vandana Shiva. We were all on the organizing committee along with, German Green Party founder Petra Kelly, Kenyan Green (later named Nobel Peace Prize Winner) Wangari Matthai, and other leading women activists.

(17) My mother and my daughter on board our schooner restaurant, the Marion Elizabeth.

(18) May, 1993. I first met former President William Jefferson Clinton in July, 1971. I was in high school, and he was a student at Yale Law School assisting the development of the campaign to nominate George McGovern as the Democratic nominee. We have remained friends.

Elizabeth May speaks out
Green Party leader addresses Canada's weak environment policies


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Liberal Stalwarts On ISIL, Iraq

Bob Rae
Former interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

In a column for The Globe and Mail, published two days before Liberals announced they would not back airstrikes against ISIL, Rae argued the Islamic State represents a "clear and present danger" and cautioned about comparing military intervention to the 2003 Iraq war.

"There are some who quite mistakenly compare any decision to engage militarily against IS with the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. This is hardly the same issue. The government of Iraq has asked for military assistance. The regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan has done the same. The Kurdish, Christian, and other minorities in northern Iraq and Syria are under siege. To equate this with the invasion of Iraq over a decade ago is wrong."

READ the full column

Rae also wrote a few tweets on the Iraq crisis in advance of the Liberal announcement. Tory minister Jason Kenney retweeted them after Justin Trudeau announced his opposition to the combat mission.

Lloyd Axworthy
Former Liberal foreign affairs minister

Axworthy told CTV News in September that ISIL terrorists "have to be whacked and whacked good." He expressed his full support for a combat mission.

"If you really want to stop them, you’re going to have to give a full-court press."


A day after Liberals voted not to support ISIL airstrikes, Axworthy told The Globe and Mail he was disappointed.

"I was concerned, and I was surprised at the [Liberal] decision to be honest, because traditions and the history and the principles I think of the party were very much centred I think on this idea that part of our mandate, nationally, is to help protect innocent people," he said.

Ujjal Dosanjh
Former Liberal minister of health

Dosanjh took to social media to express his disappointment after Liberals announced they would not support a combat mission.

"For me fighting forces such as ISIS is beyond partisan politics," he wrote.

Jean Lapierre
Former Liberal transport minister

Lapierre told CJAD 800's Aaron Rand that he could not understand the Liberal decision, suggesting the party wanted Canada to be a "freeloader."

"If I was sitting in the House of Commons today, I would support the government. We cannot sit on our hands and look at the parade and tell the rest of the world, 'go and defend our freedom, go make the sacrifices of your young men and women in uniform but we're not going to do anything ourselves.' We're a bunch of cowards to act like that, in my opinion."

LISTEN: Lapierre's interview with Aaron Ran

Romeo Dallaire
Former Liberal senator, retired lieutenant-general

Dallaire told CBC Radio that he doesn't believe airstrikes will be enough in the battle against ISIS.

"I don't see how it's possible to contain ISIS without having boots on the ground," he said.

Byron Wilfert
Former Liberal MP and foreign affairs critic

Michelle Simson
Former Liberal MP

Canada's Unfair Wireless Prices

Rogers in Manitoba..
Ten gigabytes of data with unlimited Canada-wide calling and unlimited messaging will run you $75 in Manitoba.

Rogers in Ontario..
Meanwhile in Ontario, that same 10 gigs of data and unlimited calling and texting will cost you $145 — nearly double the cost in Manitoba.

Telus in Manitoba..
Telus offers a plan in Manitoba that is just about the same as the Rogers plan mentioned above, and also costs $75.

Telus in Ontario..
That same Telus plan with 10 gigs of data will cost you $145 in Ontario. This the same pricing scheme, and the same difference between provinces, as Rogers offers.

Bell Mobility in Manitoba..
In Manitoba, $55 will get you unlimited nationwide minutes and one gig of data.

Bell Mobility in Ontario..
...But in Ontario, $55 will get you 150 nationwide minutes and only 200 MB of data.

Fido in Manitoba..
Fido offers unlimited Canada-wide calling and 5 gigs of data for $55, even making a point of highlighting the deal is only available in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Fido in Ontario..
In Ontario, you can't get five gigs of data and unlimited calling with Fido, but for $20 more per month than the five-gig deal in Manitoba, you can get two gigs and unlimited calling.

Koodo in Manitoba..
Koodo offers five gigs of data and unlimited minutes for $55 in Manitoba.

Koodo in Ontario..
In Ontario, two gigs of data with unlimited calling will cost you $74, which is $19 more per month than five gigs and unlimited calling costs in Manitoba.

Virgin Mobile in Manitoba..
Virgin charges $105 for unlimited calling and three gigs of data in Manitoba.

Virgin Mobile in Ontario..
In Ontario, three gigs of data and unlimited calling will run $105. That's the same as in Manitoba. Congrats, Virgin, on keeping that regional rift to a minimum!

THE 10 COUNTRIES DEEPEST IN DEBT

Read more at 24/7 Wall St.

10. United Kingdom
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 80.9 percent
General government debt: $1.99 trillion
GDP per capita (PPP): $35,860
Nominal GDP: $2.46 trillion
Unemployment rate: 8.4 percent
Credit rating: Aaa

Although the UK has one of the largest debt-to-GDP ratios among developed nations, it has managed to keep its economy relatively stable. The UK is not part of the eurozone and has its own independent central bank. The UK's independence has helped protect it from being engulfed in the European debt crisis.

Government bond yields have remained low. The country also has retained its Aaa credit rating, reflecting its secure financial standing.

9. Germany
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 81.8 percent 
General government debt: $2.79 trillion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $37,591 
Nominal GDP: $3.56 trillion 
Unemployment rate: 5.5 percent 
Credit rating: Aaa 

As the largest economy and financial stronghold of the EU, Germany has the most interest in maintaining debt stability for itself and the entire eurozone. In 2010, when Greece was on the verge of defaulting on its debt, the IMF and EU were forced to implement a 45 billion euro bailout package. A good portion of the bill was footed by Germany. The country has a perfect credit rating and an unemployment rate of just 5.5 percent, one of the lowest in Europe.
Despite its relatively strong economy, Germany will have one of the largest debt-to-GDP ratios among developed nations of 81.8 percent, according to Moody's projections.

8. France
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 85.4 percent 
General government debt: $2.26 trillion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $33,820 
Nominal GDP: $2.76 trillion 
Unemployment rate: 9.9 percent 
Credit rating: Aaa 

France is the third-biggest economy in the EU, with a GDP of $2.76 trillion, just shy of the UK's $2.46 trillion. In January, after being long-considered one of the more economically stable countries, Standard & Poor's downgraded French sovereign debt from a perfect AAA to AA+. This came at the same time eight other euro nations, including Spain, Portugal and Italy, were also  downgraded. S&P's action represented a serious blow to the government, which had been claiming its economy as stable as the UK's. Moody's still rates the country at Aaa, the highest rating, but changed the country's outlook to negative on Monday.

7. United States
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 85.5 percent 
General government debt: $12.8 trillion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $47,184 
Nominal GDP: $15.13 trillion 
Unemployment rate: 8.3 percent 
Credit rating: Aaa 

U.S. government debt in 2001 was estimated at 45.6 percent of total GDP. By 2011, after a decade of increased government spending, U.S. debt was 85.5 percent of GDP. In 2001, U.S. government expenditure as a percent of GDP was 33.1 percent. By 2010, is was 39.1 percent. In 2005, U.S. debt was $6.4 trillion. By 2011, U.S. debt has doubled to $12.8 trillion, according to Moody's estimates. While Moody's still rates the U.S. at a perfect Aaa,  last August Standard & Poor's downgraded the country from AAA to AA+.

6. Belgium
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 97.2 percent 
General government debt: $479 billion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $37,448 
Nominal GDP: $514 billion 
Unemployment rate: 7.2 percent 
Credit rating: Aa1 

Belgium's public debt-to-GDP ratio peaked in 1993 at about 135 percent, but was subsequently reduced to about 84 percent by 2007. In just four years, the ratio has risen to nearly 95 percent. In December 2011, Moody's downgraded Belgium's local and foreign currency government bonds from Aa1 to Aa3. In its explanation of the downgrade, the rating agency cited "the growing risk to economic growth created by the need for  tax hikes or spending cuts." In January of this year, the country was forced to make about $1.3 billion in spending cuts, according to The Financial Times, to avoid failing "to meet new European Union fiscal rules designed to prevent a repeat of the eurozone debt crisis."

5. Portugal
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 101.6 percent
General government debt: $257 billion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $25,575 
Nominal GDP: $239 billion 
Unemployment rate: 13.6 percent 
Credit rating: Ba3 

Portugal suffered greatly from the global recession -- more than many other countries -- partly because of its low GDP per capita. In 2011, the country received a $104 billion bailout from the EU and the IMF due to its large budget deficit and growing public debt. The Portuguese government now "plans to trim the budget deficit from 9.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2010 to 4.5 percent in 2012 and to the EU ceiling of  3 percent in 2013," according Business Week. The country's debt was downgraded to junk status by Moody's in July 2011 and downgraded again to Ba3 on Monday.

4. Ireland
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 108.1 percent
General government debt: $225 billion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $39,727 
Nominal GDP: $217 billion 
Unemployment rate: 14.5 percent 
Credit rating: Ba1 

Ireland was once the healthiest economy in the EU. In the early 2000s, it had the lowest unemployment rate of any developed industrial country. During that time, nominal GDP was growing at an average rate of roughly 10 percent each year. However, when the global economic recession hit, Ireland's economy began contracting rapidly. In 2006, the Irish government had a budget surplus of 2.9 percent of GDP. In 2010, it accrued a staggering deficit of 32.4 percent of GDP. Since 2001, Ireland's debt has increased more than 500 percent. Moody's estimates that the country's general government debt was $224 billion, well more than its GDP of $216 billion. Moody's rates Ireland's sovereign debt at Ba1, or junk status.

3. Italy
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 120.5 percent
General government debt: $2.54 trillion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $31,555 
Nominal GDP: $2.2 trillion 
Unemployment rate: 8.9 percent 
Credit rating: A3 

Italy's large public debt is made worse by the country's poor economic growth. In 2010, GDP grew at a sluggish 1.3 percent. This was preceded by two years of falling GDP. In December 2011, the Italian government passed an austerity package in order to lower borrowing costs. The Financial Times reports that according to consumer association Federconsumatori, the government's nearly $40 billion package of tax increases  and spending cuts will cost the average household about $1,500 each year for the next three years. On Monday, Moody's downgraded Italy's credit rating to A3, from A2.

2. Greece
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 168.2 percent
General government debt: $489 billion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $28,154 
Nominal GDP: $303 billion 
Unemployment rate: 19.2 percent 
Credit rating: Ca 

Greece became the poster child of the European financial crisis in 2009 and 2010. After it was bailed out by the rest of the EU and the IMF, it appeared that matters could not get any worse. Instead, Greece's economy has continued to unravel, prompting new austerity measures and talks of an even more serious default crisis. In 2010, Greece's debt as a percent of GDP was 143 percent.  Last year, Moody's estimates Greece's debt increased to 163 percent of GDP. Greece would need a second bailout worth 130 billion euro -- the equivalent of roughly $172 billion -- in order to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt in March.

1. Japan
Debt as a percentage of GDP: 233.1 percent
General government debt: $13.7 trillion 
GDP per capita (PPP): $33,994 
Nominal GDP: $5.88 trillion 
Unemployment rate: 4.6 percent 
Credit rating: Aa3 

Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio of 233.1 percent is the highest among the world's developed nations by a large margin. Despite the country's massive debt, it has managed to avoid the type of economic distress affecting nations such as Greece and Portugal. This is largely due to Japan's healthy unemployment rate and population of domestic bondholders, who consistently fund Japanese government borrowing. Japanese vice minister Fumihiko Igarashi said in a speech in November 2011 that "95 percent of Japanese government bonds have been financed domestically so far, with only 5 percent held by foreigners." Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has proposed the doubling of Japan's 5 percent national sales tax by 2015 to help bring down the nation's debt.

Which Parts Of Canada Have The Highest Household Debt?

Canadian Household Debt By Region

Number represents the average among those households that carry debt. Source: Statistics Canada 


6. Atlantic Canada: $69,300

5. Quebec: $78,900

4. Manitoba & Saskatchewan: $84,900

3. Ontario: $124,700

2. British Columbia: $155,500

1. Alberta: $157,700

Most Attractive Countries, Cities For Work

Decoding Global Talent
200,000 Survey Responses on Global Mobility and Employment Preferences

Percentage of respondents willing to move there.

10: Sweden - 23%

9: Italy - 25%

8: Spain - 26%

7: Australia - 28%

6: France - 29%

5: Switzerland - 29%

4: Germany - 33%

3: Canada - 35%

2: United Kingdom - 37%

1: United States - 42%

10: Rome - 3.5%

9: Singapore - 3.9%

8: Toronto - 4.2%

7: Barcelona - 4.4%

6: Berlin - 4.6%

5: Madrid - 5%

4: Sydney - 5.2%

3: Paris - 8.9%

2: New York - 12.2%

1: London - 16%