fierce self-interest

or Hurray! Hurray! It's the first of May. Outdoor screwing starts today! (Ken Bowman)
(Beets! Who knew?)
Up, Down, Appendices, Postscript.

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“They're not all easy decisions. They're not all smiles and snake oil.”
       (Stephen Harper about Jack Layton)

“We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”
       (Obama about Donald Trump)

Not that simple of course, unless one of the so called 'leaders' happens to be running in your riding.

May the gods help us! (Pardon the pun - I certainly don't think Elizabeth May is going to save anyone, not even herself, tho' I wonder if Conrad Black might not think so - see this at the National Post, where he predicts 1 independent.)

---

Why is Corrigan's view of the wave Jack Layton is riding coloured yellow I wonder? Orange maybe, is that what he wanted but the technology messed up and made it yellow instead? A-and there is a walrus-phallus quality to that wave as well ...

There is deep symbolism here which I can only guess at. The infamous 'golden shower,' is that it? Piss on you Harper & Ignatieff? Or the Fugs and their immortal River of Shit?

Because meanwhile, the gloves have come off and Sam Pazzano of the the Toronto Sun is wallowing in it: Suspected bawdy house raided in Project Cobra 13, and Layton found in bawdy house: Ex-cop.

If the intention is to discredit Layton it will likely backfire. That's my bet. K-k-Canadians may be priggish & polite in public, but in private they like their blow jobs as well as the next person. And even shady comparisons with Bill Clinton are all to the good. (As long as you forget how our Billy boy stalled on Rwanda while a half-million died.)

This kind of thing is about timing. Where does it fit into a 'life scenario'? This was 1996 ... born in 1950 ... so ... ~46 at the time. Who knows what a 46-year-old will do? It may even be quite apt. Our Jack is suffering from prostate cancer we are told, and my reading (based on watching my father go through it) is that he won't be up for any more. So if he had his day back in 1996 (or not) - Good on 'im.

Here's a map to the bawdy house in question - 787 Dundas Street West, Toronto. No longer in business by the look of it but the signage just needs a touch of paint and a new phone number and it's ready to go.

A red sign for the massage parlour, proper thing; but if you click on the Street-View picture to have a closer look you will see some yellow on the sign of the Urban Living shop next door. Oh, and the picture of a golden flame there? It's one'a them yin-yang kundalini things y'unnerstan; nothin' but some throwback memory; it's just a bit of atavism showin' its face, yer Honour.

You have to laugh, as ... THE PLOT THICKENS: Three (apparently blonde) female staff writers at the Toronto Star: Nancy White, Joanna Smith, & Amy Dempsey; have decided to play three witches to Layton's Macbeth. They published this nonsense: Criminal probe launched into leak about Layton at massage clinic, in which they write:

"The entrance to the building is gated and locked, its windows are dark and all signage has been removed. Neighbours said a large sign that once advertised “massage” was taken down years ago."
and,"He said he went for a massage at a community clinic around 9 p.m. after a workout, and that it was his first visit to that clinic."
and,"When asked if the place looked sketchy to him, Layton replied, “Not at all. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone in.”"

Except, as anyone can plainly see, the sign has not been taken down, a-and if our Jack mistook the place for a 'community clinic' then he needs a refresher course on the meaning of 'sketchy' sometime b-b-before he b-b-becomes Prime Minister.

Three witches plus one not-a-witch I guess, since Olivia Chow is backing him up as well. But what else could those blondes do? Now that the Star has officially endorsed the NDP (aka NBP - New Baptist Party) and all? They would have been way better to leave it alone. Then again, maybe they have been promised sexual favours for their loyalty?

Bill Clinton made up his own lies - and he got through it ok.

Jackie boy (Master) Sing ye well (Very well)
Hey down (Ho down) Derry derry down,
Among the leaves so green-o.

---

But seriously folks ... how 'bout them Greenhouse Gas targets?

The Green Party of k-k-Canada says 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 - it's in their platform, not up-front by any means, but in there somewhere. I assume it's to get 5% up on the NDP who are calling on Bill C-311: 25% below 1990 level by 2020 (and 80% by 2050, but that is really no nevermind, not of no import nor relevance, no).

The only fellow with his eye firmly on 'the science' is Lester Brown for my money; and he says 80% below 2006 by 2020.

Here's the problem: How to properly compare these numbers? The only conversion utility I have found is called Sandbag (an inauspicious name it seems to me, and no pedigree); and it only works country by country.

I put this question to Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate during Copenhagen (and got nowhere); and I put it to our Alan Burke about the same time, back when he was mostly a commenter on the Globe and Mail site, now he's over at Climate Insight (and got nowhere); and recently I put it to the Alberta connection, Andrew Leach (see the comments here) and the problem doesn't seem to register with him either.

Last week I offered $1,000 to the girls at Climate Action Network, just as a kicker to get a project on the go to cook up such a conversion utility - and they didn't even answer my email (Doh!?).
Here's a clue.I was out on Friday night to see Climate Refugees at an event organized by the Toronto Climate Campaign. They couldn't get the aspect ratio right when they played the video - who knows why? It may not have been entirely their fault - there are so many ways for things to go wrong with this bollocks technology. But when the film had ended I said, politely, to the woman next to me, "The aspect ratio wasn't quite right was it?" and she pretended not to understand my question, and when she did, denied there was anything wrong, and then immediately got up and left whilst regarding me balefully over her shoulder.

Whatever mojo I ever had I guess I must'a lost; but I didn't know things had gotten that bad already ... Here:
I am sorry I ever fucken mentioned it OK!There will be no answer to my question about converting one GHG target to another for the purposes of comparison. I will not know what it is that I have done which has put me so entirely bey-ond the pale ... ok, I can live with that if I have to - just one of those bad machines.

---

Some are not so fierce ... Three books which have made it onto my shelves in times of fiscal restraint:

Alek Wek, Alek : from Sudanese refugee to international supermodel, 2007.

Zoya Phan, Little daughter : a memoir of survival in Burma and the West, 2009.

Three ... (?) well ... I thought there were three ... and then I was going to add two more ... Chimamanda Adichie & Tsitsi Dangarembga ... memory is shot, can't count either, sorry about that.

The common thread being a personal movement directly from tribal to post-modern, and the kinds of sensibilities engendered; while back at the ranch, the intellectual heavy-hitters are totally stuck in a false & trivial racial dualism:

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, Something torn and new : an African renaissance, 2009.

As I was reading the latter this phrase kept running through what is left of my brain, "Ideology viewed as a xylophone."

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In Romans 12, Paul says, "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head."

For many years the contradiction in this verse has felt to me like a huge, square, iron bar, which has been twisted into a knot; a sort of a spiritual tubal ligation, at the scale of, say, the stallion's phallus in Salvador Dali's Santiago El Grande.

You used to be able to stand in front of this huge painting in the Beaverbrook gallery in Fredericton ... maybe you still can.

I have asked every preacher I got half-way close to about this verse, maybe a dozen or two of 'em, and I have never got a good answer - wouldn't even admit the contradiction. Maybe that's why their churches are all empty and being sold to make condominiums? Is that it?

---

I have been humming this tune all week: On the Good Ship Lollipop, Shirley Temple, 1934.

Are there any adults in the room? Barack Obama on April 27 talking about ... something ...

Thinking of the woman at the Climate Refugees screening dredged up "screamed a bit and away she flew," from Bob Dylan's Talkin' Word War III Blues; so I was going to go out with that; and of course Sony took all of the Dylan stuff down from YouTube long ago ... But I thought, well ... How do they know? So I grabbed the tune at IsoHunt and put a clip up on YouTube with some other name, and all the mp3 tags carefully excised ... and they still knew (?) I guess they have ways of protecting their property. But it must get at least somewhat subtle eh? An embedded watermark hidden among the audio bits ... whatever ...

Is it schadenfreude or equivalent poppycock to think of the songs of our Bob being owned by Sony and such like greed-heads? Hell, even the Government of China seems to have a piece of this guy! But you know, right up at the beginning somewhere, he said a song is anything that can walk by itself ... and so they do ... yep, and me too :-)

So, settling for the possible plump, here is The Kingston Trio and their version of The Keeper.

A-and the last words will go to Rick Mercer:
              March 10 2009 on Attack Ads,
              November 23 2010 on the Senate and C-311,
              January 25 2011 on Attack Ads again, and finally,
              a few weeks ago, March 29 2011 Go! Vote!.

"... because that takes courage, and bullies generally have none." (Thanks Rick)

Oh yeah, beets ... turns out they help the gout a bit, at least temporarily, like cherries.

Be well gentle reader.

---

Postscript:
       ... probably not gonna be one ... oh well, here goes:

I went to see Wiebo’s War on Saturday evening, a confused and confusing film - but necessary if you want to have any idea of Wiebo's life since 2002. Andrew Nikiforuk's Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's war against big oil (or at the Toronto Public Library), the book, is much better but it only takes us up to Wiebo's 2001 conviction.

A few things were new to me, not in the film, but the director, David York, was there and answered a few questions:

1. Some sketchy and unconfirmed details of the Encana offer to settle - which apparently included a three-generation gag order (turns out it was AEC and was known about, at least by the National Post: June 19 1998 Mr. Ludwig agrees to sell his property to AEC for $800,000; July 30 1998 Mr. Ludwig rejects a last-minute clause in the purchase agreement with AEC that would exile the Trickle Creekers from Alberta forever.), and,

2. That Lucien Bouchard had become a lobbyist for the Shale Gas Barons.

A-and since this post set out with the intention of shedding some light on 'fierce self-interest' I began to think that Bouchard might make an exemplar, even an epitome; so I have spent the day looking around for 'the dirt' on Lucien Bouchard ...

... a potted sketch at Wikipedia, quite a resumé; here's a cobbled up timeline:

1938 born, so 72 as this is written,
1963-1970 Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) active,
1964 graduated law school,
1980 first Quebec referendum,
1985-1988 Canadian ambassador to France,
1988-1996 Member of Parliament for Lac-Saint-Jean,
1988-1990 Minister of the Environment under Brian Mulroney,
1989 marries Audrey Best, he's ~50, she's ~30,
1990 failure of the Meech Lake Accord,
1990-2001 leader of the Parti Québécois,
1993-1996 Bloc Québécois Leader of the Opposition,
1995 second Quebec referendum,
1996-2001 Premier of Quebec,
1999 loses his leg (and hip) to necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease),
1999 (?) separates/divorces, marriage lasts ~10 years,
2001 retires from politics,
2001 Senior Partner of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg law firm,
2005 one of the authors of Pour un Québec lucide,
2011 Audrey Best dies of breast cancer at 50,
2011 President of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association QOGA/APGQ.

So what? As usual I don't know what I am talking about and probably can't get there from here anyway ... I have ordered a biography from the library: The antagonist : Lucien Bouchard and the politics of delusion, Lawrence Martin, 1997; which, according to reviews must be taken with considerable quantities of salt; unfortunate timing - too soon after the 1995 referendum for it to be a balanced view, and so on ...

Meanwhile, the oil greed-heads are planning their moves carefully, years in advance; André Caillé is too hot for them; well before the release of the BAPE Report they have his replacement in hand; there is not much drilling going on anyway when the 'possibly 30 month' moratorium is declared; and I guess they hope everyone will just forget about it by the time some connived qualifications to the BAPE report can be tabled.

If the motto of Québec is Je me souviens; then the first operating principle in k-k-Canada must be They will forget, and I would say it works pretty well for them.

- January 25 (the day of Audrey's death) Bouchard takes over as President from Caillé,
- February 28 BAPE Report submitted, ~30 month moratorium,
- March 15 first QOGA/APGQ response by Bouchard, carefully constructed to appear reasonable.

The structure of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association (QOGA) aka L’Association pétrolière et gazière du Québec (APGQ) website is revealing to a degree: the English pages are under a /en/ directory but the French pages are at the root - so the English thing was an afterthought.

Bouchard and Mulroney, working class roots in Saguenay & Baie Comeau - 'pur laine' & 'pur et dur' country, colleagues at law school, determined to make it big. Both repeatedly sold their credibility for cash. QED. I know it's not really that simple - or ... maybe it is eh?

I was watching TV one night and saw Mulroney say, during an election campaign, "we have had to adjust our perceptions," and I have never forgotten it. He would do anything! to be elected.

One thing that did come to me out of that messy film about Wiebo Ludwig on Saturday evening, is that Wiebo is no intellectual - he was a drywaller by trade remember. IF his intellectual stature matched his spiritual stature, THEN they would be REALLY afraid of him; as it is he weeps, as do I.

---

Appendices:

1. Suspected bawdy house raided in Project Cobra 13, Sam Pazzano, April 29 2011.

2. Layton found in bawdy house: Ex-cop, Sam Pazzano, April 29 2011.

3. Criminal probe launched into leak about Layton at massage clinic, Nancy White & Joanna Smith & Amy Dempsey, April 30 2011.

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Suspected bawdy house raided in Project Cobra 13, Sam Pazzano, April 29 2011.

TORONTO - The suspected bawdy house at 787 Dundas St. W. where Jack Layton was found was one of 26 raided by Toronto Police in Project Cobra in the mid-1990s. Asian crime gangs were feeding off the bawdy houses that stretched across Toronto from Chinatown East to Parkdale. Police assigned to Project Cobra hit 26 bawdy houses and laid more than 300 charges.

"Police were cracking down on underage girls from Thailand," a former asian crime unit cop says. "It was unregulated and unpoliced ... it was a lucrative business, the girls were pulling in $600 to $700 for a couple hours work," he says.

The setup at 787 Dundas St. W. impressed the ex-cop. The guy who ran the place controlled traffic with a red and green light system from the second floor where he could see down a stairway to the street. "The setup was amazing ... when the police showed up, the manager flicked on the red light switch -- which told the girls to pretend it was a legitimate business -- rubs only -- keep it clean and the green light meant they could perform sexual services," he says.

"Each room had a window so that the owners could check that the girls weren't being hurt or more importantly, to them, that the girls weren't performing oral sex and later saying they were only being masturbated because fellatio cost more and the owners wanted to make sure they got their money."

Police were most concerned about underage girls brought in from Thailand and Vietnam. The other women in the bawdy houses ranged in age from the 20s to 50.

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Layton found in bawdy house: Ex-cop, Sam Pazzano, April 29 2011.

TORONTO - Jack Layton was found laying naked on a bed by Toronto Police at a suspected Chinatown bawdy house in 1996, a retired Toronto police officer told the Toronto Sun.

The stunning revelation about the current leader of the New Democratic Party comes days before the federal election at a time when his popularity is soaring.

When the policeman and his partner walked into a second-floor room at the Toronto massage parlour, they saw an attractive 5-foot-10 Asian woman who was in her mid-20s and the married, then-Metro councillor, lying on his back in bed.

Layton was cautioned by police and released without being charged.

Olivia Chow, Layton's wife, denied her husband had done anything wrong in an e-mail statement late Friday night. "Sixteen years ago, my husband went for a massage at a massage clinic that is registered with the City of Toronto," Chow wrote. "He exercises regularly; he was and remains in great shape; and he needed a massage. "I knew about this appointment, as I always do."

In a letter from his lawyer, Layton recalls "being advised by police at the time that he did nothing wrong."

What police say happened on Jan. 9, 1996, was recorded in the former cop's notebook, which was reviewed and photocopied by the Toronto Sun.

The former Asian crime unit officer, who requested anonymity, details a prior police raid on the "premise currently ID as a bawdy house" looking for underage Asian hookers and a subsequent follow-up visit to the two-storey brick storefront on Jan. 9. At first the policemen didn't realize they were interviewing one of the best-known Toronto politicians who was married to Chow, also a Metro councillor and now the incumbent NDP MP for Trinity-Spadina.

The officer's notebook indicates he asked the suspected john: "Did you receive any sexual services?" He replied: "No sir, I was just getting a shiatsu." The cop: "Why did you have all your clothes off?" The suspected john: No answer. The cop: "Are you aware that there were sex acts being done here?" The suspected john: "No sir."

The woman, who was from mainland China, denied masturbating the suspected john but when the question was repeated became nervous and replied, "I don't know I only come to work today," the cop's notes show. His notes also claim he saw the "female dump wet Kleenex into garbage."

In the interview with the Sun, the officer said: "I asked him for his wallet and I looked at his name and I looked at the last name and it looked familiar. He's registered as 'John' and I thought he's a 'john.'" Layton's Christian name is John. "I explained to him this was a bawdy house and then I asked him the silliest question, 'Are you any relation to the councillor, Jack Layton?' and ... he had that defeated look on his face and he said, 'We are one in the same,'"
the ex-cop said. The former officer said Layton, seemed quiet and mellow and denied that he knew it was a suspected bawdy house.

The police had to decide what to do with the controversial councillor. "To have arrested him and charged him would have served our egos a lot more. Layton was a thorn in the side of the police, siding with the anti-poverty movement in '96 or '97 ... Jack was anti-police," the ex-cop said. "We looked at it and thought do we take advantage of this, or do we look at this like (he's) any other person, put it away and we hope this thing dies a slow death." In the end, they came to the conclusion they shouldn't charge him.

"If we had barged in and he was engaged in a sex act and we had plainly saw it, then it would have been a different story."

The officers said police filled out a suspect investigation card that recorded his name, address, date of birth -- July 18, 1950 -- height and weight. That information would be filed away by a civilian administrator for crime analysts to use in tracking criminals with particular attributes. The former cop is surprised it took so long for the incident to become public.

"This stuff was never leaked out back then. The professionalism was outstanding. I thought this would have come out. This thing within the circle was so well known."

The policemen warned the councillor about the dangers of hanging out in suspected bawdy houses that could be run by Asian triads. "I remembered lecturing him on a lot of these triads, they'd videotape the customers and extort them afterwards. Jack went pale. I said to him you have to understand it's quite possible," he says.

"He came on a bicycle. I escorted him down and he went away on his bike."

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Criminal probe launched into leak about Layton at massage clinic, Nancy White & Joanna Smith & Amy Dempsey, April 30 2011.

The Ontario Provincial Police have launched a criminal investigation into the leak of Toronto police information about a visit by NDP leader Jack Layton to a massage clinic in 1996.

Toronto police chief Bill Blair asked the OPP Saturday to investigate any possible breach-of-trust regarding the disclosure of information, said OPP inspector Dave Ross.

In a story that appeared Friday, an anonymous retired Toronto police officer told Sun Media that he and a partner found Layton in a massage parlour, a suspected Chinatown bawdy house, fifteen years ago when he was a Toronto council member. No charges were laid.

The NDP leader has denied any wrongdoing and called the report a “smear campaign.” The report came as the NDP surged in election polls.

The story relied on apparent excerpts from the former officer’s notebook.

An officer’s notes belong to the police department and not to the officer, explained Staff Sgt. Mike Ervick, of Toronto police. When a notebook is complete, the police officer is required to turn it in.

OPP inspector Ross would not comment on what criminal offence may have been committed. “Let the investigation run its course,” he said. Ross added that it’s not unusual for a police force to ask another police body to conduct an investigation.

The Dundas St. W. address identified as the massage parlour by Sun Media is a narrow brick building located a few blocks west of Bathurst St.

The entrance to the building is gated and locked, its windows are dark and all signage has been removed. Neighbours said a large sign that once advertised “massage” was taken down years ago.

On the campaign trail in Burnaby, B.C., Layton told reporters Saturday he had no idea how the story came about. “I do know that this is the kind of politics that Canadians don’t appreciate … They want politics that focuses on the issues that matter to them day to day. And that is exactly what we’re doing on our campaign.”

He repeated his assertion that he did nothing wrong. He said he went for a massage at a community clinic around 9 p.m. after a workout, and that it was his first visit to that clinic.

“The police advised that it wasn’t the greatest place to be. I left and I never went back,” he said.

When asked if the place looked sketchy to him, Layton replied, “Not at all. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone in.”

The NDP’s lawyer, Brian Iler, wrote a letter to Sun News before the story appeared. “The facts are that Mr. Layton had obtained a massage from a massage therapist, but had no knowledge whatsoever that the therapist’s location may have been used for illicit purposes,” wrote Iler.

Iler warned against publishing anything that would insinuate wrongdoing.

Layton said he didn’t expect anything to happen on the legal front right now. “We’ll deal with all that after the action,” said the NDP leader.

---

Down

not a blog IV

Up, Down.

Rania Ibrahim Mutlib Video 1, 2, 3.





Appendices:
1. Iraq 'suicide bomber', 16, jailed, Natalia Antelava, Tuesday 4 August 2009.
2. Failed Iraqi Female Teen Suicide Bomber Sentenced, Khalid al-Ansary, Mohammed Abbas, Patrick Graham, August 4 2009.
3. Can Wal-Mart Be Sustainable?, NYT Editorial, August 6 2009.
4. WM Move to Grade Suppliers on Sustainability Affects Other Retailers, Ambiguous, July 15 2009.
     4a. Walmart Sustainability Milestone meeting, July 16 2009 (difficult to make out).
     4b. Wal-Mart Sustainability Overview, 2006.
     4c. ICC Staff Briefing, July 2009.
5. The sad state of the NDP, Letter, Harry Greenwood, West Vancouver, August 7 2009.
6. Being 'new' gets old really fast, Rick Salutin, Friday August 7 2009.
7. Energy battle heats up as B.C. lowers royalty, David Ebner, Friday Aug 07 2009.
8. Prentice pledges new wastewater rules, Steve Rennie, Thursday Aug 06 2009.
9. Reduce fetal exposure to BPA and phthalates, experts say, Martin Mittelstaedt, Thursday Aug 06 2009.
10. Toronto's waste collectors piling up the overtime, Brodie Fenlon, Friday Aug 07 2009.
11. There's jobless, and officially jobless, Tavia Grant, Friday Aug 07 2009.


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Iraq 'suicide bomber', 16, jailed, Natalia Antelava, Tuesday 4 August 2009.

Baghdad - A juvenile court in Iraq's Diyala province has sentenced a 16-year-old girl to seven-and-a-half years in prison for an attempted suicide attack.

Rania Ibrahim was arrested in August 2008 in Baqouba, capital of Diyala province, considered to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda. Video of the arrest shows police removing her long dress to reveal what appears to be a suicide belt.

She said a relative of her husband had told her to wear the vest. In the police video, Rania, with dark curls around a chubby, childish face, looks confused. Later in the footage she tells the police chief that she did not know what was going on, and police said that the girl appeared to have been drugged. Rania left school when she was 11. Five months before the arrest she was sold into marriage.

'Told to wait'

It was a relative of her husband, she told police, who told her to put the vest on and wait outside for further instructions.

It is not clear what led to her capture, and initial reports suggested that she gave herself up. The US military has described her as an "unwilling suicide bomber" forced or tricked into staging a suicide attack. But a year after her arrest, she was found guilty by the Diyala juvenile court.

Rania Ibrahim's story is not unique. Dozens of teenagers, both girls and boys, were used in suicide attacks in Iraq in the years following the US invasion.



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Failed Iraqi Female Teen Suicide Bomber Sentenced, Khalid al-Ansary, Mohammed Abbas, Patrick Graham, August 4 2009.

BAGHDAD - A girl caught wearing a vest packed with explosives in an aborted suicide attack in Iraq last year has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, a court official said on Tuesday.

Then 15 years old, Rania Ibrahim was arrested in August 2008 in Iraq's northeastern Diyala province, whose uneasy mix of Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims had given rise to some of the worst sectarian violence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

U.S. military officials had described Ibrahim previously as an "unwilling" suicide bomber, as did the girl herself in a TV interview.

"Diyala juvenile court has ruled to convict the minor Rania Ibrahim and sentences her to seven years and six months ... The sentence is initial and can be appealed," an Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council official said, declining to be named.

The sentence was handed down on Monday.

Initial reports said Ibrahim had given herself up, but police later said she had been searched and they had found the vest. Many suicide bombers detonate themselves when discovered.

Television footage at the time showed Iraqi forces gingerly approaching a visibly distraught Ibrahim to remove the suicide vest.

She said her husband had introduced her to someone claiming to be her relative, who had put the vest on her. She said she had felt dizzy and sick for days and police said she seemed drugged by a sedative when they arrested her.



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Can Wal-Mart Be Sustainable?, NYT Editorial, August 6 2009.

Recently, Wal-Mart has been rolling out plans for what it calls a sustainability index — a measure of how green the products it sells really are. It is asking each of its suppliers, an enormous list of businesses, 15 questions about the life of their products from manufacturing through disposal: questions about greenhouse gas emissions, social responsibility, waste reduction initiatives and water use.

It is a sound idea. And probably a very good marketing tool. Given Wal-Mart’s huge purchasing power, if it is done right it could promote both much-needed transparency and more environmentally sensitive practices.

Wal-Mart has already created a Sustainability Index Consortium, which will include environmental groups and other nonprofits, universities and businesses. The consortium will create the criteria for the index, and will share with Wal-Mart the task of building a product-by-product database measuring the environmental impact of each product’s life cycle.

Wal-Mart seems aware that the success of its effort to reveal the environmental transparency of its suppliers will depend on the transparency of its own efforts — including the degree to which it collaborates with critics.

The company plans to do more with the index than simply using it to guide its own purchases from suppliers. This database could inform consumers as well. To that end, Wal-Mart hopes to put a readable version of it in every aisle so that consumers can gauge the environmental impact of their purchases.

Wal-Mart has done consistently well by selling at low prices. Historically, however, cheap goods have often reflected careless and unsustainable environmental practices — clear-cutting entire forests, for instance, which is cheaper than selective logging. If Wal-Mart successfully combines cut-rate prices with high-class environmental stewardship, other businesses should follow.



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WM Move to Grade Suppliers on Sustainability Affects Other Retailers, Ambiguous, July 15 2009.

Wal-Mart is set to announce a new sustainability index that will grade various suppliers and products by a range of environmental and sustainable factors.

The move, to be unveiled at a July 16 meeting in Bentonville, Ark., will lead manufacturers to label their products in such a way that lets consumers easily discern the sustainability of one product over the other, reports The Big Money.

With other retailers involved in the sustainability consortium that Wal-Mart is starting, the movement may become much larger in scope when all is said and done. Wal-Mart is mum on the details for now, but this event page shows a glimmer of what invitees to the meeting can expect. “Join us for a groundbreaking workshop to craft the sustainability index that Wal-Mart buyers will use to evaluate their 60,000 suppliers and the hundreds of thousands of products that end up on store shelves,” writes Matt Kistler, Wal-Mart’s Senior Vice President of Sustainability.

“We are assembling a diverse group of stakeholders to help ensure that we measure the sustainability of products in a way that is credible and highly scalable. You will work with Wal-Mart merchandise leaders, Wal-Mart suppliers, non-governmental organizations, scorecard thought leaders and other sustainability experts,” Kistler continues.

The $406 billion retailer has been building toward this moment for some time. First came its Sustainable Packaging Scorecard, which was unveiled in 2006 and went live in early 2008. As time went on, the goal was for suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging in their products, as well as the energy component and other negative environmental aspects of the packaging’s supply chain. Life-cycle attributes may well be part of the index, too.

For suppliers, the implications of Wal-Mart’s sustainability initiatives are clear - adapt and improve, or get thrown off the shelf. What is different about the July 16 meeting is its scope is so large that it may lead to a set of standards that extend beyond Wal-Mart. Indeed, Wal-Mart has invited Costco, Target and Kroger to join the sustainability consortium that will have a hand in crafting the index.

The consortium will be led by the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University. Additionally, faculty at Duke, Harvard, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford have also been involved in planning the index, reports The Big Money. Among the major suppliers said to be involved are Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Tyson, General Mills and Tyson, among others.

Wal-Mart’s reason for forming the consortium may be because the retailer doesn’t want to be the sole arbiter of what constitutes sustainability in a product, according to the article, which quoted an insider as saying, “They are willing to get the ball rolling, but they want to hand it off to someone else.”

It’s predicted that the sustainability index may fall to a yet-to-be-formed group along the lines of the Marine Stewardship Council or the Forest Stewardship Council. Jon Johnson, who holds the Walton professorship in sustainability at the University of Arkansas, is leading the consortium, along with Jay Golden, an assistant professor in the school of sustainability at Arizona State. Johnson said the the index will be “comprehensive,” adding that, “Unless you look at the entire life cycle of the product, you just can’t measure the environmental impact.” Wal-Mart will provide a live Webcast of the meeting, which is from 9-11 a.m. (CDT), July 16. Click here to view the Webcast.



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The sad state of the NDP, Letter, Harry Greenwood, West Vancouver, August 7 2009.

Re: What's in a name?, The NDP mulls a change in moniker, editorial, Aug. 5

I am a founding member of the NDP. When we arrived in Ottawa for our convention, we had a temporary name, New Party, and an interim leader, Hazen Argue.

After the lobbying and the debate, we left with a new name and a new leader, Tommy Douglas.

I can tell you that the delegates were not unanimous on inserting "democratic" into our title, arguing that it sounded too American. Others objected to the use of "new."

Many argued for calling our party what it was reputed to be, a democratic socialist party, and since Tommy Douglas always referred to us as socialists, this had widespread support. However, we were in the midst of the Cold War and the large pro-American unions such as auto and steel campaigned vigorously against it. So, in the end, the compromise label New Democratic Party entered the Canadian scene.

Fortunately, the new leader carried more weight than the name. The members were energized by his vision. His oratory proclaimed that when the economy was being debated, we should focus on health care and make sure it never strayed far from the table.

The last NDP leader to uphold this was Ed Broadbent.

Today our leader, Jack Layton, has not only allowed it to stray, but has forgotten that it even existed.

To debate a name change at the upcoming convention is purely academic, for there is no longer the passion within the party that there was in 1961.

All of the ideas and the vision of Tommy Douglas have disappeared; they've given way to maintaining the status quo and reducing our shout to a whisper.



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Being 'new' gets old really fast, Rick Salutin, Friday August 7 2009.

Whether it's summer reading, or a political party's name, new insights don't require new texts or even the word, ‘new'
The current issue of Literary Review of Canada has a piece by über-critic Linda Hutcheon on book reviewing itself. That sounds like good prep for your summer reading. “We certainly do need some guidance,” she says, “given the fact that we live in a world that offers us so many choices of goods and services that we can never know enough about – and therefore select from – in any intelligent manner.”

I have one question: Why? I mean in the case of books; I'm not talking about selecting a car or cellphone.

Why not just reread what we already know we like? That's how the human race read and told tales for millenniums before the rise of print.

There was a time BP (Before Print) when an educated person could be expected to have read all the books there were. When print began, just 650 years ago, those ancient texts came out first: the Bible, then the rest. Why not stop then?

Well, printers had a big investment in their presses, they needed more product to pay them off, and to profit after their initial costs were covered.

This happened with radio and TV, too. First came the technologies, then programs were devised to get people to buy sets. So new print matter was required, leading to forms like the novel (i.e. “new”) and journalism – which, as its name says, required new material each day. I don't deny some good stuff came out of this crass economic motive.

But it runs against human nature, as evidenced by the universal cry of pre-literate kids about books: Again! Again! They want to go back over what they know and love, and it's how the species long reacted as well. Under that approach, new layers and meanings are always found. You delve deeper, not wider. In that old, oral tradition, it almost doesn't matter what the texts or “canon” are; what counts is the attention brought to them.

You can find the basics of human experience in almost any drivel. Teaching kids to read amounts to weaning them from that oral mindset, injecting the concept, “new,” into their DNA, and doing a little consumer training, too. Some people say the “new” was always being smuggled into ancient texts under the oral tradition, but classicists can reply that it's all there to start with, so long as you turn and turn it again, as the Talmud says. The point is, new insights don't require new texts or even the word “new.” It's also true that whole industries and sectors – publishers, authors, critics – are dependent on new texts being produced all the time, and I happen to be among them ...

Which brings us to the proposal for the New Democratic Party to gain a new look by dropping the word, new, from its name. Of course, when you call something new, it tends to age, it's like asking for Old trouble. They could name it the New New Democratic Party.

But new has begun to sound musty, like someone old who won't admit it. What about Old Democratic Party? Or Old Party? John A. Macdonald won an election on that one. Their real yearning is to be the Democratic Party, because it's Barack Obama's party in the U.S. and they heard he has a big appeal. They could call themselves the New Obama Party, or just the Obama Party if New implies, as it seems to, that they're old and tired, as opposed to new and fresh. Trouble is, the Obama newness is already aging, the new part was getting elected. Most of what he's doing now is old, like reneging on health-care reform and ramping up the war in Afghanistan.

Personally, I think a good new name would be the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which they shucked 50 years ago so they'd become a big success. It has three really interesting words, none of which is socialist or new. As an acronym, CCF, two letters are the same, so they'll be easy to remember as all the new members get old. And in 50 years, they can just switch it again, so as to sweep the country.




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Energy battle heats up as B.C. lowers royalty, David Ebner, Friday Aug 07 2009.

2-per-cent charge on production less than half the offer given by neighbouring Alberta

Vancouver — British Columbia is fighting back against Alberta in an escalating battle for lucrative natural gas drilling dollars, introducing an ultra-low royalty to lure investment.

B.C. is bringing in a nominal 2-per-cent royalty on the revenue from the first year of production on new wells drilled from September through next June.

As a global race for capital intensifies, Thursday's royalty announcement by B.C.'s Liberal government is a direct response to similar measures introduced in Alberta earlier this year.

“It's not only Alberta,” said B.C. Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom. “This is a global competition. Capital is mobile.”

The two commodity heavyweights are engaged in an ever-more intense battle for the attention and investment of energy companies.

Major gas discoveries in northeastern B.C. have attracted several billion dollars from companies to secure land to explore, shifting the spotlight away from the perennial energy capital of Alberta.

Alberta had increased royalties, but backed down several times after the energy industry slashed spending in the province.

Both provinces also face significant continental competition from the likes of Texas and Louisiana, where large pools of natural gas are easier to access and the commodity is much closer to energy customers.

British Columbia's 2-per-cent royalty on gas, as well as oil, is less than half the comparable 5-per-cent deal in Alberta, and was the centrepiece of a package of breaks in Thursday's announcement.

The B.C. incentives will make a tangible difference, with wells drilled that otherwise would not have been, industry executives said.

The timing is also right, as energy explorers are busy working on their winter plans, the time of year when the ground in remote regions is frozen to allow rigs to move to locations more easily.

“There's no doubt a 2-per-cent royalty is very positive,” said Michael Culbert, chief executive officer of Progress Energy Resources Corp., which typically splits its capital spending of roughly $200-million between British Columbia and Alberta. “This could sway some additional dollars going into B.C.”

The natural gas business has been crunched by a surge in supply from shale gas plays in the United States and a slump in demand because of the recession. The benchmark price at a key Alberta trading hub is about $3 for 1,000 cubic feet, too low to justify much of the difficult drilling in northeastern B.C.

Alberta said it won't immediately respond to the B.C. incentives, instead focusing on a general review of the province's competitiveness, which is expected to be finished late this year.

“In the end, having the lowest royalties may not be the key,” said Jerry Bellikka, a spokesman for Alberta Energy.

EnCana Corp., North America's largest gas producer, said the B.C. decision reflects the fact that competition for drilling dollars is intense and the high costs of work in rugged and remote northeastern British Columbia must be weighed against easier options in Texas and Louisiana, home to prolific and promising gas fields. EnCana operates in all the areas.

“[B.C.'s] a tough place to do business,” said Richard Dunn, a vice-president of regulatory affairs at EnCana. “We consider investment opportunities continent wide … The lower royalties definitely help.”

Northeastern B.C. is home to the Montney play as well as Horn River, a shale deposit north of Fort Nelson that could become Canada's biggest gas discovery ever.

Companies in the past two years have spent heavily to buy exploration rights. Because companies have five years to drill, there isn't an immediate demand to get to work, especially with low gas prices, so B.C. hopes the new royalty deal accelerates plans.

The province also has a special low royalty program for Horn River, for which it is currently settling deals with about a dozen companies.

The province has come to rely on the natural gas business to fund public spending, especially as the traditional foundation industry of forestry fades more each year. With a spiralling deficit and the spectre of deep cuts to health care, B.C. said each dollar of new royalty credits will generate $2.50 in additional revenue in the next three years, money that will go to health care and education.




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Prentice pledges new wastewater rules, Steve Rennie, Thursday Aug 06 2009.

Sewage regulations to be unveiled later this year will set Canada-wide performance benchmarks and monitoring timelines, Environment Minister says

Ottawa — Canadian municipalities will have to bring their sewage treatment plants up to snuff under new regulations to be unveiled by the Harper government later this year.

The new rules will set performance benchmarks, timelines and monitoring and reporting requirements for the country's 4,000 wastewater facilities, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Thursday in Saint John.

The regulations will cover all wastewater systems operated by municipalities, the provincial and federal governments, and those on federal or aboriginal lands.

“All jurisdictions will now have to maintain, update, or develop new regulatory tools to implement the Canada-wide strategy,” Mr. Prentice said, according to a copy of the speech provided by his office.

“We have the strategy. We intend to enforce it with the powers of the Fisheries Act to protect the health of Canadians and the environment.”

Facilities that can't afford the upgrades or repairs can apply to Ottawa's infrastructure fund or borrow from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., Mr. Prentice said.

More details will emerge when the government publishes draft regulations in December, which are expected to be revised and finalized next year.

The Conservative government has been criticized for announcing only piecemeal projects instead of the national water strategy promised more than two years ago.

This spring, Canada's environment commissioner told a House of Commons committee the Tories have made negligible progress on a national water strategy.

Scott Vaughan said the Tories have made plenty of announcements about the water strategy but they haven't yet followed up with enough action to merit an audit by his office.

“The position of the office is that we don't examine a program if it's based only on a press release,” he told MPs in April.

“We did not see any measurable progress in developing a national strategy or a national framework.”

Mr. Prentice's announcement drew a rebuke Thursday from Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia, the party's water critic.

“The Harper government has no vision on this pressing issue,” he said in a statement.

The government has ignored Parliament's calls for a national water strategy, he said.

A soggy summer in some parts of the country has pushed sanitary and storm sewers to the limit.

Heavy rainfall in Ottawa has clogged city drains and spilled nearly 500 million litres of sewage into the Ottawa River. Beaches have been closed because of high levels of bacteria.

Oyster and quahog fishing was banned along a six-kilometre stretch of Prince Edward Island's East River in June after a sewage leak was discovered at a treatment facility in a nearby trailer park.

On the West Coast, politicians in Victoria recently approved a plan to build four treatment plants to handle the millions of litres of raw sewage the city and surrounding suburbs now dump every day into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

And a recent report by the environmental group Ecojustice analyzed figures from Ontario's Ministry of the Environment and found billions of litres of untreated sewage have been dumped into the province's waterways.




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Reduce fetal exposure to BPA and phthalates, experts say, Martin Mittelstaedt, Thursday Aug 06 2009.

With Health Canada recently banning plastic baby bottles made from bisphenol A and proposing to ban certain toys, questions arise about whether similar actions should be taken to safeguard pregnant women

Citing possible risks to young children, Health Canada recently banned plastic baby bottles made from bisphenol A and is proposing to ban toys containing six types of phthalates, best known as the rubber duck chemical.

Singling out babies and toddlers for special protection against harmful chemicals is a good idea because infants, with their rapidly growing bodies and unique exposure patterns, can be more vulnerable to dangerous chemicals than are most adults.

But a question has arisen about Health Canada's actions: If young children shouldn't come into contact with the two chemicals, what about pregnant women and their fetuses, which are even more susceptible to harmful compounds, especially those with hormonal impacts, like these man-made substances?

Bisphenol A is an estrogen mimic, meaning exposure gives an extra hit of the female hormone, while phthalates interfere with testosterone production, reducing levels of the crucial male hormone.

During fetal development, in particular, humans are extremely sensitive to sex hormones. Everything from genital development to brain organization is choreographed by specific levels of these hormones circulating in the womb at precise points in the pregnancy. If levels are skewed by synthetic chemicals, there is the risk of irreversible, life-long changes occurring.

“Pregnant women and the fetus are in fact the greatest target group for all of these chemicals,” says Frederick vom Saal, a professor at the University of Missouri and one of the leading researchers in the U.S. investigating bisphenol A, or BPA as it is also known.

Health Canada needs “to now take the next logical step” and consider wider restrictions on the chemicals to reduce exposures in pregnant women, contends Dr. vom Saal. The agency shouldn't assume “that by just targeting protections for newborns they've done enough.”

Although Health Canada took action against the two chemicals to protect children, the most provocative research on both compounds has been done on pregnant rodents and on their pups during early neonatal life, the period that corresponds to the last part of gestation in humans. Because conducting experiments on pregnant women would be unethical, these animal laboratory tests are designed to flag possible harmful effects on people.

Such experiments have found dramatic results, including enlarged prostates, skewed mammary ducts that in women would translate into increased breast cancer risk, and the feminization of male genitals.

Safeguards for pregnant women are needed, agreesanother top researcher in the field, Shanna Swan, director of the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology at the University of Rochester's school of medicine, and an authority on phthalates. While children are sensitive to the chemicals, they're “not as sensitive as the fetus. There is no question about that,” says Dr. Swan.

Dr. Swan has published a study finding that women who have higher levels of phthalates during pregnancy give birth to boys with a slightly shorter distance from the start of their genitals to the anus, mirroring a discovery made in male rodents exposed to the chemical. In rodents, the shrinkage is viewed as feminizing the male genital tract, but the effect occurred at far higher doses than what is found in people exposed to the chemicals.

Nonetheless, because there is animal evidence of harm during gestation, Dr. Swan says “we should assume until proven otherwise that it's reproductively toxic to humans.”

Health Canada said it is monitoring research on the chemicals, but it believes the weight of evidence does not yet warrant measures to reduce exposures by pregnant women.

“Health Canada will take appropriate action if a risk to human health is identified,” it said in an e-mailed response to questions.

But the federal agency has begun several studies on pregnant women and their babies to see whether the animal research is onto something, and has ordered up research to see if the genitals of newborns have been affected by their mothers' exposure to the two chemicals.

Last month , for instance, it posted a notice indicating that it has asked a McMaster University researcher to study pregnant women to find out whether BPA affects the anogenital distance in their babies. It has a similar study on phthalates to try to duplicate Dr. Swan's findings.

In human babies, as in rodent pups, males typically have a larger distance from the anus to the genitals than females, and it is likely that anything reducing the sex difference would be hormonal in nature.

The chemical industry said it welcomes the research and predicted its products will get a clean bill of health. “We are confident that the levels of bisphenol A that will be found will be extremely low and we think it's unlikely that any health effects will be observed,” said Steven Hentges, spokesman for the American Chemistry Council.

The council also represents phthalate makers and has argued that the research showing effects on the genitals of boys is flawed.

It's been relatively easy for Health Canada to introduce measures restricting infant exposure to phthalates and BPA by ordering them out of just a few products such as plastic baby bottles and toys. If it decides pregnant women need protection, it faces a much harder task because products containing the substances are ubiquitous.

“The ability of governments to actually tackle adult exposures is going to be extremely challenging,” Dr. vom Saal predicted.

Pregnant women wanting to reduce their exposure while the government researches the issue may have difficulty because many plastic products don't disclose what they're made from, although some polycarbonates containing BPA carry the plastic industry's symbol of a triangle encasing the number seven, while polyvinyl chloride, which often contain phthalates, sometimes carries a triangle encasing the number three.

As well, there isn't a full understanding of how humans are being exposed to the chemicals, but residues in food from packaging and processing equipment are suspected. Some researchers believe other sources might be important, such as breathing dust containing the chemicals or absorbing them through the skin, as people would do for compounds in cosmetics.

The uterus doesn't offer protection against the compounds, which have been detected in the placenta, amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood, indicating that maternal exposure leads to fetal exposure.

The amounts of exposure in people are low, but according to some experts, they are still worrisome. Blood concentrations of bisphenol A are typically a couple of parts per billion, while phthalates measured in urine can be thousands of parts per billion. One part per billion is a tiny amount, the equivalent of one second of elapsed time over nearly 32 years.

But Dr. vom Saal cautioned that these concentrations are far higher than the natural amounts of estrogen in people, which are in the parts per trillion, and testosterone, in the parts per billion. He says that because people's hormone systems are already operating at their natural levels, any alterations caused by phthalates and BPA should be a source of concern.

Health Canada studying effect of chemicals on infant genitals

Health Canada has quietly been studying a delicate topic: Whether or not the genitals of Canadian babies are being altered by their moms' exposure to bisphenol A or phthalates during pregnancy.

The research will measure the distance between the start of a baby's genitals and its anus, a space that on average is larger in boys than in girls. If the space is getting smaller, it means boys are being born less manly, and likely to have smaller penises and testicles.

The phthalate study is under way and will take up to five years to complete, while the bisphenol A research is just starting.

Phthalates, which are able to reduce levels of the male hormone, testosterone, are found in everything from polyvinyl chloride shower curtains to floor tiles, where they're used to make plastics less brittle. They're also added to cosmetics and perfumes to make the fragrance last longer.

Bisphenol A, an estrogen mimic, is the main ingredient in polycarbonate plastic products, including office water-cooler jugs, lenses for eyeglasses and the protective coatings on compact discs. It's also in the epoxy liners found on the inside of most food and beverage cans, and in some carbonless paper register receipts.

All BPA is made by humans and isn't found in nature, although there are some microbial sources of phthalates.

Scientists have known for years that dosing pregnant rodents with phthalates feminizes their male offspring, giving them female-like areolas and nipples, and smaller genital tracts. The amounts used to prompt the effects are far above what people are exposed to, but recently, researchers in the U.S. believe that they have detected slightly smaller genitals in boys born to mothers with higher-than-average phthalate exposure during pregnancy.

Bisphenol A has raised health concerns too, with tests in experimental animals leading to such conditions as early puberty, genital malformations and increased prostate growth, often at low doses given during fetal development.

The federal government is also testing several thousand Canadians for their BPA and phthalate levels, but the results are not yet available. Bio-monitoring in the U.S. has found that nearly everyone carries detectible amounts of the two chemicals. One survey conducted between 2003 and 2004 found about 93 per cent of Americans have bisphenol A in their bodies, and researchers looking for phthalates have found a similar percentage.



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Toronto's waste collectors piling up the overtime, Brodie Fenlon, Friday Aug 07 2009.

City spent about $475,000 in overtime over the long weekend to empty its temporary dump

Fresh off a 39-day strike, Toronto's waste collectors and drivers are raking in the overtime and will continue to rack up extra hours well into next week as they clear up the curbside collection backlog.

The city spent about $475,000 in overtime over the long weekend to empty it temporary dumps, and Toronto's 400 unionized garbage collectors are averaging about two hours of overtime a day on curbside collection.

Former Etobicoke mayor Doug Holyday said that he repeatedly urged city management and councillors to ban overtime for the cleanup, just as Etobicoke did after a 38-day garbage strike in 1984. He said the promise of overtime creates a vicious cycle in which “the longer they stay out, the bigger the mess, the more the overtime, the more money they get back, the longer they stay out.”

“You only encourage unions to go out on strike by offering overtime on the back end,” added Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who argued Toronto should have held off on signing collective agreements with its striking workers until after the long weekend to save money.

Mayor David Miller said city staff were directed to ensure that no overtime would be collected after the strike except for cleanup and matters of health and safety.

“We've got to get the garbage cleaned up. That's the first priority,” Mr. Miller said. “When you're picking up from many houses in Toronto, mine included, six weeks worth of recycling and six weeks worth of garbage – it takes time.”

Asked why Toronto didn't follow the lead of Windsor, which prohibited overtime during its garbage cleanup after a 101-day strike, Mr. Miller was curt. “Why not leave garbage in the streets for another few weeks? I think the question speaks for itself.”

Geoff Rathbone, general manager of solid waste management, said in an interview earlier this week that the city faces an “unprecedented situation” in which limits on overtime have to be balanced with the need to keep the collection system moving. Residents can place an unlimited amount of garbage and recycling out for pickup on the first two regular collections.

“What we don't want to do, of course, is fall too far behind, so we have to balance some overtime with our need to be fiscally responsible,” he said.

City spokesman Rob Andrusevich said Ontario's Environment Ministry gave officials 24 hours to clean out the temporary dumps after council ratified the deals, which meant that work had to be done through the long weekend. He said private contractors would have cost the city about 70 per cent more than regular staff because of the costs of renting heavy equipment.

Mr. Holyday doubts that. “I think you'd find the contractors would work a lot quicker,” he said. “A contractor would do twice as much as our people.”

Mr. Andrusevich said crews will take longer to complete their routes today and through next week. “There's a public interest now in simply being able to get rid of these materials as we're moving into warmer weather,” he said.

Meanwhile, a motion to consider the feasibility of giving residents rebates for lost services during the strike, and separate motions to request the province make as essential services garbage collection, daycare and paramedics, were referred to the executive committee, which meets next month.




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There's jobless, and officially jobless, Tavia Grant, Friday Aug 07 2009.

When Statscan issues its jobs data today, it won't tally those who have given up or postponed their searches

After John Peck was reorganized out of his job at Shell Canada Ltd. in April, he searched for work in communications or consulting for a few months. But few positions were open and the rare ones posted were swamped with applicants.

So, he has stopped looking. The 56-year-old, who received a severance package, is spending a month on Deer Island, N.B., where he's diving, sailing boats and combing beaches.

"It's a good time to wait and see what's happening with the economy, see how things shake out," he explains. "There's a lot more competition right now, and that was part of my decision to take a good chunk of the summer off."

When Statistics Canada reports its monthly job count today, many unemployed people like Mr. Peck - who have either postponed or given up their job search - won't be tallied. That's because people who haven't hunted for jobs in the past month aren't counted as unemployed or as part of the labour force.

The gap between the actual unemployment rate and the official statistics is likely to widen in the coming months, as more people give up their job search to go back to school, or wait until jobs are more abundant, economists say. Many more workers will settle for part-time jobs, even though they want full-time positions.

"Official numbers always understate how bad it is during recessionary periods," said Robert Fairholm, an economist at the Centre for Spatial Economics, a research firm in Milton, Ont. "Things will get worse before they get better for unemployed people."

In a forecast this week, he predicted that Canada's unemployment rate would rise to 10.5 per cent by the first quarter of 2011 if discouraged workers were counted.

Today's Statscan report is expected to show about 15,000 jobs were lost last month, sending the national unemployment rate to 8.8 per cent from 8.6 per cent, according to economists polled by Bloomberg. The economy shed almost half a million full-time jobs - 454,000 positions - between October and June, Statscan figures show.

When involuntary part-time workers are factored into the equation, Canada's unemployment rate would have been 11.3 per cent in June, according to Statscan's so-called R8 series on "underutilized" labour, which is not seasonally adjusted. That's well above the 8.1-per-cent level it showed in the same month last year, though down from the 12.4 per cent it reached in March.

Canada's official unemployment rate is a more accurate depiction of reality than the U.S. measure, though, because it includes people who are both actively and passively looking for work, said Millan Mulraine, economics strategist at TD Securities. The U.S. criteria are more stringent - they stipulate that people have to be actively looking for work - and thus fewer people are counted in the jobless tally, he said.

Employment insurance is another indicator of joblessness; the most recent report showed a record number of Canadians are receiving jobless benefits. That, too, could be skewed in the months ahead as EI benefits run out.

Rick Newton, 46, is one of thousands of Canadians who have fallen out of the country's official bookkeeping. EI benefits for the information-technology specialist dried up last year. So the Burlington, Ont., resident put his job search on hold to go back to school to update his certifications.

He said it was a "conscious decision" to leave the labour market after a fruitless job search.

"I hope to be looking for work again in November."