Dear Editor,
With three frosty nights in the Wilno Hills in the past couple weeks and Trees beginning to change colours, Earth’s message is getting clearer and clearer: Summer has passed, winter is coming for sure. Harvest season has arrived.
The long awaited first debate of the Federal election has come and gone. “ Mr. PM-ty Promises” gave us an M-ty podium to consider. Mr Sheer gave us the fake news that Elizabeth May did not understand him or International Trade. Voted by her House of Commons colleagues of all parties as the best Parliamentarian, it is likely she understood him and his policies better than he would like.
Meanwhile the elephant next door has escalated his trade war with China, the world’s second largest economy, breaking the deal they’d agreed to at the G20 in June. The Chinese responded with cutting off all imports of US Agricultural products. That’s about one fourth of all US farm exports. Will the US try to dump their subsidized crops in Canada and other countries?
Will agriculture policies surface in the next round of Federal debates? They will at the National Farmers Union’s All Candidates Debate in Killaloe’s Lion’s Hall, on October 5, from 7 to 9 PM. All candidates to be our representative to Parliament have been invited, that’s 8 candidates, including our incumbent, Cheryl Gallant.
Who will come forward with a platform that plays “SurvivalForReal” with our future? Something like a made-in-Canada Green New Deal that ensures that the transformation off toxic fossil fuels is carried out equitably, that it is rooted in climate justice, that it respects the rights, knowledge, and consent of Indigenous Peoples, and that it creates over a million new green jobs. And a platform that stops social injustices.
I would also like some attention paid to making sure that the election fraud by the Conservatives in the 2011 election, where misleading phone calls directed some voters to the wrong polling stations, is not repeated. This includes fake news on radio, television, print media, and social media that aims to divide Canadians and silence the climate movement.
I’m curious whether anyone of public stature will be willing to expose the truth about the Conservative Party agenda and their ties to the billionaire oil industry and the big banks that fund its projects. Their lobbyists are doing all they can to poison the debate on the climate changes we are all experiencing, to keep us dependent on their way of making profits by polluting the air and water we all depend upon. They’ll use their usual “divide and conquer” tactics, and claim only they can create jobs. Elsewhere in the world, counties that have switched off fossil fuels have seen job creation rise due to the new energy sources and better efficiencies.
Oil has its place in our world, though everywhere it can be replaced to lessen its toxic footprint needs to be encouraged in government policies. When Dupont’s nylon industry could not supply the needs of the US armed forces, as they had promised to be able to do when hemp was banned, the US immediately built 43 hemp fibre processing plants in one year while encouraging and helping farmers grow hemp to win World War 2.
Canada could do the same to replace oil based plastics and other polluting processes. Using hemp plastic in mass scales to replace mined steel would lighten the weight of vehicles and lower oil consumption thereby…
Another future is possible. Let’s make this election reflect the real situation we are dealing with now and unite the country.
Robbie Anderman
Killaloe ON
