Dear Editor
As the front page story and editorial last week in the Eganville Leader pointed out: Lying doesn’t work in the long run and falsehoods will come to light. Many thanks go out to Renfrew County Warden Mayor Jennifer Murphy for helping bring out the truth and not to allow local politics to mimic the competitive style of party politics. And thanks to Killaloe, Hagarty and Richards Mayor Janice Visneskie Moore for also taking time in her incredibly busy life to come out to the North Algona Wilbeforce council meeting and supporting Warden Murphy and the truth.
The Federal Liberal government has been shown this past week to have done what it could to cover up the results of their public National Security Consultations about Bill C-51 (Anti-terrorism Act, 2015). However, hundreds of supporters of Openmedia.org were able to work together to read the 59,000 consultation submissions and found that 88% of the submissions called for its repeal. From encryption to online privacy to security, Canadians have “opted to err on the side of protecting individual rights and freedoms rather than granting additional powers to national security agencies and law enforcement” (https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2017-nsc-wwlr/index-en.aspx)
The “What We Learned” report from Public Safety Canada concluded: “They also want the government to focus its efforts on preventing terrorism through measures to counter radicalization to violence, including through public awareness and education campaigns to promote diversity in Canada, better support for new immigrants and at-risk groups, and addressing root causes of radicalization by improving social programs dealing with such things as health (including mental health) and housing.”
The Government’s public report would not have come out if the public, Canadian citizens, had not pushed and pushed and kept at the government to reveal what Canadians said to them. The truth will come out, when people are ready to support it, and listen to it.
Also last week, court cases began in US District Court in San Francisco for 50 lawsuits whereby 136 farmers and farm workers are alledging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma (cancer), and that Monsanto covered up the risks.
What’s new about these cases is that the judge has ruled, over Monsanto’s objection, that documents obtained by the plaintiffs through discovery could be unsealed and entered as evidence. These documents show how the same Monsanto manager, Dr. Levinskas, who helped hide the carcinogenic potential of PCBs in the 1970s, also influenced the EPA regarding the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate. It thereby changed it from its 1985 classification as a Class C Carcinogen to a Class E non-carcinogen in 1991.
The documents also showed that a 1991 Monsanto funded long-term glyphosate safety study on mice, which showed carcinogenic potential according the EPA experts, was “reviewed again” until it mysteriously showed no carcinogenic potential. Until last week no one knew why the EPA changed its classification of glyphosate/Roundup. Now it is clear that Monsanto influenced the EPA at that time. Since then, Monsanto and industry scientists have only allowed/done short term studies on mice.
Profits over people and environment is being revealed once again for all to see.
With gratitude to have lived to see another blossoming Spring,
Robbie Anderman
Killaloe ON
