Columbus's Genocide
President Bush Aug 3rd "Minneapolis Tragedy"
$70 -
$200 Billion DRUG Trade
That's the best estimates gathered annually and
some say as high as $200 Billion. Makes Big Oil look kind
of crude.
$70 -
$200 Billion DRUG Trade 2
Afghanistan is the largest Heroin and Opium supplier
world wide.Taliban whom were solely responsible for the
single greatest drug reduction in history. From 4400 tons
to 185 in 2001. Back up to record 5000 tons.
TARGET THE CANADIAN MEMBERSHIP OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS COUNCIL
posted on 10:12 PM,
August 5, 2007
The North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) was
launched as part of
the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in June
2006. It is the only
formal advisory board to the SPP and is made up of 30
corporate leaders
from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico with ten advisors from
each of the SPP
signatory states. A September 13, 2006 story in Maclean's
magazine
describes NACC as a "cherrypicked group of
executives who were whisked to
Cancun in March by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and
Mexico, and asked
to come up with a plan for taking North American
integration beyond
NAFTA."
The NACC has become the concrete reality emerging from
proposals by
corporate think-tanks such the Canadian Council of Chief
Executives
(CCCE), the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the
Consejo Mexicano De
Asuntos Internacionels (COMEXI) to have a trilateral
corporate body which
would advise the three governments on issues ranging from
military
integration to securing energy resources to controlling
migration. In
Canada, for example, in January 2003, the CCCE (a CEO
organization whose
corporations administer in excess of C$2.1 trillion in
assets and is the
leading force in the Canadian private sector behind
NAFTA) launched its
North American Security and Prosperity Initiative with
initiatives to
increase investment and capital flows, integrate security
agreements and
military defence, and expedited means of resource (oil,
natural gas,
water, forest products) extraction. This has essentially
become the
template for the SPP.
In short, the NACC, representing private corporate
interests, has been
"institutionalized" as a policy-making body,
thus formalizing and
deepening the existing patterns of influence that
corporations already
have.
Harper appointed the Canadian membership of the NACC in
June 2006: Dominic
D'Alessandro (Manulife Financial); Paul Desmarais, Jr.
(Power Corporation
of Canada); David Ganong (Ganong Bros. Limited); Richard
George (Suncor
Energy Inc.); Hunter Harrison (CN); Linda Hasenfratz
(Linamar
Corporation); Michael Sabia (Bell Canada Enterprises);
Jim Shepherd
(Canfor Corporation); Annette Verschuren (The Home
Depot); and Rick Waugh
(Scotiabank).
http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/cgi/page.cgi?aid=680&_id=128&zine=show
DEMOCRACY? YOU BET!
posted on 10:10 PM, August 5, 2007
Anything the public sector can do, the private sector can do better; this aphorism has been repeated for decades! In this spirit, governments have scaled down departments surrounding themselves instead with bevies of crown corporations, authorities, and agencies modeled on private sector corporations. Corporate directors and elected politicians perform similar functions: They set policy, provide direction, and evaluate management performance. But their responsibilities are quite different. Private corporations have one objective: to maximize share value and profits for their investors. Governments have two objectives: to safeguard the public good (for example by ensuring clean water and clean air) and to administer in the interests of the common good (for example, health care).
The British Columbia Lottery Corporation is a crown corporation governed by a quasi private sector corporate board. The directors’ credentials are an impressive collage of university degrees, private corporate executive experience, and memberships on prestigious non-profit boards.
There is the lurking question of the propriety of promoting gambling to pay for public services, but that is a question for the Legislature to answer. As it concerns the generating of revenues, the Lottery Corporation’s board did its job well. In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, the Lottery Corporation paid $484 million in commissions and fees, $641 million in prizes, and paid $914 million in profits to the provincial government. The activities of a handful of miscreants among the many good people who handle lottery tickets on the front lines of the government’s gambling racket went unnoticed under that mountain of cash. They are alleged to have cheated gamblers and to have fooled everybody in the Corporation, right up to the chair of the board.
Crown corporations, authorities, agencies, and their boards clothe themselves in pompous declarations of intent and principle. The Lottery Corporation has a Shareholder’s Letter of Expectations signed by the Chair on behalf of the Board and by the Solicitor General on behalf of shareholders, as if shareholder and citizen have the same meaning. The Lottery Corporation also has a Whistleblower Policy proclaiming that it is “dedicated to the highest possible standards of honesty, integrity and accountability,” and that its purpose is to “cover serious concerns that fall outside the scope of other British Columbia Lottery Corporation policies and procedures” such as “possible fraud or corruption” and “any other unethical, improper or suspicious conduct or abuse.” Notwithstanding these fine words and the uncovering of serious lottery problems in Ontario, the Board assured the Solicitor General that all was well in the British Columbia Lottery Corporation, and the Solicitor General passed on the good news.
It took the Office of the Ombudsman, which strives for “fairness and accountability in Public Administration in British Columbia,” to bring to light that all was not well with the Lottery Corporation. Kim Carter, the Ombudsman, has a background in criminal, international, and administrative law. Ms. Carter was a member of the legal team that investigated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Given her experience, she can smell a rat hiding in the barn even if a blue ribbon panel of corporate executives certifies the barn to be free of rats.
The lottery fiasco raises questions about whether the hypothesis that the efficiency, efficacy, productivity, transparency, and accountability of corporate control structures (whose purpose it is to make profit) are always superior to these elements in government control structures (whose purpose it is to protect the public interest). The number of directors appointed to oversee the operations of the Lottery Corporation, BC Ferries, the health authorities, and the many other crown corporations, authorities, and agencies in British Columbia far exceeds the number of MLAs we elect. The cost of maintaining these directors, including their stipends, allowances, travel costs, meeting expenses, and support services is a significant amount, and the money comes out of the public purse.
Instead of having all these organizations operate under the control of directors plucked from the ranks of the corporate elite, direct responsibility and accountability for all common good services need to be restored to the legislature. The public interest would be better served if the money spent to maintain separate governing structures for crown corporations, authorities, and agencies were allocated to the Office of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman could use the cash to hire a few more bloodhounds “driven by a commitment to justice and fair treatment of people.”
July 12, 2007
http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/cgi/page.cgi?aid=679&_id=128&zine=show
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