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NGO! TS wdiesyvot SaD2onT av ght * 7584 Page 5, News »luesday "November 27; 1990 Life, According To "Baba" Enviornmentalists?? I a a ek ee ee ee ee ee ee ee eee es 4 All The World' Ss A Circus Politics...dial 911 Politics is a game of numbers in the same way that football is a game of inches and the G.S.T. is a game of pin the tail on the taxpayer (this may have been a poor and somewhat confusing analogy in that if you understand who's getting stuck and who's doing the sticking - it's quite possible I got the asses backwards.) Numbers, as they apply to Canadian senators, are Critical. The Canadian Senate is very old as indicated by their flickname "The-Over-The- Hill Gang." Their average age for instance is somewhere in the low 100's. In fact, until the G.S.T. ratification crisis, the Senate has passed the last several years playing a parlimentary democratic game called "Join .the Liver Spots," and would have completed ,a_ scale replica of Michealangelo's Sistine Chapel execpt Pat Carney refused to hang from the ceiling with all her clothes off. The official reason given for the delay however, was that somebody spilled the Poli-Grip and all the magic markers stuck together. Make no mistake about it, vital juice still courses through the veins of Canadian Senators, it's just that-according to recent laboratory tests, it happens to be 100% prune. Although the Prime Minister has stuffed the Senate as best he could with Progressive Consevatives who...a) would admit publicily to being a Progressive Conservative and ...b) are not presently serving-time in-prison.- still-the vote on the G.S.T. may be too close to fix...I mean call.. That's why the prime minister is considering two plans of attack. Plan "A"-THE GRAND PLAN: this strategy would see the Prime Minister appoint the Granddaddy of Progressive Conservative Former Prime Minister, William J. Thomas John Diefenbaker, to the Senate. Aids close to the prime minister are against this move. They argue that, although Diefenbaker meets all the criteria required to be a senator, he is legally dead. Although they feel, as does Mulroney, that the former prime minister could serve a vital role in the Upper House, like say, recreational director. The problem with putting a deceased person in the senate, is that no one will notice for a long time...at the earliest, a week or so after the Senate recesses for the summer. Therefore' the smart money is riding on Plan "B"- THE BRAN PLAN. The Prime Minister has all but given up hope, that the Liberals will one day not show up in_ sufficient numbers to block the G.S.T., despite the fact that Lowel Murray, Mulroney's personal senate stooge, keeps hiding their walkers in broom closets. So on the crucial day when the G.S.T. is to be brought to a vote, Mulroney plans to address the Liberal Senate at a by-partisan breakfast meeting at which Lowel Murray will serve them expresso coffee and bran muffins. Given the clear aforementioned age of the senate, experts believe the Liberals will clear that hall out in under ten seconds. And the clock of history will stop in shock, as there will be movement in the Canadian Parliament for the first time in 200 years. The fact that there are over 50 Liberal Senators and only 12 stalls in both washrooms, will drive home the real meaning of the precept of public service: "Many are called but few are chosen." THE BRAN PLAN was supposed to be a secret stategy but Otto Jelinek spilled the beans last week when he publicly referred to the Senate as a CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 Seems like everybody and his dog are into the environmental issue these days to save dear Mum Earth from extinction, from your parcel of Green Peacers, Wild Life Federationalists, and Dr. Suzukis rushing madly about saving seals, whales, rivers, lakes, tropical rain forests and whatever, to your yackety-yacking politicians, singing rock folk and speechifying movie ones, right on down to your ordinary Joes and Josephines with their little blue recycling boxes. Very noble, very compassionate, very inspiring. Also very self- righteous and very self- serving. 'Cause all these fine, upstanding peoples crusading away like crazy, come from the affluent technological countries which are the perpetrators of all this killing pollution, and rapists of resources, in the first place. NOT the ones who are the best environmentalists of all - those poor peoples in the so-called Third World and why? Because they ARE poor and being poor, cannot afford to drive the air- polluting, gas-guzzling cars, or purchase any of the thousands of manufactured resource-eating goods which overflow the cornucopia markets of our technological world. Therefore they are neither using up dear Mum Earth's fast swindling cupboard very, very bare, nor are they garbage resulting in a 'Flying Dutchman' barge or a 'Poo-Poo-Choo-Choo' of the stuff trying to find a final resting place in an already over-garbaged world. To quote a National Geographic which devoted an entire issue (Dec. 1988) to this very subject, "The birth of a baby in Olga Landiak 'pastureland to make pet food and convenience foods in the United States (and Canada too) slightly cheaper. In Papua New Guinea, forests are destroyed to supply cardboard packaging for emerging nations and countries. And for natural resources and leaving her filling the world with a plethora of the United States (Canada also), imposes more than a hundred times the stress on the world's resources and environment than does the birth of a baby in say, Bangladesh. Babies from Bangladesh do not grow up to own automobiles and air conditioners, or. to eat grain-fed beef. Their life-styles do not require huge quantities of minerals and energy, nor do their activities seriously undermine the life - supporting capability of the entire planet." Unquote. Oh, too true, too true, and, "4 as for the cutting down of the rain forests which has got everybody on this continent in an uproar as_ being destructive to OUR life- styles, the Geographic goes on to say, "Central American and South American forests are destroyed, in part, for Japanese electronic products." More stark truisms. And who are purchasing all these electronic products. Certainly not these Papua New Guineans, or even grown-up Bangladashee. NO poor person is purchasing any of these luxuries and excesses which are eating up and garbaging not only the rich folks' part of the world, but the poor part as well. -- So, in my book; this makes the poor peoples of the world the very best environmentalists of all on our poor bashed-about planet. And they don't crusade, sing or speechify about it either. Makes you think, doesn't it? NEXT WEEK...CHRISTMAS SPIRIT Making municipalities constitutional It's interesting to see ideas circulate, and eventually take hold, I last wrote about this subject in March, when we were all watching the drama called Meech Lake unfold. Of course, we all know now that Mulroney's "rolling of the dice" came up "snake eyes" - one die for Quebec, and one for the rest of us. We're now in the brave new world called "post Meech". Keith Spicer, the champion of bilingualism and Canadian content in -- broadcasting, has been unleashed with his word processor mind to try to find "the poetry that might unite us". Back in March, New Democratic Party MP Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan riding) threw out a rather interesting proposal that other media people ignored, but wrote up in the space. In a speech to the Thunder Bay District Municipal League, Angus suggested that the real problem underlying Municipalities passing "English-only" resolutions was their lack of constitutional status, or real power. He pointed out that municipalities are the level of government that affect our lives the most: garbage collected, water flows through taps, toilets are flushed, streets are ploughed, and kids go to school-every day. Yet municipalities do not have an official status under the constitution, with no legal rights to resist when senior levels of government foist programs on them. Towns and cities are what the lawyers call "creatures of the provinces". They don't legally exist in the constitution, and only have powers delegated by the provinces. Back in March, Angus asked municipalities to stay out of the last-minute Meech Lake debate. Instead, he suggested -do we want our local governments to have more powers than they do now? -if so, what should those powers be? -if we do accept the principal of municipal "statehood", what does that do to an already fragmented nation? Hamilton points out, quite correctly, that Canada evolved as a nation very differently than our American cousins. the that municipalities get their case ready for Americans started with strong the post-Meech municipalities, round of NORTHERN then formed constitutional INSIGHTS states, and talks. That ---------- then a rather time has now by Larry Sanders. weak federal come, and at least one municipal leader has woken up to the idea, albeit after I reminded him about | oa Thunder Bay Alderman David Hamilfon, a man likely to run against Jack Masters for Mayor a year from now, is also the current President of the Thunder Bay District Municipal Association for background legal information. Then, he's looking into holding a public forum (or a series of them) asking people for their input. The results of all this will, at least in theory, be written up in a submission to the - Spicer Commission on Canada's future. The questions we all need to ask ourselves include: system, based 'on a loose federation of the states. The American system thus fluctuates back and forth between a strong federal system (useful in times of war) and a highly- decentralized one, with powerful state legislatures capable of .resisting Washington over issues like civil rights for blacks. The power of the federal state varies with the willingness of the states (and the municipalities) willingness to give Washington power. In the Canadian system, powers are delegated from Ottawa down, rather than the other way around. Canada formed a federal government while provinces were still in their infancy. It's only in very modern times. that governments have decentralized, and put more onus on the lowest levels of government - municipalities and school boards. I hope Hamilton organizes the forums, and people take the time to participate. Spicer's search for "poetry" might be useful for literary archivists, but it won't solve our real problems. We need to re- invent Canada quickly, before we implode ourselves under the weight of our internal contradictions. :As we re-invent our constitution, we need to establish government systems that are truly accountable. Local government has always had the potential to be that, simply because it's the most accessible. But it's not always the most responsive, just because it's close. The question of legal status for municipalities takes on another dimension, when you think about the real meaning of "aboriginal self-government". Native people are pushing for justice from the constitution as well, and want some formal recognition of the fact they were self-governing, long before we got here. Over the years, our Indian Act has taken away all basic rights of government on reserves. We take for granted the right of our municipal councils to pass by-laws CONTINUED ON PAGE 6