This blog will look at environmental and political issues that will affect the quality of life for future generations of all species. Including; sustainability, media labels of "environmental issues," and different kinds of resistance to environmental oppression. I will also post on anything I think someone interested in the aforementioned would be interested in...

Sunday, November 18, 2007

A University of Regina Student's Reflection on recent election results, and the political culture in Saskatchewan

If you were like most students at this university, you watched the recent election results with shock and horror. TWO Right-wing Conservative Governments at the same time?! These election results illustrate the enormity of Saskatchewan's continued ignorance about the biophysical processes at work on this planet!

I'm not saying Saskatchewan residents and students really had many other options though. The NDP, raised our tuition to be the 3rd highest in Canada. Then, 16 years too late they offered to lower fees by $1000 a semester. The Liberals were offering a measly $500 a year to full-time students only.

What did the NDP do with all their dirty money? By dirty money, I mean the huge amounts of revenue they generate from the mining and export of uranium. One-fifth to one-half of uranium miners die from lung cancer. Yet the provincial government refused (and likely still will refuse) to commission a study on the incidence of lung cancer in uranium miners in Northern Saskatchewan. Due to what is known as the "aboriginal exclusivity deal," most of these miners are aboriginal. The cultural genocide in Saskatchewan continues.

The Bayda Commission [1976] could have ended uranium mining in this province. Instead, it created the model of preferentially hiring aboriginals to work in this carcinogenic and toxic industry. The judge in charge went on to become Chief Justice in Saskatchewan (stepping down just last year).

Five years after he was chief justice [1986], Sylvia Fedoruk, the first female member of the Atomic Energy Control Board (Canada's corporate-controlled nuclear regulatory agency) became the first female Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan. It's interesting to see how friends of the nuclear and uranium industry end up in top positions of prestige and power of the political institution here in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan uranium almost always finds it's way into nuclear weapons. Most of the nuclear bombs in the world have a little piece of Saskatchewan in them, and that means our province economically profited from such bombings as; The Manhattan Project, Hiroshima, and more recently, the Shock and Awe attack by the US on Iraq. But we're making money on it. Peace is not a profitable commodity.

No wonder Lorne , Brad, and David were all too afraid to bring up the uranium/nuclear issue during their campaigns. (The Green party did bring up this issue, but not surprisingly, they were not allowed at most business ( i.e. Chamber of Commerce) and corporately-run debates (like CanWest's CTV).

Sadly, the NDP's corporate tax cuts [$190 million a year] weren't enough to buy them the business-vote in Saskatchewan [Many nuclear, uranium and oil companies contribute thousands in donations to the Sask party]. So now we're stuck with an even more corporate-interest government, and looking at further natural resource exploitation and even the possibility of a nuclear power plant built here in Saskatchewan. Don't think they won't try, especially when pro-nuke advocates are in control of Enterprise Saskatchewan.


Yes, I voted Green this past election. And Yes, I'll probably vote Green in the next one too, but they're the ONLY ones talking about these real issues (and willing to follow through on their talk with action!)

9 comments:

Louise said...

Dear Billy. You might want to look at how many Aboriginal people are smokers. I have no doubt that would be the cause of the high lung cancer rates.

Trees for our children... said...

ya... that's what Cameco claims too... trust them if you wish...

If I'm right, I prevent the destruction of the future for my children, and their children...

If your right, uranium/nuclear companies continue to make billions in dirty profits...

who has the vested interest in lying about this issue? Me or them?

John Murney said...

I'm glad you voted Green, Billy. We need more diversity in political culture, for sure. I also encourage you to keep blogging.

Louise said...

I have lived and worked in aboriginal communities both in the south and the north. Cigarette smoking is endemic. Lung cancer rates sky high. Most of them are nowhere near a uranium mine.

My question to you is who has a vested interest in brainwashing young university students?

Are you a student of Jim Hardings? I noticed his name further down below in a previous entry of your blog. Is he still a card carrying member of the Communist Party? He should be the laughing stock of the country if he is. Do ya think he might have a bit of an agenda when it come to filling you full of cockamamie anti-corporation BS? Nah!! Impossible.

Louise said...

Billy, I'm curious why you would feature a YouTube video of Harper speaking to a Jewish group about terrorism in the Middle East on a blog that is otherwise devoted to environmental causes?

Trees for our children... said...

I unapologetically acknowledge that Jim Harding has had an impact in 'brainwashing' me to think critically and for myself...

Secondly, I agree... the video is out of place... I won't delve into the complicated Israel-Palestine issue, other than to say that the situation is being exploited to support the 'military industrial complex' that is the United States... and has been for 80 years (including selling nuclear weapons)

Trees for our children... said...

... and you can take credit for inspiring the new more relevant video if you wish :D

Louise said...

Ah, yes. The military industrial complex. That neat little meme has been resurrected of late. I guess these hardened old leftie professors haven't had a new thought since the 1950s.

Louise said...

By the way, Billy. Do you know who coined that phrase?

It was Dwight D. Eisenhauer, in a speech delivered in 1960. As you can see, it was a cautionary statement.

This man, of course, was more than just the President of the United States. He was also a five star general in the American Army, serving in WWII as supreme commander of the Allied forces and later of NATO. As the speech suggests, no decision to go to war or not to go to war is ever easy.

If you really do have concern for the children of the world, now or in the future, perhaps you should learn a bit more about the fate of children under the Ba'athist dictatorship in Iraq. I'm putting together a post for my blog on that subject right now.