G20 Toronto Song of Peace and Redemption

"You will not recognize Canada when I get through with it."
- Prime Minister Harper

This is one of the few things PM Harper has said which I hold to be true. Over the past three weeks, I marched on eight demonstrations, until Sunday, when I collapsed from heat exhaustion. I no longer recognize Toronto, or Canada, because of PM Harper's actions, and for the last two days, I have been disoriented as if I have been caught in a tornado, and landed head first and upside down in a city which I do not comprehend. This new city is a militarized state which can suspend civil liberties to impose a summit, with a history of violence, to enable a group of self-selected economic leaders to streamline economic revenues into the hands of the corporate elite, and exclude the rights of civil society to share in this profit. I was so politically naive, I had not even heard of the Black Bloc until days into the People's Summit workshops.

I marched for hours beside youth who had degrees in International Studies, organic farmers, grandmothers, trade unionists, First Nations leaders, and media activists. I had involved conversations about the International Monetary Fund, food security, child poverty, privatization of public assets and natural resources, and the pollution of native lands and waters through mining. We knew why we marched, and in great detail, but later, not why we were arrested for Breach of the Peace. And we watched the cameras watching us, and cameras became the protectors of pacifists, like myself, who wanted to nothing to do with the riot police, but wanted to bear witness to the brutality perpetrated on others, who were often non-confrontational as well. This 6 km, $5.5 million, zinc-bathed steel fence was commissioned by the government from SNC-Lavalin, which is paying $1 for the right of way to run 140 diesel trains daily in the Air Rail Link through west-end Toronto. (This is my nod to what I am supposed to be writing about in this column exclusively, and how everything is interconnected in terms of government contracts in the military-industrial complex.)

Although CSIS had ascertained that there was no terrorist threat for either the G8 or G20 Summits, on June 14th, Premier McGuinty secretly revived and passed a war bill from 1939, the Public Works Protection Act, to enable Chief Bill Blair to draw an invisible 5 meter line to mark an area outside this 3 meter high fence. This fence protecting the red zone of the G20 Summit became a net to catch protesters, who passed within this outlawed area, and police were able to invoke the Public Works Protection Act during their arrest. It was only after the G20 that the public was made aware that only protesters who were behind the fence could be lawfully detained by the police, and this law had no legitimate power, thus was used to suspend civil rights arbitrarily.

The media has completely ignored our stories of non-violent, educated resistance, and this possibility for equitable coverage was superseded by the Black Bloc burning police cars, and smashing store windows, with still less damage than the hockey riots in Montreal in April 2008, after the Montreal Canadiens playoff victory over the Boston Bruins. With the Black Bloc's direct actions, they took away our rights to be heard, and as a media activist and pacifist, I believe the citizen who sang the G20 Song for Peace has infinitely more value than the erasing of our social message by hammers, combat boots, and tossed lighters.

This elderly gentleman represents to me what I love about Toronto - he had the courage to sing his own peace song, alone, with a bullhorn, with his revised lyrics to Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is Your Land', because he fought for our rights in the Second World War, and was saddened to see our rights taken away by the state, police chief Bill Blair, and Premier McGuinty. At the top of this chain of command is PM Harper, who decided to hold the G20 Summit in the center of Toronto, despite the formal request by Mayor Miller to hold the Summit in the walled Canadian National Exhibition Stadium. This courageous singer can show his face, and walk alone to represent civil society's unrepresented majority, whereas the Black Bloc chooses to remain anonymous, and run in a pack.

I believe in ingenious protest, and the creation of visual metaphors to engage the media to compete for the small amount of air time allocated to the opposing discourse, as the amalgamated, corporate controlled media has swung far more right than the average Canadian citizen. All the mainstream news media - radio, print and TV - completely ignored the Shout out for Global Justice held by the Council of Canadians, and the People's Summit forum held at Ryerson, and other social forums held over the month leading up to the Summits. The CRTC should be notified that this complete lack of coverage on social justice policy was inequitable- they allowed the Black Bloc to dominate the media, as much as the police did by allowing the police cars to burn for 1.5 hours for the international photo op. Where were the riot police's water cannons then? Were they only to silence citizens? Based upon the Miami Model, military tactics learned from oppressive regimes, police brutality and kettling were used to corral protesters during a non-violent event that was promised to be in a Free Speech Zone, located in front of our provincial legislative buildings in Queen's Park. The irony of it all.

During the past two weeks, I have analyzed the mainstream media deficit regarding alternative social policy forums, and could not turn my eyes away in horror. During the union march on Saturday, I marched with two vibrant young women, and sang the Star Wars battle theme as we passed the police, who were outfitted in full Darth Vader riot regalia. We saw the visor of the leader of the squad tremble, and realized that he was giggling at our shaky, out of tune rendition.

An hour later, the Black Bloc rampaged, a small percentage of vandals who have criminalized the term 'protesters' for a new generation of educated, engaged citizens, and hijacked our rights to be heard by the mainstream media. The Black Bloc played right into the hands of PM Harper, and helped him justify the $1.5 billion cost for security, spoiling the event for the rest of us. During the Saturday play by play on CityTV, police Chief Blair felt it necessary to hold Sid Ryan, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour, accountable for encouraging families to bring their children to Saturday's union march, as if Sid Ryan could control the Black Bloc. This was a passing of the buck for police responsibility, and a deliberate undercutting of the labour movement by Chief Blair, I think.

As a civil society response to this suspension of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and arresting of 1079 protesters during the G20 Summit, six of us have built a repository of citizen media, The Real G8/G20, to privilege our different perspectives, and focus on the Bolivian call to arms from Cochabamba for the rights of Mother Earth. This online forum is designed to enable the ongoing transformational, social policy making and activism that arose during the Summits, but was sidetracked by violence, and the media preference for sensationalism. For all of those who had the courage to protest peacefully, and want to add to the discourse of social, environmental, trade, and water justice to add Toronto's official voice to the People's Agreement of Cochabamba, I salute you with my metal water bottle.

As one of my fellow protesters said to me on Saturday, "We are the people who will not look away". These are the people I valorize by writing this column, and by volunteering to organize this online forum. I encourage you to submit material to the The Real G8/G20, and add to a movement which sets its own social policy and media representation beyond a police state, and militarized civil society. As Dr. Vandana Shiva said, as she threw her sari over her shoulder as she walked off the stage at the Shout Out for Social Justice, "This too shall pass". We must make it go away together.

Highly Recommended References:
G20 Toronto Song of Peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSAdg3LEiGk (A special thank you for the citizen who sang this, and the person who posted this video.)
People's Summit, link at http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/3671
Mary Ormsby, 'Fortress Toronto: Secrets of the fence', link at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/825908--fortress-toronto-secrets-of-the-fence
Public Works Protection Act, link to http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/source/regs/english/2010/elaws_src_regs_r10233_e.htm
Linda McQuaig, 'Police, bankers exempt from austerity', link at http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/829902--mcquaig-police-bankers-exempt-from-austerity
CRTC Complaint and Inquiry Form, link at http://www.crtc.gc.ca/rapidsccm/register.asp?lang=e
Catherine Porter, 'When police stick to phony script', link at http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/828876--porter-when-police-stick-to-phony-script
Star Wars battle theme, link at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aet9wYHaufk&feature=fvst
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, link at http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I
People's Agreement of Cochabamba, link at http://pwccc.wordpress.com/support/
The Real G8/G20 Submit Content, link at http://therealg8g20.com/
Dr. Vandana Shiva at the 'Shout Out for Global Justice', link at http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2010/06/features/watch-shout-out-global-justice

Seasick or Seachange: The G8 and G20 Summits

Only when the last tree has been cut down;
Only when the last river has been poisoned;
Only when the last fish has been caught;
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
- Cree Prophecy, oft-quoted as the rallying cry for the environmental movement

A belated happy World Oceans' Day. A plume of oil 228 km away from its source in the Gulf of Mexico has been found, and scuba divers are encountering oil masses the size of softballs. This oil spill is seven times the size than that of the Exxon Valdez, and is still growing. So far, 9.5 million litres of oil have been spilled into the Gulf.

ABC News has shown footage of the first days of the oil spill, which BP chose not to make public, which documented far more oil leaking than initially admitted by the oil company. Human error and omission on the part of BP has exacerbated the scope and size of the oil spill because of their slow response time, poor management of containment measures, and inability to coordinate clean up efforts with the thirteen American natural resource agencies, waiting for instruction from this British oil company. The Americans have written a letter to BP saying they have two days to contain the spill.

As oil begins to wash up on shore, white Florida beaches and marshes are blackened. Generations of fish will have birth defects, or not be able to reproduce, and coral will die, as far away as Cuba, suffocated by a coat of oil. A genie in the bottle has been let loose by unregulated offshore drilling, a legacy of the Bush era, and Barack Obama is powerless to defend American natural resources against British corporate interests, and force this renegade oil well to be capped.

When I was a child, I was given a technicolour atlas of Canada, and told that we had the second largest land mass in the world, and more resources than we could possibly ever use - that we were awash in timber, fish, and wheat. In my lifetime, I have seen cod disappear on the east coast, wild salmon become scarce on the west coast, and pine beetles ravage west coast forests. Americans are facing the probable extinction of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and this oil spill will have repercussions as far away as Vancouver.


Several months ago, while I stood in line at the grocery store, I overheard a child say that we will not have fish in twenty years. He may be right. We can extract oil, but we can never generate life, or recreate ocean species, and our oceans have changed their temperature and acidity by absorbing our greenhouse gases. A revered Canadian journalist Alanna Mitchell writes brilliantly about this in her book 'Seasick'. She titled her book after witnessing the reaction of an oceanologist, who upon hearing of the radical chemical alteration in the world's oceans, threw up, and was sickened for weeks by thoughts of the scientific repercussions on the reproductive capacity of ocean life in the increasing number of dead zones.

In Canada, one million wild salmon swam upstream this year in British Columbia's Fraser River, when ten million were expected, shocking the First Nations communities and fishing industry. The government has launched a formal enquiry into the salmon farms, agricultural run off, and changing temperatures of the oceans, yet refuses to regulate oil sands' tailing ponds, which leak millions of litres of toxins into the once pristine Athabasca River. Upon hearing of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil industry representative said that it will make Canadians think of the oil sands as a cleaner source of oil, as if leaching toxins into the Athabasca River is better than spewing oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Are not all water systems interconnected?

As PM Harper spends $2.1 million to build a Fake Lake as a backdrop for journalists to sell off the 'Muskoka Experience' to international interests for the G20, I have witnessed climate change in this lake district firsthand. There have been two hurricanes within the past five years in Muskoka. A century old tree fell down within two inches of a neighbouring cottage, and entire swathes of old growth forest have been ripped up throughout this region. Historically, there have never been tornadoes of this magnitude in Northern Ontario - this is a direct result of climate change, and our unlimited desire for oil. Meanwhile, PM Harper is touting Huntsville and the rest of the Muskoka Lakes region as a tourist destination, encouraging more traffic, exurban expansion, Big Box Stores, and oil consumption, both on and off the water.

During the past ten years, I have watched Muskoka become a suburb of Toronto, and lose much of its rustic charm. You can buy pillows embroidered with Muskoka chairs made in China in its gift shops, purchase pre-fabricated birch canoes, and watch Sea Doos roar through shallow inland bays, tearing up clam beds in their wake. Tourist traffic can protect a region through revenue, but in many cases throughout Muskoka has not, as some of those who vacation there have no vested interest in preserving its natural beauty, environment or heritage, as they are just passing through, interested in cottage culture as a commodity, far more than the actual experience.

In a few years, I honestly wonder what natural resources Canadians will have left after the Conservative and neoliberal 'Open for Sale' agenda has taken full affect. As world leaders ask that the environment be included on the agenda of G20 international trade summit, and PM Harper refuses this request, this media spectacle is a harbinger of what we will leave future generations- a Fake Lake with plastic Muskoka chairs, a small pool with chlorinated water, and a sky with artificial stars as a backdrop for TV journalists as they describe our Canadian natural vistas - when a short walk away is Lake Ontario, one of our great inland seas, which we have done little to protect environmentally, and in which many of its 179 fish species have become extinct (see FishNet for a fascinating art project on this issue). In America, Jean Baudrillard may have it right- all we may have left is the false front of what was once culturally important, and contained our heritage, like the storefronts along main street in the Wild West movies, or the view of a kiddy pool version of Muskoka Lake, from a dock no longer owned by us.

I would hope that the G8 and G20 Summits become a forum to discuss global fiscal initiatives to enter a post carbon future, including curbing transportation emissions, to protect the world's natural resources for future generations, but this discussion did not happen during Copenhagen, and has been suppressed once again. In effect, $1.1 billion in security measures have been paid by Canadian taxpayers to hold 18 hours of meetings to privatize our assets and sell off our natural resources to resolve our debt, while incurring a debt of over $2.1 billion for the summit. Dissenting voices have been discredited by the media as 'protesters' rather than as peaceful citizens with a sincere desire to represent our country's best environmental and social interests. Business as usual in the suicide economy is the agenda in these summits, despite the possibility of economic growth through the international coordination of sustainable environmental policies, and development of green technologies.

Whether oil is absorbed as carbon from the air into our oceans, or exists as greenhouse gas emissions in our air, we need to discuss going toward a post carbon future to protect our health, and this carbon orgy must come to an end. With a Fake Lake as a backdrop to our media campaign for the G8 and G20 Summits, PM Harper, and our leaders, are about to sell off our country's natural resources, and right to self-government through the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, as if our country is a tourist attraction for the fire sale of our citizens' hard earned assets. Politically, our land, air, and water should be protected by us, because they belong to all Canadians as our birthright, beyond present federal policy and corporate agenda, or we will be left with only memories of what was once our country, like the fading technicolour on the resource rich map of my childhood.

O Canada, I stand on guard for thee.

This article is dedicated to my nieces, Jesse and Sally, to whom I read on the dock each summer.

References:
Live feed footage of Gulf of Mexico oil spill, link to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/live-gulf-oil-spill-video-feed_n_583682.html
Alanna Mitchell, 'Seasick', link to http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771061165
Claire Ironside and Angela Iarocci, ' FishNet Art Project on Species in the Great Lakes', link to http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/whatson/freshground/fishnet.cfm
David Korten on the Suicide Ecoomy, “Economies for Life”, YES!Magazine, Living Economies Issue. Fall 2002, link to http://peoplenotprofit.org/livingeconomies.htm

Jean Baudrillard on the 'aesthetics of disappearance' in America, Excerpts 2 Link to http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/america-excerpts-2/
Important information on the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Link to http://www.canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html
and Maude Barlow explains how the proposed Canada-EU trade agreement would deprive all levels of government of their ability to invest money in local economies, through programs such as Ontario's Green Energy Act. Link to http://www.canadians.org/tradeblog/?p=850

An Infinite Corridor, Reinventing the Automobile, and the Resilient City

Two weeks ago, as I galloped down MIT's Infinite Corridor, I spotted a poster advertising the speech of Ray LaHood, US Secretary of Transportation, as part of the Transportation@ MIT lecture series. At MIT, 230 faculty are working on progressive transport initiatives, drawn from the School of Engineering, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the Sloan School of Management. Their united objective? To mitigate the greenhouse gases from transport, and build sustainable, livable cities through developing high-quality transit infrastructure, such as the networked electric car, for efficient urban mobility using advances in information technology.

Transportation is responsible for 33% of emissions, and by 2020, there will be 8 billion people driving 1.1 billion cars. In Ontario, transportation is the largest and fastest-growing source of climate-change. In a networked society, it does not pay for Ontario's government, and Metrolinx, to be intellectually isolationist with $50 billion for Ontario's Big Move on the table, doled out over 25 years. Part of MIT's mandate is to be of public service, and ensure that their research and design is to be openly available for access by international transit initiatives, while maintaining control of their intellectual property through patents. Toronto is not the only city with the expansionist woes, and yet we live in a bubble of inadequate funding, discourse and debate, and our political representatives are ignoring some of the finest minds of our generation discussing one of the most pressing issues environmentally - the rising greenhouse gas emissions of transport in relation to urban intensification.

Ontario should be using principles developed at MIT to enable mega cities, like Toronto, to become resilient cities - cities which can absorb population growth, decrease fossil fuel consumption, and adapt quickly to crisis and emergency. Boston, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and what is jokingly referred to as the "People's Republic of Cambridge", are incorporating these MIT initiatives, and Toronto could use these cities as reference points. Instead, Metrolinx is far from incorporating the input from universities, international or local, in the design of this transit corridor in any meaningful capacity - any input from their own, and outside, urban planning consultants has been undermined by Premier McGuinty's mandate to leave a personal legacy, and refute his critic's accusations that he is slow to make decisions.

It is fair to say that Premier McGuinty, the Liberal Party, and Metrolinx's, area of expertise is not in infrastructure projects, or in environmental policy, given the communities' unanimous opposition to the diesel driven transit principles evidenced in the planning of first component of the Big Move - the Georgetown corridor, and the Air Rail Link. The need to honour the 1999 deal with SNC-Lavalin has trumped the intelligent planning of the GSSE and Air Rail Link, and there is a growing disconnect between the will of communities, progressive urban planning principles, and the allocation of funds for transit, because of the safeguarding of this privileged Air Rail Link contract above electric transit initiatives.

As Ontario debates the future of transit policy in the stingiest of times, we are moving further and further away from the idea of resilient cities as realized through integrated, clean transit design, and our political will, civic pride, and economy have become exponentially fractured. Toronto residents will be paying for this low level of political discourse for a long time as we are already bearing the brunt of the air pollution correlated to population growth. This critical discontent is growing - witness the campaign for Transit City and its posters and subway announcements. Mayor Miller has taken off his gloves as he rails against the $4 billion funding delay announced by the provincial government for the LRT. In one corner is Premier McGuinty, and Metrolinx, delaying budgets for the Big Move, honouring a retroactive contract for the Air Rail Link, and making facile and backward decisions for a massive infrastructure project, and in the other, is Mayor Miller, fighting for what he considers to be his legacy- the 120 km of light rail transit to interconnect downtown neighbourhoods.

Transit guru Steve Munro has a brilliant entry regarding these these cuts on his blog 'Transit Village' at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708 - be sure to read the particularly juicy response by transit specialist and engineer, Greg Gormick, at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708&cpage=1#comments The revised Transit City plan will see lines cut by a total of 22.5 kilometres and 24 fewer stations than the original plan announced by the province in 2008. Curiously, the funding for all controversial, dirty diesel infrastructure - the Air Rail Link and Georgetown- was left intact, while the Eglinton LRT funding was cut, as it enabled access to the airport. This is viewed by many transit analysts as a calculated decision on the part of the provincial government to protect the Air Rail Link contract, and nip conflict of municipal and provincial transit interests in the bud.

MIT is reinventing the automobile as an electric, personal mobility device, and Boston is incorporating MIT's transit policies to ensure that their city is walkable, has complete streets to include bicycles, and is adequately served by a light rail transit system to its airport and throughout its greater region. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Metrolinx is trying to run 140 diesel trains daily to the airport, building the equivalent of a polluting sixteen lane highway through twelve inner city neighbourhoods, and cutting funding for electric, light rail transit corridors. My visit to MIT confirmed that the Big Move will make Ontario the laughing stock of urban planners and transit specialists as a case study for not only destructive urban planning, but the dysfunctional relationship between arm's length agencies, governmental policy, and civic goodwill. I thought we were just sixty years behind, but no, given the depth and scope of research at MIT, Metrolinx is positively prehistoric in its choice of fossil fuel based infrastructure and urban planning initiatives, as currently advised by Premier McGuinty.

When I traveled to the airport, I watched Boston's airport LRT quietly pass by a playing field, with no disruption at all to the baseball game, and as I boarded my plane, I heard an announcement boasting that the equivalent of 11 million miles in tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions have been alleviated by Boston's airport LRT and interconnecting electric buses. I felt a pang that my neighbourhood parks, MacGregor and Sorauren, will not be served by my provincial government equally, and concern that I will be paying significantly higher taxes for transit that will damage my health and my community. The poignancy of this recollection will never leave me. The time for global collaboration on transit policy is now, and Ontario must be part of this networking, discourse, and implementation. Otherwise, we are going to be left in the dust, far behind the Americans.

References:
Video on Ray LaHood Transportation Lecture at http://transportation.mit.edu/events.php
MIT Press, 'Reinventing the Automobile' at http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12044

Facts on Canadian Transport Emissions at Pembina Institute at http://www.pembina.org and http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/driving-down-carbon-factsheet.pdf

Steve Monro, 'Transit Village' article, at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708
Greg Gormick Response to Steve Munro's article at http://stevemunro.ca/?p=3708&cpage=1#comments

"Stakeholders not Shareholders"

Gordon Mack Scott, Managing Partner of the Strategic Improvement Company, speaks about the need to protect municipal assets, and public services, so that we can all be players in the greater economy.

I shot this interview in Ward 18, which is part of the Davenport Riding, a high priority region in the City of Toronto, which would be seriously impacted by the privatization of public services and sale of municipal assets.

It is my video response to the $4 billion postponed by Premier McGuinty for the Transit City Light Rail Transit system, which was to connect other priority areas, like Jane and Finch, into the economic and social life of Toronto more efficiently. Premier McGuinty first promised this funding in 2007.

Link to the full resolution Youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6VmvTLS2_k

Get Smart and Go Electric

We’re all in favour of a better public transit system. Everyone is on board. But no one should be asked to trade public health for public transit.” Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown
Electric vs Diesel Forum on March 22nd at City Hall
As I write this, I am sitting on a 4200-horsepower MP40 GO Train, and smelling the diesel emissions in my coach. My eyes are smarting. As a seasoned Lakeshore West commuter, I believe that people actually underestimate the future impact of the Georgetown South Service expansion, and Air Rail Link, will have on our west-end neighbourhoods. A GO engineer has admitted to me that GO ensures that there are buffer zones around train stations for a reason - the pollution and noise from diesel trains stopping and starting is too intense for nearby residential development.

Yet on the even more urban Georgetown Corridor, condos have been built within meters of the proposed expansion, their balconies overhanging the future seven, or eight, tracks. The number of tracks, or amount of exact train frequency, was not answered at the recent Electric vs Diesel Forum at City Hall, but was estimated to be around 200, with 140 of these trips by the Air Rail Link. I am still astounded by the informed standing room only audience, which asked pointed questions of VP Metrolinx, Gary McNeil which he could not answer, surrounded as he is by the Liberal Party 'cone of silence', an hysterically funny device perfected in 'Get Smart', a TV show which ran throughout the 1960s. NDP MP candidate, Andrew Cash, wrote so eloquently about the forum in NOW, that I can only link to his article. At the end of the forum, Councilor John Filion complimented those participating, and said it was a higher quality discussion than City Hall has seen in a long time. We laughed.

The truth of this project is so simple- if the corridor is built with electric trains, it will add value to all the communities it runs through by transit-oriented development. If it is built with diesel trains, it will damage our communities, and reverse the current trend of investment and revitalization. A third rate transit system will mean a third rate Toronto.

Why are these basic urban planning principles so difficult for the provincial government, and Metrolinx/GO transit to see? And why is no one else in the world, and I mean no one else, expanding diesel rail corridors directly beside parks, schools and condominiums? And why, oh why, are we considered worthy of a third rate Air Rail Link which will last for generations to come as our tax legacy from the Pan Am Games? Vancouver parlayed their Olympic investment into the SkyTrain, which has added to the welfare of their city, and we will be running Olympic athletes through a rat's maze of 5.5 concrete meter walls on their way to their Olympic Village, blocking west-end Toronto from their windows. What is there to hide? Bad transit policy and contempt for the rights of citizens?

To add insult to injury, although currently spending $4 million for yet another electrification study (is it twelve? or thirteen?), Metrolinx/GO is in the process of researching and developing platinum catalytic converters and Tier 4 'clean diesel' for the MP40s, as well as custom built diesel multiple units for the Air Rail Link. They will test these new, specialized technologies on the Georgetown South corridor, shortly after the latest electrification study is filed. Does this mean that this electrification study is a sham, and its inevitable support of electrification is a moot point? Is it a 'done diesel'? And why is Metrolinx/GO engaging community stakeholders, and their valuable time, to discuss the obvious through a highly publicized series of electrification workshops, yet in their independent, separate time line, viewing the choice of diesel locomotives as 'fait accompli'? Is this operating in good faith to include the input of these participants? And why is this SNC-Lavalin contract protected by a Maxwell Smart cone of silence with the government agencies involved in an elaborate game of broken telephone with the community, and with each other? And why has Metrolinx recently purchased more MP40s, which have a life span of 40 years?

As Mike Sullivan, Clean Train Coalition head, has pointed out, they are building this massive track expansion to enable the privately owned Air Rail Link. We are fighting KAOS, a labyrinthine, unaccountable organization, which has refused to hear our unanimous message asking for electrification. Nothing was more evident at the forum, as there were no clear answers from the Metrolinx VP Gary McNeil about any aspect of this project- not the final number of the tracks, the inefficiency of the privatization of the Air Rail Link, or the rationale for diesel. When I told him that this corridor would reverse revitalization in my community, he said "I do not see it that way". Well, he is the only transit manager in the world who could say those words with impunity, with the public relations machine of an arm's length transit agency backing him.

The absurdity of this all never ceases to amaze me, but I have a personal, pressing concern. This fall, I had a viral respiratory disease which took my breath away. For six weeks, I had asthma. It felt as if liquid concrete had been poured into my lungs, and because of the asthma, my body could not use my lungs to fight the virus with oxygen, extending my illness. I know the impact of diesel rail emissions as a commuter firsthand, and that Toronto relies upon the health of its air, its citizens and their lungs. I write with all my remaining lung capacity to raise the cone of silence surrounding Metrolinx, and the provincial government, to unveil their secret contract with SNC-Lavalin so they can communicate with the community, and heed their unanimous, standing room only call for electrification of this west-end rail corridor. Get smart, Metrolinx, and go electric.

References:
Get Smart - Cone of Silence (from episode 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1eUIK9CihA
Andrew Cash: 'Dumb like Diesel: Residents' eco concerns take a back seat to Pan Am Games in great train debate'
http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=174249
Metrolinx Electrification Study
http://www.metrolinx.com/electrification/past_studies.aspx
'Diesel rail a health hazard, forum told'
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/783769--diesel-rail-a-health-hazard-forum-told

Invitation to Electric vs Diesel Public Forum: Monday, March 22nd

This forum is a public discussion of the proposed Metrolinx expansion of the Georgetown South transit line and the rail link from Union to Pearson.

The Board of Health supports expanded public transit as a way to reduce vehicle traffic, but remains concerned about health risks and air quality impacts predicted with the proposed diesel rail expansion.

Date: Monday, March 22, 2010
Time: 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Place: Council Chambers, Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street W.

Presentation
Moderator: Eva Ligeti, Executive Director, Clean Air Partnership

Panelists:
Gary McNeil, Executive VP, Metrolinx
Prof. Christopher Kennedy, Transportation Infrastructure Expert
Dr. David McKeown, Toronto Medical Officer of Health

Please feel free to distribute this invitation widely.

"It's Not Fair, We Want Clean Air": Citizens 4 Clean Air Rally

Today at 2 p.m., I attended an extraordinary rally at Queen's Park organized by the Citizens for Clean Air (C4CA). Thousands of people protested the proposed construction of a 900-megawatt natural gas power plant in Oakville, slated to be one of the largest in Ontario. They arrived en masse in 42 yellow school buses, with their mayors from Mississauga South, Oakville, and King Township leading the charge, to point out the flawed decision making process of TransCanada Corporation, and the Ontario Power Authority, which has permitted them to build this gigantic plant within 2 km of 5000 homes, and 16 schools. Why was I there? I care about clean air in Ontario, I teach at one of those nearby schools, and my brother's family lives near this area. The world is small and interconnected, and the Liberals, in their mad rush to grow an electoral empire, are putting this world I know at grave risk. My beloved Ontario is being threatened by those claiming to lead it. As I walked away from the rally, one of my students reached out their hand from a bus to wave good-bye.

This megawatt power plant is being fast-tracked, without a full federal Environmental Assessment process, which the Mayor of Oakville, Rob Burton, promises to pursue with all his formidable might. The C4CA might be gravely disappointed to find out, as I did in our case with Metrolinx, that TransCanada Corp., a private company, and the Ontario Power Authority, an arm's length agency, will collude with the federal Minister of the Environment to refine data during the Environmental Assessment process to avoid air quality exceedances and provide the go-ahead for construction. Most likely, the EA will say that the airshed in Oakville is already so highly polluted- what is a bit more 2.5 particulate matter added to the mix?

It is the same argument that I have heard from Metrolinx to rationalize the Georgetown South Service and Air Rail Link expansion, that CommunityAir has heard from the Toronto Port Authority, and most likely, that the C4CA will hear from the Ontario Power Authority. The pivotal question that must be answered is whether private companies, in this case, TransCanada Corp., have the best environmental interests of residents in mind as their highest priority due to their corporate mandate. In fact, is there not an intrinsic conflict of interest between a private company and residential communities when the objective of a company is to provide specific services for profit, vetted by a provincial arm's length agency? And when the mandate of the provincial and federal levels of the Canadian government, apparently, is to ensure that our infrastructure is dependent on fossil fuel, when the rest of the world is turning away from this dirty habit?

A public relations thorn in McGuinty's side is that two gas-fired power plants have blown up, one very recently. On February 7th, five people have died in Middletown, Connecticut, and twelve were injured, with a blast emanating for 48.2 km. The plant was run by Kleen Energy Systems (sic). The GO train serving Lakeshore West is within 50 metres of the proposed site for this plant, and its pipeline, and this gas powered plant will emit a vapour cloud, which will ice the tracks, and decrease visibility. If you were worried about Lakeshore West GO service before, you really should be now.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, and the Liberal Party, are directly responsible for this project, through faulty rationale enabling a false timeline. Our population is simply not growing that quickly, and Ontario has more than enough energy, a significant proportion of it renewable energy generated by Niagara Falls. In fact, as we speak, Ontario is selling off its surplus to the United States, and buying it back at a loss. NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns has revealed this information, published in a series of articles in the Star this summer. There is no other government in the world who would issue permits to build gas-fired power plants when they do not have a critical need of electricity, especially when they have surplus, renewable sources at their fingertips. This is part of the aggressive expansionist policy of Premier McGuinty, and he should prove the need for this plant to the opposition, and all Ontario residents.

Who is used to enforce these aggressive, fossil fuel guzzling decisions for unsustainable infrastructure? The Ontario Port Authority, the Toronto Port Authority, and Metrolinx are used to be the enforcers of these outdated projects. I am becoming very leery of any arm's length agency with the word "authority" as part of their title - it is guaranteed not to be one. There is simply no need to build this fossil fuel plant at $1.2 billion, there is no need to build a fossil fuel driven air rail link at $1 billion, and there is no need to expand fossil fuel short haul flights, with donations from the federal government rising to almost $600 million. In addition, all of these infrastructure choices have security risks associated with their operation as they are situated in the center of heavily populated regions. Premier McGuinty is leading us toward not only climate change, and environmental degradation, through heavily polluted air, but adding to this possible, future security breaches.

In the words of the assemblers, "It's not fair, we want clean air." This constitutional right extends to all residents of Ontario. There is no greater birthright, and no politician, or political party, who has the right to take this from us. Everyone who breathes should unite to say "We do not need to build fossil fuel based infrastructure for generations to come". The Liberals will feel the loss of these votes during the next federal election - they are angering enough ridings in the GTA. These constituents will become a critical mass as they form a coalition to fight for better air quality in the GTA. It is Premier McGuinty's job which might not be safe, although in his interview responding quickly to the rally, he guarantees that the gas-fired power plant will be.

There is an excellent documentary, 'Stop The Oakville Power Plant', at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUcVB0UgSmQ for more information.

References:
Citizens for Clean Air at http://www.c4ca.org/
Ontario Power Authority at http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/
Surplus Electricity in Ontario at
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/649763 and http://www.thestar.com/article/621552
At least 5 dead in Connecticut gas plant blast at http://www.canada.com/news/least+dead+Connecticut+plant+blast/2534227/story.html
Toronto Port Authority and Air Quality Measurement at http://www.torontoport.com/airport_facts.asp
McGuinty promises Oakville power plant will be safe at http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100302/plant_protest_100302/20100302/?hub=TorontoNewHome