Hundreds of Kamloopsians Against Creosote Burning

Despite snow, sleet, rain and a sudden chill, hundreds of Kamloopsians protested the province's decision to build a factory to dispose of railroad ties. By burning the ties, creosote would be burned releasing toxins into the already polluted air around Kamloops.

Michael Crawford told me there was no environmental assessment prior to the provincial decision and furthermore this type of factory has never been built before. Kamloops would be the testing grounds and will be a demonstration for other factories like this to be built.

"The precautionary principle should be: if you expect it to be harmful don't do it," Crawford said. "Why plunk this thing in the middle of 90,000 people who don't already have the best air quality?"

Bob Simpson, MLA for Cariboo North, said to me that the biggest issue for the people is how does democracy work?

City council voted against the creosote plan 9-0 and yet this was not enough to put plans to an end. The people vote in politicians believing they will help and this is not a good representation of this, Simpson explained.

Terry Lake, the local MLA in support of this experiment, should hold a meeting and bring in his experts and justify to the people why this is necessary if he is going to support it, Simpson said.

He explained to me that even if all the requirements are in place; if the people in the community being affected by this don't support it, the province should not force it.

Click here to sign the online petition against creosote burning.

Politics in Plain English: HST

As the interview began I told Crawford that I was working on understanding HST. I told him I knew the negative implications but wondered where the upside was. The short answer: he laughed and asked "upside?" in a lightly sarcastic voice before letting me continue.

“I saw Gordon Campbell on television last night being interviewed by Bill O’Donovan from CFCJ," Crawford began. "Bill said ‘well you know tell be about HST’ and the first thing that came out of the premiere’s mouth was ‘this is the most important thing we can do to improve the British Columbian economy. It is more important than anything else the government can do.’”

Crawford said it was as if to say this is something that the government must move ahead with even though it is unpopular it will be the one crucial thing that can be done to improve the economy.

“Provincial campaigns are usually pretty short—four weeks—but that was probably enough time for the premier, minister of finance and all the other incumbent MLAs to at least actually speak about their plans for the economy.”

And yet the HST was never mentioned. It was clear last Spring during the election that people were hurting because of the economy and yet we didn’t har then about ‘the most important thing we can do to improve the economy,’ Crawford explained to me. In other words, he never said vote for us and we will bring in the HST, if it was so important why wasn’t it mentioned.

“Why didn’t he put his agenda on the table?”

“This has created a lot of cynicism about politics that people are taking a step back from it. They aren’t seeing politicians as honest, they aren’t seeing the entire process as transparent, and it has become something many people find distasteful. And the HST for me is just a really good example of that. Because when you raise that issue in discussion with people: ‘what do you think about HST?’ almost the first thing people say ‘they never told us they were going to do that.’”

Either they were lying by not mentioning it during the campaign or they just were too stupid to think it up then.

‘This is the most important thing we can do to improve the economy.’ This has become their message. Perhaps by continuously saying this line the people might get used to it and begin to believe it really will improve the economy, Crawford said a little sardonically.

BUT HOW!?!, I ask. How exactly will this improve the economy? My next stop will be Kevin Krueger. He must know how this important thing will save us all.

Poltics in Plain English

I spoke with Michael Crawford today and explained my project to him: politics in plain English. Crawford is the NDP candidate for Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding, an assistant professor at TRU in the social work department and a very insightful guy.

He instantly warmed to the idea of making politics and news accessible to everyone and over the next hour we discussed everything from HST to Haiti and the proroguing of parliament and creosote burning in Kamloops. He thought it was interesting that I had asked about these topics specifically because they all reflect similar themes in politics: transparency, cynicism and democracy.

Everything has a connection with politics, he said at one point. Even going to the grocery store.

There was a point, before my time but in his youth that you could not go to a grocery store and simply buy whichever produce you were looking for. He gave the example of a banana: if they were not in season you could not find it. It is because politics have opened the world to trade that we have been able to purchase foods and merchandise from all around the world.

Even buying a cup of coffee is thus a political act, he said.

"People have a habit of distancing themselves from what they don't understand," he said. But just because we don't under physics doesn't mean we don't understand that if we fall it will hurt.

Understanding HST

I had an opportunity over the weekend to talk with a local business owner about HST. Christina Grono, owner of the Arts We Are Artisan Market and Gallery in Kamloops has a lot of character but not much to say on the harmonized tax.

She admitted she knew that it was going to be implemented this year but didn't know much of the affects. She said that it didn't really bother her both as a customer and a business owner because people would probably not notice a different. And despite everyone getting all riled up about it right now, in reality they won't notice a couple more dollars on a purchase of a tea and a snack.

I'm curious now that if HST is suppose to benefit business owners, why doesn't Grono understand how it will benefit her? She is after all who the government is trying to help. Perhaps the issue here is the lack of information being shared in plain English with the people it really matters to.

The government on strike?

I heard that Stephen Harper has decided to prorogue parliament. Many things came to mind: what does prorogued mean to start with?

Prorogued: to postpone or discontinue with a specific reference to parliament.

The fact that there is even a term to make sense of this bizarre situation seems really strange to me. How can a leader just shrug off all of Canada's issues? It seems to me he is just saying: 'Hey! I'll deal with it later. Come back when the war in Afghanistan and the recession is over and the climate is healthy again.'

An article in the Globe and Mail, 'Thousands protest prorogued parliament,' described a protest in which a young child accompanying his mother wore a sign asking if could prorogue cleaning his room. Another scene described protesters in black marching a coffin with a poster of parliament inside saying "democracy is dead."

What does this mean for us?

And because there is a facebook group for everything here is Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. So far it has 200,000+ member but the Canadians Against 'Canadians Proroguing Parliament' only has 43 members. If social media really is the future, the country has spoken.

What does HST mean for Kamloops?

So far I've heard the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) is a bad thing. What this basically means is instead of paying separate taxes (GST - 5 per cent and PST - 7 per cent) the taxes will be "harmonized" and combined to make HST - 12 per cent. This means that all the goods and services that were usually exempt from paying the GST such as books, food, haircuts will now be subject to a 5 per cent increase on final total, The Say No To HST in BC website explains.

And yet the HST website from the BC provincial government explains that it will boost the economy, save employers money and create new jobs. But it does not really explain how.

Pilot post

Today I was asked how I felt about creosote burning in Kamloops. I thought about it thinking my automatic response should be: 'it's bad for the environment so I'm against it,' but then it occurred to me that I really didn't know enough about it to have a real opinion.

I created this blog because there are many things I don't understand, and I'm not about to pretend I do. Instead I'm going to go through the process of research and update here in order to keep track of my information and also to engage readers. My goal is to engage the citizens and allow them to understand what is going on in the community around them. Without trying to sound like I'm running for Miss. Kamloops, I really want to express how much I want my fellow citizens to understand the world we all live in. I hope that readers will suggest topics for me to look in so I can find answers that not just interest me but you as well.

As far as creosote burning goes. The issue here is that railroad ties need to be disposed of. The idea is a grant will be awarded to build the facilities in Kamloops that would be able to dispose of them but as a result would release the toxins found on the wood. Environmentally, this would suck! However, with the lottery ticket offices and Covergys closing even more Kamloopsians are losing jobs. A creosote burning facility would offer many jobs for the unemployed.

I'm not sure if I support it or not, but at least I understand it now!