ELMIRA WATER WOES: THE TRIUMPH OF CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CITIZEN BETRAYAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Chapter Twenty-Seven:

Pg.

224.....Corporate Corruption

224.....Government Corruption

225.....Deceit

226.....Citizen Betrayal

227.....Media and Judicial Issues

227.....Some Light at the End of the Tunnel





Chapter 27

The title of this book is “The Triumph of Corruption, Deceit and Citizen Betrayal: The Elmira Water Crisis.” The corruption I refer to in the title of this book is both corporate and government corruption. This corruption is not necessarily evident by brown paper bags full of cash. It might be as little as a bottle of whiskey to an MOE abatement officer or as little as that same officer or even a MOE Investigations and Enforcement Branch officer hiding pollution evidence from the public in case their superiors are under political direction to minimize environmental infractions from a particular company to keep another local company securely on the legal hook.

Deceit can include fraud. It can mean brazen lying to the public either for monetary reward or for status or improved credibility. Deceit can be the purview of an individual polluter such as Uniroyal Chemical, the regulator (MOE), and governments (Woolwich Township, Region of Waterloo, province of Ontario). It can also be used by self-serving citizens looking for status, authority, and self-importance. Deceit essentially means lying. It is a part of corruption as in the example of a MOE officer lying to the public by either denying or hiding important evidence from public knowledge strictly for political purposes, not to avoid compromising a legal case.

Identifying citizen betrayal is tricky. Does this citizen betrayal mean corporate polluters and their regulators’, betraying the public trust? I think not as I am hard pressed to believe that there is such a thing as the public trust for corporations despite their very best public relations bodies such as the Chemical Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) who would tell us otherwise. Certainly the MOE have been grossly deceitful to both Elmira citizens and undoubtedly others living near environmental disasters and crises.

To me citizen betrayal means more than just a government regulator’s betrayal of the public trust. Citizen betrayal occurs when a private citizen uses an environmental crisis as a personal political launching pad. I observed two people who failed as mayoralty candidates for local Woolwich Township government. The second person however was a Woolwich Councillor years before she claimed to be an environmentalist. The other actually was elected to local Council while holding a responsible position for a citizens’ grassroots environmental group. I believe that there were three citizen betrayals although only two were in order to achieve personal political success.

Corporate Corruption

The corporate corruption I’ve seen in Elmira and Waterloo Region includes environmental consultants who forever spin environmental bad news and present it in the most positive light. This positive light includes gilding the lily as far as how readily the bad news can be contained or cleaned up to meet any MOE criteria. It includes finding exceptions to the rule that financially benefit the client. It includes instructing consultants not to do air tests at certain times of the day or to ensure that they are using an outmoded computer model that is likely to understate contaminant concentrations. It includes sampling surface waters by filtering out suspended sediments in the water that adversely increase the toxic load to life in a creek and then sampling the filtered water and presenting it as the surface water results. It becomes commonplace to Instruct environmental consultants to use published scientific literature that nullifies citizen claims regarding toxicity, mobility, persistence of certain compounds and/or whatever else benefits the corporation. It certainly is mandatory for corporate decision-makers to criticize or undermine any scientific literature that is contrary to its self-serving agenda. This biased selection reminds me of the claims from tobacco companies who for decades insisted that smoking was not harmful to people’s health and that doctors who said otherwise were merely unnecessary worry-warts.

Obviously, lying to the public on an ongoing basis is a major part of corporate corruption. A corporation’s loyalties are first to its shareholders and then to senior management. Lying to the public entails denying a problem, minimizing all environmental problems and issues, and presenting junk science whenever it can benefit corporate interests. As Susan Bryant once told me, “One adjusts the science according to one’s needs.”

Corporate corruption includes influencing local politicians as well as local citizens. This influence does not need to be either honest or forthright. This influence can be either positive or negative. A corporation can offer cash, off-the-books donations for upcoming elections and can publicly offer to contribute to a local fund-raising campaign for an arena or other public building. Corporate executives can threaten a local council with job losses if strict environmental enforcement should occur. Executives can also threaten to give election expense donations to politicians’ opponents and add or hold back on promised funding of a public park or recreational building.

Manipulating citizens is even easier. Simply puff them up. If a citizen emerges as an advocate for a group or the public on an environmental issue related to corporate operations then invite them to a private meeting. Impress them with access to senior management. Imply that that access would be ongoing and exclusive to the right citizens. Let them know that co-operation is essential and that more flies can be caught with honey than with vinegar. Some citizens will bite and others won’t. Those who aren’t impressed or who immediately realize what corporate management is doing will simply be relegated as general input from public meetings, never anything more serious. “Special” committees can be struck for separate environmental issues such as the Excavated Wastes Working Group (EWWG). This committee were designated by Uniroyal Chemical executives, hosted by them, and flown around Canada and the U.S. allegedly to examine hazardous waste disposal sites. It was nothing more than a junket or a method of keeping handpicked citizens on board and whose special status in the community was reinforced.

Corporate corruption includes company personnel being in charge of the cleanup from beginning to end, not an objective separate body. It includes lobbying provincial politicians to continue to ensure that environmental legislation never changes the polluter’s ability to control its own cleanup. Yes, corporations have to have some measure of acquiescence from the MOE but the Ontario MOE has proven itself to be trainable as well as easily embarrassed. It is my experience that MOE officials will roll over on almost anything in order to save face with the public. After all, they are an intentionally underfunded ministry of the provincial government and as such routinely are outspent by multinational corporations in hiring consultants, lawyers, and other experts.

Corporate corruption includes the will and the means to thin out citizen critics. This culling could include job blacklisting of particular local citizens as well as advising political friends not to appoint them to volunteer, municipal environmental committees. It could include using special citizen friends to undermine however they can what they perceive as citizen threats to their own elevated status. This elevated status may be either due to their rank and file efforts or due to actions of the polluter, its regulator, and/or the local council.

Examples abound of corporate corruption (Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura/Lanxess) over the last three or four decades in Elmira. Examples of misusing consultants and lying to the public include the following environmental issues and failures described throughout this book such as: DNAPLs, the Canagagigue Creek cleanup, UACTS, SSRA, Optimization, Off-Site CTS, Stroh and Martin farms, and the lack of source removal including DNAPLs.

Government Corruption

Government corruption may or may not be just as despicable and nasty as corporate corruption but one thing I know for sure is that government corruption is a far more morally, heinous behaviour. We the citizens through our taxes pay for our governments and we expect them to be working in our interests. This expectation, of course, is a fantasy about democracy. Our governments no more work for us than governments in Russia, Syria, and Saudi Arabia work on behalf of their citizens. All governments work on behalf of the wealthy and powerful elites in the country. If those elites can be convinced that the betterment of their fellow citizens will also benefit them, then progress for all can ensue. This government corruption can be at the municipal level (Woolwich Township), regional (Region of Waterloo), provincial (Ontario and the MOE) and finally federal (Canadian government). In my opinion all four levels of government have been guilty of corruption in Elmira, Ontario, albeit at incredibly varying levels and intensity. I give the nod to the Ontario MOE first and foremost with Woolwich Council coming in a strong second in the corruption department.

Government corruption entails the same five conditions or behaviours as corporate corruption. These conditions are having a quasi monopoly over the cleanup method, extent, and of being able to exclude the public both physically from accessing contaminated sites or vantage points as well as having a monopoly on data, reports, and other information. While lying to the public and engaging in junk science are very effective, occasionally the MOE runs up against citizens with equal or better technical abilities and experience than its own. Hence it is very important for the MOE in conjunction with the polluter to be able to control physical access to sites that the public strongly suspect are a public heath menace. The province and the MOE must decide if a call for a health study of the area may undermine their claims of minimal threat to public health. They must keep citizens at a distance for fear that citizens might take soil or water samples and thus prove a site is hazardous to any life. This evidence can set back both the company and the MOE’s message of either no problem or only a superficial, easily remedied problem that is completely under control. Neither of the two guilty parties wants the public or media to ever come to understand that environmental protection for them is more a slogan than a reality.

The other condition or behaviour associated with government corruption and similar to corporate corruption is influencing local politicians as well as a few key local citizens who preferably are not identified as political. Lastly, of course, is the necessity and willingness in the government’s mind to chop down any citizen activists who aren’t amenable to government and/or corporate charms and perks.

While government corruption is primarily provincial and exercised through the Ontario Ministry of Environment, it also includes municipal and regional governments. In my opinion local governments on the side of citizens are absolute disasters for the MOE. The MOE through the provincial government absolutely must have the local politicos onside or the whole, carefully constructed charade and façade of the polluter and regulator collapses.

Here in Elmira, the regional government refused a health study that likely would have exposed the damage and duration of contaminated drinking water and air in the community. (Similarly, the regional government did not conduct a desperately needed health study in the Bishop Street community of Cambridge where the community had suffered from trichloroethylene vapour intrusion for decades.) The sins of this municipal government are greater and ongoing because it has supported both the polluter and the corrupt MOE from the beginning with only token opposition along the way. The most blatant and obvious municipal corruption was the way the new Woolwich Council after October 2014 participated in the manufactured crisis of Chemtura and the MOE and their boycotting public consultation in order to remove the volunteer citizens appointed to CPAC by the previous council. They also removed and slandered me as a SWAT member. Furthermore, the council of 2006 to 2010 removed me from CPAC with no legitimate excuse other than ever-changing allegations by Chemtura’s special friends on CPAC (namely Ms. Bryant and Ms. McLean). At an informal meeting in the township building, Sandy Shantz was absolutely unable to advise council members that I had ever criticized or undermined any CPAC member during her time as a CPAC member. She wanted to but of course with me present the game would have been up if she had so lied in front of me. One other blatant example of Woolwich Council corruption occurred in 2000 when the majority of councillors voted in favour of taking over UPAC as a committee of council. As representatives did in 2014, Uniroyal Chemical in 1999 had walked away from UPAC because Uniroyal representatives believed UPAC members weren’t being appropriately deferential to them. The price of their return was UPAC losing its independence and the MOE lessening its restrictions demanding full on-site hydraulic containment that had been ordered in the November 4, 1991 MOE Control Order.

Deceit

Brian Beatty misled UPAC in 1992 when he advised that knowledgeable hydrogeologists believed that DNAPL was likely present in the sub-surface if concentrations of dissolved DNAPL exceeded 10% of the solubility of the chemical. Mr. Beatty then quoted Stan Feenstra; however, he quoted Dr. Feenstra out of context. Later, the Region of Waterloo accused engineering consultants Conestoga Rovers of sampling for DNAPLs in an intentionally unlikely location to find them. UPAC members were advised that 97.5% of all contamination entering the Canagagigue Creek from Uniroyal was doing so in the south-west corner of its property. Therefore, Uniroyal and CRA proposed to hydraulically contain only one quadrant of the entire Uniroyal shallow aquifer, contrary to the 1991 MOE Control Order. Decades of surface water testing in the Creek consisted of filtering out suspended sediments, throwing them away, and then testing the water. Dr. Jackson repeatedly reprimanded CRA and Chemtura from late 2015 until the end of 2016 for that deception. Chemtura advised CPAC in November 2012 that they were going to triple the amount of off-site groundwater pumping and treating to achieve drinking water criteria by 2028. Several years ago they amended the tripling to a doubling of the groundwater pumping rates. Nearly seven years later, they aren’t even close to either promise. In 2013, Chemtura excavated a large part of GP-1 in order to remove dioxins/furans and DDT that allegedly flowed there from the company’s east side pits. A little more than a year later, CPAC learned through my research that the location of GP-1 had been significantly altered over the decades. It is probable that what was removed was only the tip of the toxic iceberg. To date, Chemtura/Lanxess is still avoiding the issue and not telling anyone outside its inner circle of allies what they know. Deceit is and has been the corporation’s bread and butter from the beginning of the Elmira Water Crisis.

MOE deceit is just as reprehensible whether regarding Uniroyal Chemical, Varnicolor Chemical, Nutrite, or other sources of contamination around Elmira. APT members including Ted Oldfield, Richard Clausi, and I took the measure of the MOE’s integrity and credibility back in 1990. Due to my inside source at Varnicolor Chemical, I received ongoing information about the company and its actions, all of which were confirmed. Issues such as a buried tanker in Varnicolor’s yard, a buried septic tank beside it not hooked up to toilets but instead hooked up to a floor drain, and even the presence of buried drums on Varnicolor’s Lot 91 all were denied by the MOE until they were physically unearthed. The MOE went along with the lie from Uniroyal Chemical decision-makers that the company was the sole source of contamination to the Elmira aquifers in the October 1991 Settlement Agreement and in its November 1991 Control Order. MOE officials also went along with the Uniroyal Chemical DNAPL coverup with their December 10, 1993 memo accepting a tiny removal of DNAPL from RPW-5 and TPW-2. Officials went along with the upper aquifer scam to only contain one quarter of the upper aquifer on the 25 Erb Street site. The same is true for all the other corrupt actions of Uniroyal representatives that MOE officials publicly supported as soon as they realized that they couldn’t get any further voluntary compliance from the company. An example is the ongoing acceptance of testing soils for dioxins/furans to a depth of only 15 centimetres or 5.9 inches rather than one to six feet or more. The MOE have not publicly pressured Chemtura or Lanxess to test soils and water in and around the Stroh Drain for persistent organic pollutants. I must conclude that MOE officials realize that their integrity and credibility are once more at stake because if that area is highly contaminated, then it means that contaminated waters were leaving the Uniroyal site over decades while the MOE turned a blind eye. Was it all about allowing dilution, natural attenuation, and the migration of contaminants to reduce contaminant levels over the decades versus actually doing serious and expensive cleanups to remediate the contamination? Those cleanups might have required extensive litigation, which MOE officials have shown they would rather avoid.

An example of municipal deceit was Councillor Pat McLean’s statement at a Woolwich Council meeting in January 2000 when she said “The status quo is not an option.” That was a blatant, damn lie she told her fellow councillors. Some likely realized it while others not so much. The status quo meant leaving UPAC as an independent body subject to its own determination of agenda, terms of reference, and new member acceptance. Most likely the truth in Pat McLean’s statement was that the status quo was not an option for Ms. McLean and Susan Bryant because Uniroyal Chemical representatives had refused to return unless conditions were more favourable to them and that she, Pat McLean, didn’t want other UPAC and council members to know what was being negotiated away. Ms. Mclean and Ms. Bryant deceived both UPAC and some Woolwich councillors about this issue.

Citizen Betrayal

Members of the public, UPAC, CPAC, EH-Team, and APT Environment were all betrayed by all the other parties dealing with Elmira’s Water Crisis including Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura/Lanxess, the MOE, Woolwich Councils, CRA, and GHD. The public in general and Elmira residents in particular were most betrayed by both Uniroyal Chemical decision-makers and their corporate descendents as well as by Ontario MOE officials. The promise that the Elmira aquifers would be restored to drinking water standards by 2028 was simply a throwaway concept designed to both outlive all the current citizen critics as well as to take immediate pressure for results off Uniroyal and the MOE.

Another huge betrayal occurred with the public consultation process. UPAC was allegedly set up by Woolwich Township and MOE officials to give local citizens the illusion they had an equal voice in the remediation as well as a supervisory role to ensure that the two (guilty) parties continued to work effectively towards resolution of the problem. Turns out this equal role and participation through UPAC was plain horse manure from the very beginning in January 1992. The makeup of UPAC membership was grossly tilted in favour of Uniroyal and its supporters. Not only were there two Woolwich councillors on the committee (Quentin Martin and Grace Sudden), but later a Woolwich councillor was the chair of UPAC for nearly a decade, namely Pat McLean. There were former Uniroyal Chemical employees and current supporters of the company on the committee as well as conservative and pro status quo groups such as the school board, the GRCA, the Chamber of Commerce, etc. As far as it being a citizens’ only committee it was a joke which is why I and EH-Team members left in January 1994. APT should never have agreed to being a part of this farce and if they had said no, as Susan Rupert advised, it would have made a positive difference to both the cleanup and the integrity of the citizens’ group. APT Environment was in the driver’s seat at that time and wielded influence with the public. Sometimes the best position in a negotiation is simply saying “No, we do not have a deal.” This was one of those times based on the makeup of this UPAC committee.

The lack of a health study ordered by the Region and provincial governments was also a betrayal of trust of the local citizenry. Aggressive medical intervention as a result might have been too late for many citizens, such as Esther Thur, but it might have saved others if they and the health authorities had learned earlier exactly how adversely affected Elmira residents had been due to toxic exposures in both the air and drinking water.

At APT environment the loss of serious and hard-hitting members such as Susan Rupert, Richard Clausi, Esther Thur, Henry Regier, and I could have been reduced likely to almost zero. This loss was both APT’s and the publics’. It was caused by inherent flaws and weaknesses inside APT as well as by the support of Uniroyal and the MOE of two informal “leaders” of the citizens by private discussions and negotiations with them. It was almost immediately a recipe for disaster. The inherent flaws and weaknesses within APT were very human weaknesses. Despite the vast majority of the members being honest and forthright they simply did not have the time or energy, with families and careers, to stay on top of the issues, hence it was easier to delegate and trust when greater scrutiny was absolutely necessary.

The MOE never seriously wanted to have to deal with the public on an ongoing basis. Thus, they must have knowingly supported the usurping of authority of APT Environment members knowing that the two APT folks they were dealing with had their own agendas and were not properly taking the issues back to the APT Co-ordinators much less to the APT general membership. The MOE also knowingly betrayed the general public in Ontario by routinely sacrificing the environment to avoid court action with Uniroyal and its corporate successors as well as to save face from time to time.

I expect betrayal from a corporation. I detest betrayal from a government body whose mandate is to protect and assist citizens. Betrayal from private citizens designated to formal committees while they are pretending to be on both the side of the environment and the public is beyond the pale. That both government and industry would aid and abet this betrayal of citizens by other citizens is contemptible. I believe that Uniroyal Chemical and the Ontario MOE did that in order to minimize the support and moral authority of other informed citizens while buttressing the positions of their chosen spokespersons with whom they could make private deals outside the spotlight. These private deals often resulted in results that never saw the light of day nor received the benefit of vigorous debate and amendment by either APT co-ordinators or UPAC/CPAC. It is likely that on some issues these chosen citizens might have some legitimate environmental concerns. That they would maliciously backstab and undermine their colleagues, however, simply to enhance their own status and authority is beneath contempt. That they apparently viewed vigorous disagreement and debate within APT and within UPAC and then CPAC as unhealthy and unhelpful speaks to their self-centred approach to the environmental crisis that engulfed Elmira.

Media and Judicial Issues

As long as no major news media attended Uniroyal/Crompton/Chemtura and Lanxess public meetings did it really matter if I or others “publicly” took CRA and its client to task? While credit is still due to the Elmira Independent for its decades of coverage, without Kitchener-Waterloo or Toronto news media coverage, perhaps all the guilty parties were home free. After 2004, news reporters from the Waterloo Region Record hardly ever attended. Reporters from local CKCO-TV were even less likely to appear. From a provincial, national, and international story in 1989, Elmira issues faded into obscurity. Even from a local standpoint, the pollution issues faded because Elmira residents had a water pipeline from Waterloo providing normally contaminated tap water versus NDMA enhanced Elmira well water. News coverage also faded because the Kitchener-Waterloo media said the news had faded by their regular non-coverage of the public meetings.

To my way of thinking, the entire legal and environmental basis for remediation of contaminated sites has been perverted. Ontario MOE officials have long operated on the basis that cleanup of a neighbour’s property due to another party’s release of contaminants into the natural environment is necessary albeit mere containment of the original contaminated site or source area is acceptable. Then, it’s all about arguing and negotiating with MOE officials as to how much remediating is needed and for how long. Next it’s a case of a consulting company doing the monitoring and testing of soil, ground, and surface water and devising a remediation plan. Lastly, that plan must be sold to the MOE. In all of these remediation discussions and negotiations, MOE officials determine the depth of the financial pockets of the polluting party. That, unfortunately, makes a significant difference in all the decisions made by the MOE. Once a polluting party has clearly indicated its ability and willingness to go to the mat, whether to contest rulings at the Environmental Review Tribunal or the courts, then everything changes. Uniroyal Chemical and its successors are multinational, multibillion dollar enterprises. Its’ legal budgets absolutely dwarf any legal budget for the Ontario MOE and both parties know it. In Elmira’s complicated, slow and delay-riddled options for side issues to be litigated via motions, even relatively straightforward cleanups can be delayed for decades. Courts are the rich party’s best friend. Hence, the MOE seems to routinely compromise the public interest to expediency in a quest to get the most bang for the least legal costs and in what officials deem as a timely fashion. It simply can’t be done well and Big Corporate Polluters have a tremendous advantage, which they exploit unmercifully.


Some Light at the End of the Tunnel

The lesson I learned over my thirty years of involvement principally in Elmira is very simple. One incredibly experienced, honest, and credentialed individual with a backbone as is Dr. Richard Jackson, is worth a thousand Wilf Rulands, Steve Quigleys, David Ashs, Jeff Merrimans, Dwight Estes, Hardy Wongs, George Karlos, Garth Napiers, and Bill Bardswicks put together. Dr. Jackson spanked all the professional bureaucrats, pseudo politicians, consultants, and government and corporate employees and left their credibility and manipulative behaviour in the dust.

In Chapter Twenty, Dr. Jackson showed to those of us who have a long history with the problems at the Uniroyal site, exactly how far its decision-makers including all its corporate successors have strayed from best practices in regards to containing, remediating, and protecting Elmira’s natural environment if they ever did. Dr. Jackson also showed what he alluded to as incompetence. Perhaps that’s what it was. Or, on the other hand, was it benign neglect? Did Uniroyal and successors really care as to how professional their cleanup was or were they more concerned with appearances as well as saving money?

The loss of Dr. Jackson as chair of TAG was huge. It was damaging to the public interest. To date, I do not have evidence of political or corporate direct interference in his resignation. I do know that inexperienced TAG members were not ready to go the wall with Dr. Jackson when he soon realized that MOE and Chemtura intransigence, delay, and resistance would continue. As he advised TAG, CPAC, and the public, the problems were not technical; they were public policy issues and he would not continue as TAG chair.

Dr. Jackson had operated using U.S. and EPA rules and laws for decades. Environmental public policy in Canada, in my opinion, is less subtle in its biases in favour of business and industry. The fact of Canadian industries being in charge of their own cleanup is one of the more obvious and objectionable examples of this bias, somewhat akin to the fox being in charge of the henhouse. It is my interpretation that Dr. Jackson resigned when he understood that remediation facts, science, logic, and honesty came a very distant second to corporate and government sensitivities and concerns. Face saving, money saving, and the status quo trumped serious environmental concerns every time. They also trumped the health of citizens every time.



THE END OF THE BOOK BUT NOT OF THE STORY! IT WILL CONTINUE ONE POST AT A TIME IN MY ELMIRA ADVOCATE BLOG @ www.elmiraadvocate.blogspot.com

FOLLOWUP ON THE STINK IN PRESTON NEIGHBOURHOOD

The Cambridge Times had a Letter to the Editor published last Wednesday in response to an earlier article in the Times about odours coming from a company called Team Reclamation located at 1574 Eagle St. in Preston. I presume that the original Cambridge Times article is the same one that the Waterloo Region Record published last Wednesday and to which I have a link to in my Wednesday post here in the Elmira Advocate.

The title of the Opinion piece in last Wednesday's Cambridge Times is "No satisfaction for neighbours of Preston industrial cleaning business". It was written by Thomas Vann of Cambridge, a very community involved and active person. Mr. Vann has a file on this company and their contributions to the community's air that is nine years old. In 2016 he received a promise from the then manager, Mark, that the company would not use the thermal ovens when the wind blows in his street's direction. Besides the thermal ovens the company also uses chemical stripping. I personally would be surprised if this did not include the use of harsh and strong solvents such as TCE or TCA the compounds implicated in the Bishop St. community disaster.

Mr. Vann has contacted his municipal councillor Donna Reid and gotten nowhere with her. I am not shocked at that. Quoting Mr. Vann "There have been times the odour was so strong you could feel burning in your eyes and lungs". Furthermore "Our family had to leave our home and neighbours shut their windows. Swimming pools had a brown layer of film on them and cars had brown stains on them. I wondered what it did to people, pets, hanging laundry and vegetable gardens in the area?".

Mr. Vann does have praise for M.P.P. Belinda Karahalios whom he spoke to and since then there have been improvements in the air quality. The head honcho at Team Reclamation is now a Mr. Glen Smith. Mr. Vann has invited Mr. Smith to meet with him and show that he is sincere in his concerns for the community.

These symptoms Mr. Vann has described along with the nature of the business are both of health concerns as well as disrupting people's normal enjoyment of their properties. These actions and ensuing results as described are totally illegal. Our pathetic judicial system and police or Ministry of Environment enforcement are next to useless in cases like this and irresponsible corporations and owners/managers take full advantage.

MORE MOE IMPOTENCE ON DISPLAY?

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Residents raise a stink about odour in Preston". This article actually appears to be taken from the Cambridge Times newspaper and their reporter Bill Doucet. Here are my hard earned insights regarding the MOE, air polluters, and either public nuisance or public health threats from air emissions.

1. The MOE and the polluter will lie to the public about anything and everything.

2. Neither of those parties usually give a fig about public health including the health of children and other highly susceptible individuals to unhealthy or toxic air.

3. They care about politics and money first, second, third, fourth, fifth etc.

4. Go back to 1. and reread the first three insights.


One of my favourite lies in Elmira was that it's only an odour or a smell. It can't be toxic. This article has a number of questionable statements from the company involved. For example after thirty years involvement in Elmira air and water issues I've never heard of "nitrate of water vapour". That is either an error by the reporter or bulls... from the company. We are advised that the company does paint stripping and that "ovens are used in the stripping process" with hot gases being discharged into the air. Well paint itself has been toxic for decades granted the "carrier" of the pigments used to be highly volatile and toxic solvents. Latex paint is much safer however without a formal analysis who knows what kind of paint they are stripping and or even whether the stripped paint is released as particulates into the air which is very unhealthy.

Whatever is being discharged, residents are being exposed to it whether or not they can smell it. Human smell is not particularly sensitive and hence unhealthy levels can sometimes not be smelled by most people. The company also does "hook cleaning" whatever that might be. They state that they remove all coatings. Again what exactly are the coatings? There are resins, paints, stains, and all kinds of possible toxic compounds that may be involved. If the company has absolutely nothing to hide then distribute a list of all compounds they use or handle within their facility to the public.

WHY DOES THE SCIENCE GET DONE AFTER THE FACT?

The likely answer is money. Money and politics that is. Industry that produces pesticides and herbicides do their own research and guess what: it's not always the best science. Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following story titled "Scientists find bees that nest in soil exposed to deadly pesticides". Honey bees have been well studied due to the negative effects upon them by viruses as well as by neonicotonoid pesticides. The University of Guelph are now studying the effects of pesticides on bees that nest in the ground which encompasses more than 400 bee species in Ontario. The news is not good to date in those studies.

The past focus has been on honey bees probably due to the bee losses over many years and the accompanying honey losses. Now the University of Guelph are finding that bees which feed on the nectar and pollen as well as help pollinate squash, pumpkin, gourds and melons are being exposed in the soil to lethal concentrations of pesticides sprayed on these crops.

Self-monitoring and self-regulation in industry has been a failure environmentally across North America. The whole purpose of pollution is to externalize business waste disposal costs upon the public via the cheapest discharges possible to the natural environment. This includes air, surface water, groundwater and direct soil discharges of toxic wastes as well. Hell human beings even dump directly into the oceans when they can get away with it. Our governments are there to protect us from these bad apple and or rogue industries yet far too often governments turn a blind eye to industry transgressions for a multitude of reasons. The recent SNC-Lavallin case is but one example of a corporate body both breaking the laws (bribery of foreign governments) with impunity as well as lobbying their own government to change the rules/laws for their direct benefit (deferred prosecution/remediation agreements).

POLITICOS SPEND THEIR CAREERS COVERING UP THEIR MISTAKES & FAILURES

Most of us everyday citizens, that is non-politicians or government bureaucrats, figure that once the cat is out of the bag, then forget lying and covering up. Not politicians and their ilk. They are hard wired to always gild the lily or put the best face on unfortunate or negative events that reflect badly on them. One obvious example is Uniroyal Chemical and the 1989 Elmira Water Crisis. Uniroyal's waste disposal methods were beyond primitive and third world like until around 1968-1970. They destroyed the local creek, polluted the Grand River, and destroyed the Elmira drinking water aquifers. I say destroyed because thirty years later we are still waiting for their "restoration" with the latest estimates being another thirty years. I'll believe that "restoration" when I see it and I'm within a whisker of being seventy years old.

Part of the public exposure through the 1990s of the self-serving and dishonest behaviour of Uniroyal Chemical also reflects upon our Ministry of Errors and Excuses when it was known as the MOEE. The behaviour that I am referring to is ongoing public statements (i.e. lies) by the Ministry of Environment (currently known as MECP) in the 1970s and 80s that everything was fine, under control, and that the Elmira drinking wells were protected. Uniroyal when asked then and now like to use the MOE/MECP as a shield. Oh they say we do as we are told by the MOE. They are fair but firm. Uniroyal and successors have always known that this crap they have been espousing is exactly that, namely crap. They have consistently pressured, threatened, and intimidated the Ontario MOE constantly looking for concessions, exceptions, and relief from onerous environmental interpretations of the law.

Then we have the Walkerton crisis in 2000. Same thing all over again except this time it was Walkerton's council and staff who messed up along with the typical incompetence demonstrated by the Ontario Ministry of Environment. They couldn't find their own butts in a snowstorm much less find serious environmental infractions and if they do find them rest assured they will go nowhere until there is a crisis. This folks is what happens when the politicians at the top (provincial and municipal) are always in coverup mode and their attitude of ignoring and covering up serious problems permeates downwards through the ranks. I sometimes wonder if those that get promoted in the MOE are essentially yes men and women and those who are forthright and honest get career sidetracked into positions where their honesty cannot harm those in charge.

Again the Varnicolor Chemical scandal which is ongoing to this day. Full coverup mode even thirty years later and after the owner actually got sent to jail with an eight month sentence. The company were an illegal toxic liquid dumping organization who were protected by the MOE both before and after I and others publicly exposed the company. Even today the MOE will not release to the public documents pertaining to this site and its ongoing remediation over the last twenty-five years. Why would they when both they and provincial politicians would rather this embarrassment go the route of all the others.

In Cambridge we had the Northstar Aerospace disaster. Hundreds of homes and occupants in the Bishop St. community inhaled trichloroethylene (TCE) and Trichloroethane (TCA) fumes for decades due to vapour intrusion courtesy of Northstar and another commercial neighbour. Allegedly the MOE inspected this site and missed everything going on throughout this period. Or the inspectors simply didn't want to rock the boat. Were their job reviews based upon finding environmental infractions or perhaps just the opposite? Clearly the system is rotten.

Politicians, government ministries, and accompanying bureaucrats rely on the short attention span of citizens. Most of us are focusing on our every day lives including jobs and families and health. We pay through the nose for government services and far too often get poorly served by them. These politicians and governments have our money and busy lives to hide behind. They become experts at puffery and bull.... . Each and every failure is chalked up to a one time exception or "slipping through the cracks". They will claim that their agencies are "world class". That is their puffery and bull.... in action. Systemic failures will not be admitted to. When pressed they use their financial might (paid for by you) to use the courts to support them and harass citizens. That is the unfortunate behaviour of some school boards among other agencies.

The last brief coverup of past failures I will mention is the last Woolwich Council's behaviour to hide their failure to properly oversee and supervise the potentially explosive methane issues in and around Bolender Park in Elmira, Ontario. The methane originates from the Bolender Landfill, possibly due north of the Park although far from proven not to include parts of the park itself. The last council continue to hide behind their consultants Conestoga Rovers and their successors GHD. This includes denying everything while actually beginning to take some appropriate steps to make up for their benign neglect for decades. Council either denied the lack of regular and ongoing monitoring as well as denying the failure to monitor the entire perimeter of the former landfill. Even their failure to determine the exact location of the entire landfill is mind boggling. They appear to prefer to be ignorant in order to maintain their plausible deniability if it turns out that citizens and children are playing above methane infused garbage. It is also their refusal to provide honest communications with citizens asking hard questions that is so disgraceful. Rest assured if the worse happens that they will suddenly discover the hard way that coverups are not in the public interest.

All in all the behaviour of unaccountable and morally suspect politicians.

THE CONTEMPTIBLE SHAME OF OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM

Money can buy you an acquittal and it is used by the Crown to convict. The party without it is at a huge disadvantage even if the Crown have a weak case. Just look at the numbers of citizens both in the U.S. and Canada who are exonerated after being convicted of serious crimes and sentenced to decades in jail. Two groups of lawyers come to mind namely Innocence Canada and the Association for the Wrongfully Convicted. Both groups have freed many wrongfully convicted citizens and have long waiting lists for their services.

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried the following story titled " Murder case highlights how money can be a key to defence". It is about the Dennis Oland murder case in New Brunswick and is the poster child for monied defendants receiving much different outcomes from our judicial system. Nicole O'Byrne, a law professor at the University of New Brunswick said that Mr. Oland "had the resources to pay a defence team to follow up on every aspect of the case by hiring experts and by taking portions of the case to the Supreme Court of Canada for determination." She further added that "...not all citizens have equal access to resources that may be needed to mount a successful defence".

Kirk Makin, co-president of Innocence Canada stated that "...many of the people wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated are poor people who can't afford the best defence." He added "Dennis Oland is a very fortunate man. The difference is profound between someone who has the means to get the best defence and pursue every avenue of appeal vigorously. The vast majority of people don't."

Mr. Makin also stated that people with top lawyers are treated differently by the courts (i.e. by judges). "When a top lawyer such as an Eddie Greenspan walks into court they are taken very seriously. There's a deference that's shown to them because of their reputation and skill". I interpret that as meaning that their words are given more weight by judges and juries.

Poor people are usually convicted. Rich people often aren't. Whatever happened to guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Whatever happened to being judged upon the evidence presented? I've been there and an asshole judge with a bias or a personal animosity or who is simply incompetent can make a mockery of our entire judicial system. And the judicial system let them get away with it forever. Shame on the pack of them and the political apparatus that doesn't care.

WSIB AND OTHER GOVERNMENT SCAMS

Today's Waterloo Region Record has a Letter To The Editor written by Robert and Dale DeMatteo, two Occupational health researchers from Campbellcroft, Ontario. The title at the beginning of the Letter is "Why workers are demanding a public inquiry into WSIB." They have read numerous denial of claim decisions from the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) in regards to General Electric cases in Peterborough, Ontario. These two researchers refer to the WSIB as using "science" as a weapon against injured workers. And thus has it always been. The WSIB and its forerunner the Workmans Compensation Board (WCB) were set up essentially to allow employers to save money and increase their profits on the backs of their workers. Sometimes literally. With workers being refused access to the courts for proper compensation after being injured on the job, the financial burden was transferred from private employers to the public purse. As it always has been whenever possible. It's called externalizing of costs and the most obvious example is companies transferring their waste disposal costs onto the public via dumping into the common air and common waterways.

This Letter To The Editor makes clear that the Board have long used standards and criteria not enshrined in law. They have demanded evidence and "proof" of the cause of injury far in excess of that which the Act demands. In other words the Board has and continues to weed out claimants from just compensation. Hence workers who had zero say in the original formation of the two compensation boards removing workers rights to sue have even less say in the management and operation of a compensation system that is biased against them. What I also find disheartening is the arbitrary nature of the WSIB decision process. They appear to deny obvious claims of groups of workers (GE in Peterborough & rubber workers in K-W) in order to save money but allow other individual, questionable claims possibly in order to indicate that they do pay out for some claims. A car insurance company pulling this crap would likely be run out of town as should the Ontario WSIB.

STORMWATER POND OUTLET INTO WOOLWICH RESERVOIR COMPLETED

Well it took them long enough. And our so called public Conservation Authority, the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA), should be ashamed of their public relations. Also they should be ashamed of their lack of transparency in their attempts to hide from accountability. Finally they should be ashamed of their willful abuse of Ontario legislation by hiding behind our Freedom of Information laws in order to avoid answering very simple and straightforward questions from not just one local concerned citizen but from many who had verbally expressed concerns with the lack of a proper outlet from the new storm water pond behind the Floradale Feed Mill that was discharging into the Woolwich Reservoir via overland flow of rainwater and mud.

Yesterday I was again at the scene albeit for the first time in two weeks. Not so much as an update or even an estimated time of construction had been provided to me after I had sent several e-mails to both the MOE (MECP) and the GRCA. They also had refused to provide me a copy of the permit (presumably with drawings included) that would have shown the intended construction of a proper outlet to the reservoir. I had indicated in those e-mails that other users of the trail had expressed serious concerns with the scenario of having the storm water pond built, including gravity flow channel directly to the trail overlooking the perhaps eight foot embankment down to the reservoir. At that point both during the spring rainy season and afterwards the rainwater and mud was either running down the trail (northwards) or over the embankment directly into the Woolwich Reservoir.

Do these bureaucrats actually believe that these are matters of national security? Do they believe that terrorists might somehow learn something that could undermine the stability and security of the Woolwich Dam? Why is it so important to them to keep secret the date of construction of a concrete outlet from a storm water pond into the Woolwich Reservoir? Do they think that responding to open, legitimate information requests from the public somehow weakens their power and authority in all matters pertaining to surface water in the Grand River valley? Or are they perhaps even more scared of increased observation and accountability, not from fellow political travellors, but from the unbiased general public?

Last question: Are they so petty and jealous of their authority that their biggest priority is to avoid the public ever learning that the squeaky wheel gets the grease?

Last comment: I'm not an engineer but the concrete outlet looks impressive and professional. Presumably the felt type material covering the inlet on the east side of the trail is to filter out the mud and sediments accompanying the storm water flow. Also presumably when that felt type covering becomes clogged it will be either cleaned or replaced. The outlet then goes underneath the trail and emerges on the face of the embankment (west side of the trail) above the level of the water in the reservoir whereupon it discharges into the reservoir.

WHAT A DAMNING INDICTMENT OF MALES IN AUTHORITY

Prior to the rest of this post criticizing males in charge of historically male dominated institutions such as the military, RCMP, police, firemen, and even municipal public works departments, let me be very clear. The few women who have managed to advance to positions of authority, whether in these just listed male dominated institutions or even in politics which certainly used to be the sole domain of males; they have not done much either to advance the careers of their female colleagues nor to advance the cause of women in general as being more ethical, caring, or honourable when they are in positions of authority. My observations have been that most of the women who do advance in male dominated institutions do so by mimicking the behaviour of the males around them. This is not a compliment to either gender. They tend to adopt "circle the wagons" and "the blue wall" type of attitudes as well as promoting of the status quo even when doing business as usual has been proven to be counter productive to the credibility, reputation, and integrity of the organization.

Two articles appeared in today's Waterloo Region Record which may illustrate why I believe this to be so. The first is titled "Deal reached in harassment lawsuit against RCMP". The RCMP have been front and centre for many years now for both their alleged and proven unfair and unequal treatment of many women in their ranks. The second article while shocking may be less an indictment of male power and privilege or not as it concerns CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I suspect that they too are male dominated in the top leadership positions but I admit I don't know that for a fact. Also the article concerning them titled "Group says spies went too far" is not about their treatment of women in their workplace but about how those in charge have strayed so far from their mandate, whether they admit it or not. This includes allegations by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) that CSIS have spied on Canadian environmental groups as well as upon certain aboriginal groups.

All of this is of course in the light of both historic and ongoing workplace harassment including many years ago of the City of Waterloo Public Works department. I am advised that there has been incredible discrimination against females attempting to do research or teaching at the university level. Apparently universities were very male dominated institution historically although university educated males are at least bright enough to recognize how stupid and unsustainable that behaviour is nowadays and are addressing those wrongs. Again here in Waterloo Region we the residents and citizens have been subjected to the shining of light upon our very own local police force and it has not been pleasant. There is a lawsuit initiated by four former Waterloo Region police officers (3 female, 1 male) that has been attempting to be certified as a class action lawsuit. Of course we the taxpayers are paying legal costs to the WRPS and the civilian board as well as to the Police Association in order to block these legal attempts to redress gender discrimination. That misallocation of taxpayer funds in order to buy legal protection from doing the right and proper things are routinely practiced by police forces, school boards, Mounties, politicians and other non accountable institutions. Another local, former police officer, Kelly Donovan, has also been facing taxpayer funded legal harassment by the Waterloo Region Police Service and their cronies on the civilian police board and in the police association which appears to be firmly in bed with the old boys club.

TAXPAYERS DOLLARS PROTECTING A GUILTY POLICE FORCE

Last April 3 I posted here about statements made by James Bennett, lawyer for the WRPS. Those statements as quoted from the Waterloo Region Record were a frank admission that the facts stated in a class action lawsuit against the police service were essentially correct but that the Ontario Court of Appeal was not the appropriate venue to be discussing/debating them. The allegations by several female police officers as well as one male officer are both shocking, disappointing and miles beneath the level of conduct we should both expect and demand from our regional police force. These allegations have also been substantiated via the public statements and book written by former Waterloo Region Police officer, Kelly Donovan, titled "Systemic Misfeasance in Ontario Policing and the Coordinated Suppression of Whistleblowers."

My blunt and personal opinion, bottom line of the whole sordid history of opening up traditionally male jobs to women is as follows. Our politicians and other members of the power structure decided that they were tired of hearing as to how only large, rough and tough males could possibly be effective police officers. In other words the possible pool of labour capable of handling front line police work was incredibly limited. I would suggest that indeed it is. Not very many men or women are capable of handling the mental and emotional stress and anguish much less the physical efforts occasionally required.

That said the recruiting requirements historically demanded seemed to focus on the physical requirements and much less on all the rest. That was an error. Hiring six foot tall white men, with or without a bad attitude, certainly didn't reflect all of society. By opening up the police force to women, racial minorities, and persons of smaller stature our politicians and authorities pretended that they were being egalitarian. In fact they were simply shifting the physical requirements further down the list and getting in on the leading edge of recognizing women as being mentally and emotionally equal to men. They were also simultaneously by expanding the potential labour force for police officers probably thinking economically that expanding the supply of labour would keep downward pressure on the costs (i.e. wages).

Now here's where it gets nasty. These expanded recruiting scenarios were forced upon both the rank and file officers as well as the senior management. No one on the current police forces, soldiers, firemen etc., who had all been recruited based primarily upon their size and strength, were the least bit amenable to hiring people based on qualifications that many of them did not have. I'm not suggesting that skills like empathy, intelligence, common sense, deescalation techniques, note taking, public speaking, were totally foreign to current police officers etc. but as these officers were not hired for those skills in the first place then it is likely that many current officers did not have them in abundance.

So what is "nasty" about normal human reaction to change that may negatively affect one's future career? Well male politicians themselves were beginning to feel competition from female political candidates and they didn't like it. What was the old boys' club going to do? Easy! While the politicians would order integration of both genders they would privately assure the old boys' management that there would be limited to no oversight as to how female candidates were treated or accepted within the rank and file. Yes politicians of both genders would give lip service to proper, decent, normal human behaviour but it was left entirely up to the hugely male dominated senior police management to insist upon fair treatment of women police officers or not, as they chose. Well as the rank and file were dead against women in policing, police management in order to keep the respect and support of the rank and file determined that it was in their best interests to look the other way as much as possible.Very nasty behaviour by male co-workers may leave no visible scars but it certainly would discourage new female recruits from joining and also discourage current ones from staying. Throughout this, male and female politicians have happily looked the other way while continuing to spout platitudes to the public as they have always done.

Kelly Donovan has recently released a report indicating that our Waterloo Region Police Service has spent over $200,000 dollars on legal council in the last two years fighting and harassing her before the courts. This is yet another way to silence women in policing and to discourage further participation by them. Our regional politicians, male and female, are supporting this behaviour. The police, police services board and regional council are abusing both female police officers, past and present, as well as regional taxpayers by continuing to legally harass those who speak out. Taxpayers of both genders do not support these misogynistic attitudes and behaviours. When will our politicians get this through their skulls and act accordingly?

OCCUPATIONAL WORK EXPOSURES

O.K. this is maybe a stretch for an environmental blog but what the heck here goes. Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following opinion piece titled "Sick workers aren't forgotten". The author is Janice Martell who is the founder of the McIntyre Powder Project. That project name refers to the powder that was liberally doused over miners in northern Ontario allegedly to protect them from silicosis I think. That lung disease was common among miners due to possibly exposure to asbestos or perhaps another underground compound. Oh heck as you can see I'm not certain which toxic compound it was supposed to protect miners from but it turns out that the McIntyre Powder itself was toxic. I have a personal friend here in Elmira whose father died when my friend was only five years old, courtesy of McIntyre Powder.

June 1 is the annual Injured Workers Day and workers and their families gather both locally and in Toronto at Queen's Park (Ontario legislature). Ms. Martell in her opinion piece is praising Greg Mercer of the Record for his series on local rubber workers in Kitchener-Waterloo and their suffering from occupational diseases. She is also points out that there currently are four known occupational disease clusters in Ontario namely the McIntyre Powder Project, GE Peterborough workers and widows, Victims of Chemical Valley (Sarnia) and Kitchener rubber workers. While neighbours, families, and residents may suffer health and environmental effects from these industries, clearly the workers spending eight hours per day or more in close proximity to the toxins involved suffer horribly. Ms. Martell is sending a rallying cry out to those victimized through no more fault then trying to provide for their families.

MORE POLICE ABUSES OF THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS

The title of this story in the June 1, 2019 Waterloo Region Record is "Supreme Court sides with man over detention in race-tinged case". Essentially police were advised by security guards that a specific address in a Toronto housing complex was a "problem address" regarding concerns about drug trafficking. Toronto police then entered a private backyard and began questioning an Asian man who was talking to four young black men. Without any reasonable cause to enter the private property police arrested the Asian man and he was found to be in possession of drugs and a weapon. He was convicted of those offences and appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal where he also lost. The Supreme Court of Ontario however said that the Toronto police actions amounted to arbitray detention and a serious violation of the man's rights. His conviction has been overturned.

The basic principle that the Supreme Court upheld is that over-policing of racial minorities in Canada is unconstitutional. When there is no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity police do not have the right to enter either homes or properties without permission or a warrant. They especially are forbidden from doing this in the case of racial minorities unless criminal activity has been ascertained beforehand. For me what is very interesting is that two lower courts got this totally wrong. Not all citizens have the financial means to go to Canada's highest court especially after expensive legal fighting in the lower courts.

NEW PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT BEHIND POLICE INVESTIGATION?

They say a new broom sweeps clean. Well it's about time. Maybe it's not totally about our new provincial government. Maybe Kelly Donovan's book has something to do with the Ontario Civilian Police Commission's (OCPC) appointment of an administrator to oversee the Durham Regional Police while the primary investigation is underway. A preliminary probe of the Durham police and its board by the OCPC did find "potential criminal activity and a crisis in confidence among its leadership." Wow, that is stunning!

Today's Waterloo Region Record has published the following article titled "Watchdog launches investigation into Durham Regional Police leadership." The fact that both the chief and deputy chief along with the entire civilian police board are being investigated, speaks volumes. Kelly Donovan had indicated to the Waterloo Regional Police back in September 2017 that Justice Tulloch had recommended much better training for civilian police boards so that they might better understand their duties, obligations and responsibilities. It is my hope that the OCPC might decide after taking care of the Durham police to look into our very own Waterloo Regional Police. I personally along with other informed citizens have certainly lost confidence in their leadership.

OUR POLICE FORCE IS OUT OF CONTROL - THANK YOU WATERLOO REGIONAL COUNCILLORS & POLICE SERVICES BOARD

The front page article in today's Waterloo Region Record is titled "Former Cambridge woman alleges racial profiling by officer". I do not know anyone involved in this case but even if I assume that in this particular issue our local police force are completely within their legal rights (different from innocent), I have to ask the question "When will the abuse of citizens and residents end?" Over the last decade the stories about improper behaviour by our local police have been unending. These include both assaults and killings of citizens whose greatest "crime" seems to be mental illness and even if some have had small knives or other "weapons" why can a so called professional police force with pepper spray, batons, tasers, training and other less than lethal weapons not subdue them without shooting them multiple times in the torso, essentially guaranteeing death? The police assaults of citizens have even included sexual assaults of female police officers for God's sake.

I suggested in the first paragraph that I would assume that the police officer involved was within his legal rights. I did that for the sake of argument only. This article states that the officer told her that she matched the description of a person they were looking for. The problem is that the woman involved is a woman of colour. The police were looking for a man allegedly involved in a gun incident. No description of the male suspect such as white, brown or black was given. Seems to be one hell of a stretch. Also the fact that four Highway Traffic Act tickets (charges) were issued to her after her vehicle was searched and later the tickets were all withdrawn also seems awfully suspicious. It kind of smells like intimidation or blackmail to me.

It is literally years if not decades past time for our regional councillors and our Waterloo Region Police Services Board to step up and take control back from our police chief and deputy chiefs. These problems have been allowed to fester and grow with little or no supervision or discipline involved of offending officers. Whether it is attitudes, training or both these problems need to be remedied from the top down. To date they've mainly been excused, covered up and or victims paid off by those in charge. It must end.

BIG PHARMA STRIKES AGAIN

A very recent Waterloo Region Record article was published titled "Drug firms promoted opioids despite risks, $1.1 B suit alleges". A class action suit alleges that Canadian drug makers enriched themselves at the expense of patients by deceptively promoting highly addictive opioids that have killed thousands. Some of the firms included in the suit are Apotex, Bristol-Myers, Johnson and Johnson, and the Jean Coutu group.The lawsuit claims that the drug companies were negligent in how they researched, developed and marketed opioids starting in the 1990s. Opiods kill more people in the U.S. than car crashes.

THE MYTH THAT SPEED "CAUSES" ACCIDENTS

It's a similar myth to the one that guns cause murders. News flash: People commit murders and whether the tool used is fists, baseball bats, knives, poison, or whatever the point is the same. Neither cars nor their speed cause car accidents. Extraordinarily rarely it could be a mechanical breakdown including a blown tire that suddenly and immediately renders the car uncontrollable. That is rare but driver inattention or as I like to say HUA (head up ass) is the single major cause of accidents. In our busy world too many people continue to view driving as something to be done on autopilot i.e. I'll automatically react when an emergency occurs versus paying attention in the first place and seeing problems developing ahead of or around you. This takes both driving experience and close attention 100% of the time.

Yes alcohol has been and unfortunately may still be a major factor in accidents. Likely so are cellphones and other distractions. My term HUA is the same as distracted driving. Many drivers simply get bored watching out for potential driving problems. While paying attention will avoid the vast majority of serious issues it is not 100% going to make you impervious to another driver falling asleep or coming across the centre line towards you. It will however give you a split second to attempt avoidance. Not the best scenario.

Yesterday's K-W Record carried a Letter To The Editor titled "The truth about higher speed fine revenues". The fact is that higher speed limits relevant to the vast technical improvements in cars suspension and handling, steering, braking, and safety systems including seatbelts and air bags over the last sixty years should have occurred a long time ago. Of course that would greatly reduce the revenue stream for municipal, regional and provincial budgets. That has been the major impediment. All traffic travelling between 100 and 115 km per hour for example is much safer than traffic travelling between 80 and 115 km per hour with too many drivers feeling that they really don't need to pay such close attention.

JURY SELECTION AND THE DISRESPECTFUL JUDGE

Alan MARSHALL2
Yahoo
/
Inbox


JUS-G-MAG-Kitchener Jury (MAG)
To:
Alan Marshall

Apr. 29 at 4:32 p.m.

Good afternoon,



Your request to be deferred from attending the jury selection panel on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 has been granted. You are no longer required to attend on that date. You may be summoned for a later panel. Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.











Cathy Sterling – Jury Clerk

Ministry of the Attorney General | Superior Court of Justice

Waterloo Region Courthouse | 85 Frederick Street, Kitchener, ON N2H 0A7

T: (519) 741-3300 ext. 3279 | F: (519) 741-3278

E: kitchenerjury@ontario.ca





For more information about jury duty in Ontario, please visit the

“Jury Duty” section on the Ministry of the Attorney General website:

http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/courts/jury/







From: Alan Marshall [mailto:agmarshall@rogers.com]
Sent: April-05-19 11:56 AM
To: JUS-G-MAG-Kitchener Jury (MAG)
Subject: My Jury Summons



Dear Ms. Hughes



My name is Alan Marshall and I am a retired pensioner in my seventieth year. While I am competent to drive, since I've been retired I am intelligent enough not to drive during rush hours, if at all possible. Part of the reason is that my wife survived a very serious accident during rush hour on the K-W Expressway a couple of years ago. I live in Elmira, Ontario which also fortunately does not really have much of a rush hour. My personal mobility is negatively affected by arthritis including having received one artificial joint. The second one is likely due within the year. This is the second time in recent years that I have received a jury summons. The last time I attended court for this matter I was treated rudely and dismissively by the dishonourable Robert Reilly. Mr. Reilly recognized me from a civil case that is more than twenty years old and made inferences and subtle comments to the defence and prosecution suggesting that I was not juror material. I was not impressed by that.



I am not carte blanche suggesting that I am incapable of doing my civic duty and potentially being a juror in a trial. What I am strongly suggesting however is that I do not need either my time nor my health and wellness negatively impacted by attending another jury summons in which Mr. Reilly is in charge. I was a self represented litigant (SRL) twenty years ago and his behaviour was outrageous and unethical and the decision he came to was shameful. If I had any money at the time I would have appealed it. As I was a SRL however he knew I could not afford to appeal. With the assistance from a lawyer working pro bono we were able over a period of five years to reduce a libel award from the second highest in Canadian history (after the Church of Scientology ? case) down to zero. Yes zero from Mr. Reilly's award of $604,000. The new settlement was filed with Superior Court in 2004.



Therefore Ms. Hughes I would ask you to please advise me in writing (or e-mail) significantly prior to my attending court on May 21/19 at 9 am. in the morning that I will not be wasting my time nor putting myself at physical risk only to be disrespected yet again by Mr. Reilly.



Thank you very much in advance for your consideration and understanding.



Sincerely Alan Marshall





Juror No. 4592 Panel No. 12

ARE WE SHEEPLE OR PEOPLE?

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried the following article titled "$2,999 WSIB payment "an insult". In my opinion it is much worse than an insult. It is downright legalized theft.

The province of Ontario without either asking the working public or holding a referendum took away employees' rights to sue their employer for physical harm that they suffered on the job. They then replaced it with a system totally in the control of industry and government, neither of which are nuetral, unbiased third parties. It was then called the WCB or Workman's Compensation Board. Now it is called the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) and it is contemptible.

Gerry Doucette the retired rubber worker stated "That's it? They poisoned me, and that's it?" Mr. Doucette was exposed to solvents, asbestos, lead paint, lamp black and other carcinogens on an ongoing basis all without any protective gear. It is my understanding that protective gear was advised back in the 1970s along with other protective measures including better ventilation and respirators but not implemented by the local Waterloo Region companies. Mr. Doucette is also a non-smoker which may have saved his life what with everything he's been exposed to. He's suffered cancer as well as heart surgery, all job related injuries.

There is likely an intentional huge disincentive built into the system of compensation payments. The older the worker the smaller the payouts by WSIB. Think about that for a minute. If you are a WSIB manager under pressure to reduce costs (i.e. payouts) then stalling and delay are your best friends. Have there been complaints about years long assessments of injured workers? Yes and this is one of the reasons why.

WSIB, Ministry of Labour, past and present Ontario governments should all hang their heads in shame. We the people are nothing but cogs in a wheel for the purpose of making money for the few who are protected by the governments that are supposed to protect all of us.

REGULAR WORK IN EXCHANGE FOR A SHORTENED LIFE

Police and firefighters routinely run towards danger while the rest of us run to avoid it. Running from danger is both appropriate, instinctual and basic common sense. There are other high danger jobs such as some construction work, perhaps long distance driving, professional sports including hockey, football and boxing also come to mind with brain injuries. Generally however our work to provide ourselves and family with food, shelter and more should not jeopardize our health or lives. Kudos to Greg Mercer and the Waterloo Region Record for their ongoing series about rubber workers in Waterloo Region.

Late last month the Record carried a story titled "Rubber workers want answers about denied WSIB claims." There was a meeting at a hotel conference room on the last Thursday and Friday in March. There were more than 150 former rubber worker employees in attendance demanding answers. One former employee stated "Someone said "What a great crowd". But if WSIB had done their job in the first place, we wouldn't be here right now". The WSIB (Workplace Safety & Insurance Board) are appropriately on the hot seat. So is the anemic and pathetic Ministry of Labour.

To date only 15% of rubber workers claims for occupational disease have been granted compensation despite decades to a century or more of knowledge (in Europe) that chemicals involved in rubber manufacturing and curing are toxic to human beings. As far as cancer goes experts have suggested that as much as 20% of all cancers are work-related. A Ministry of Labour spokesperson said "We need to start treating occupational disease with the same seriousness as physical injuries." Horse manure! "...start treating...". Those bastards should have been treating it as seriously or more than physical injuries seventy-five years ago. What they have done is once again permitted the externalization of industry costs onto the taxpayers and society in general. For every nickel industry saved in not providing respirators, proper skin protection and proper ventilation they have put a dollar onto society, our health care system and individual victims of their crimes.

To date both industry captains and their bought and paid for political protectors (politicians) have unfortunately no fear of being charged criminally for their behaviour. Nor will they as long as we keep electing either Liberal or Conservative governments here in Ontario. We the citizens are ill used by our governing authorities. Always it has been and always it will remain until more of us come to our senses and see what is happening.

"HOME COOKING" ALSO MEANS LOOKING OUT FOR THE INTERESTS OF REGIONAL GOVERNMENT & REG. POLICE

Now I'm not categorically saying that the decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissing the class action suit against the regional police, police board and police union is categorically a case of home cooking. It might be, it might not. I'm not positive because I wasn't personally there to hear the arguments of the various professional liars, oops sorry I meant lawyers, who addressed the Ontario Court of Appeal. In regards to lawyers jokes before I tell one I'm going to say the following. I have met some lawyers whom I both like and respect both inside and outside court. That said here goes. "It isn't fair that 98.5% of lawyers give all the rest a bad name." There I got that out of my system.

Speaking of lawyers that I don't like there is James Bennett. Son of a gun if he didn't make an amazing admission on behalf of his client the police services board. As of last Wednesday I believe that the K-W Record indicated that his clients were both the civilian police board (in my opinion mostly filled by toadies and retired politicians) and the police association (i.e. union). Regardless Mr. Bennett has been quoted as now stating that "...he did not dispute the allegations made by the female officers." Wow! Talk about extending an olive branch. If that is true and all parties including police, police union and police board are willing to enter into talks, negotiations and discussions with that on the table; then maybe, just maybe, there is some slim hope for those three parties to make amends, apologize, and as late in the day as it is, to restore some semblance of integrity and honesty to their organizations. Time will tell.

The lawyer for the three plaintiff officers, Doug Elliot, stated in regards to the decision of the Court of Appeal that "The idea that there is more that could have been done by our class members is ridiculous." He also stated "I don't think they (judges) understand the challenges these women faced in getting the system to work for them." It is my suspicion that the three judges at the Court of Appeal likely understood full well the challenges the female police officers faced. After all those challenges were imposed on purpose by the three defendants (police, board & union) in the first place. None of them wanted an honest process nor did the majority of their relatively uneducated, older, white, male members. This behaviour within institutions was exposed clearly with the City of Waterloo back in the early 1990s. Police forces, military and fire departments with their psuedo military discipline and ranks only exacerbate entrenched discrimination against minorities whether racial or gender. It's a boys club and all the members know you have to play ball and follow any and all stupid rules to stay in good standing within those organizations. Many of the female members have had enough of the bullshi. and are rather bluntly, metaphorically, extending their middle fingers at the status quo and the dinosaurs defending it.

Back to the Court of Appeal. The article in today's Waterloo Region Record is titled "Lawsuit against Waterloo Regional Police can't proceed, Appeal Court rules". Is it possible that three very financially entitled and appointed by politicians, judges, would be involved in home cooking? I think that it is possible but then based upon my experience, I'm a skeptic. If the Supreme Court of Canada takes the case and finds in favour of the class action lawsuit then I would categorically suggest that the word corrupt as defined as "riddled with errors" should apply to the two lower courts. I personally have seen corruption in our lower courts. How high does it go?

WOWSER: WRPS ADMITS GUILT BUT WANTS "HOME COOKING" TO DECIDE OUTCOME

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following front page headline "Lawyer asks judges not to open "floodgates"". This court appearance was yesterday at the Ontario Court of Appeal. The lawyer is none other than James Bennett and first of all he did get some bad press a while back by speaking derogatorily in regards to the allegations by the three plaintiffs. Also I personally have no use for him as he did his best to threaten or intimidate me prior to a court appearance by his client, pretend mayor Sandy Shantz, a couple of years back. Mr. Bennett essentially advised by e-mail that I should not attend and speak to the matter even though I was the complainant and reason that the good (but pretend) mayor lost her job as mayor over her election expense discrepancies and worse. His advice was loaded with threats and was intended to remove legitimate testimony from the process.

Mr. Bennett is advising the Court of Appeal that the class action suit of the Plaintiffs should not be certified by the courts because it would open the "floodgates" of litigation to all forms of discrimination. That's very interesting that he thinks so. If it's true than doesn't that speak volumes about the so called alternative methods such as union arbitration and human rights hearings? After all we all know how expensive, slow, and frankly occasionally perverse and bizarre court decisions are yet complainants are so desperate for justice that they would even think to go the route of litigation. I've been there and it's a crap shoot, a ridiculously time consuming and expensive crap shoot with all the advantages to the wealthier parties. I have often written that courts are the playground of the rich and sometimes nasty.

As far as the headline regarding the Waterloo Region Police Service admitting guilt I will quote from the first sentence of this article: "Lawyers representing the Waterloo Regional Police Board and the police union say they don't dispute the facts of the proposed class-action lawsuit or that the allegations are serious, but rather that the Ontario Court of Appeal is not the place where the complaints should be heard." Wow! To me that is an incredible admission and all the guilty parties including our regional councillors should hang their heads in shame. Of course they won't. The "home cooking" reference is for me a recent term that I've learned. It's the equivalent of home town refereeing. Hmm. Maybe the dishonourable Robert Reilly wasn't an incompetent, biased judge but rather simply one practicing the fine art of "home cooking" by pleasing the local power structure which includes our educational sector.

WSIB - WORKERS SHAFTED INTENTIONALLY BY BOARD?

The front page article in today's Waterloo Region record is titled, "Mixed messages on WSIB review." Recently a Kitchener widow of a deceased rubber worker was advised by a WSIB employee that not all cases of more than 300 already denied will be reviewed. This of course is in contradiction to what the WSIB said just last week that WSIAT (Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal) cases that had been turned down would be included in the overall review by the WSIB. The widow, Gayle Wannan, is skeptical that the WSIB is genuinely interested in applying the latest evidence when taking another look at rubber workers' claims. Personally I'm skeptical that "new" evidence is needed or whether it even exists. There has been overwhelming evidence of cancer clusters in the rubber industry for decades and longer. This has always been all about protecting employers from lawsuits and reducing the liability of governments to pay disability pensions and death benefits caused by occupational diseases.

The WSIAT rarely grants reconsiderations for the simple reason they don't have to. Again I believe their mandate is more financial than either humanitarian or honestly insurance based. Citizens are allowed to ask Ontario's Superior Court of Justice for a judicial review of a WSIAT decision. That is incredibly slow and incredibly expensive. After all judges and lawyers need to maintain their lifestyle while pretending to have empathy for factory workers in the local rubber plants. Yes Dorothy, class differences are alive and well in Canada.

I expect that perhaps half of the affected workers and their families will eventually receive some compensation for the premature deaths and illnesses of their loved ones. This will have exactly nothing to do with the so called "evidence" and everything to do with past Liberal and Conservative governments saving face. The provincial government controls the WSIB and WSIAT and party affiliations between Ontario's two governing parties make little difference in the ongoing exploitation of citizens by those with power and money.

WSIB & MIN. OF LABOUR HYPOCRISY & CORRUPTION

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following article titled, "Appealed rubber claims will be reviewed." Apparently a number of twice rejected claims by rubber workers for workman's compensation will now be included in the sweeping review being undertaken by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). Also our inimitable Ministry of Labour are also conducting a major review of occupational cancer led by Dr. Paul Demers and expected to be released by the end of the year.

All of this folks is simply a smokescreen. The facts, the data and the scientific knowledge have all been with us for many decades. Various solvents cause various cancers. Rubber chemicals and their additives are carcinogenic. In Europe in the late 1800s doctors were diagnosing cancer at elevated rates in chemical and dye workers in the textile industry (Travis-Agaard Report). These are the same and or similar chemicals still used today in various rubber and chemical industries.

The smokescreen is that before the WSIB can reverse their decisions they need to pretend that their new decisions are based on new medical information. Bullshit three times over! What this has always been about is money. Since 2014 appeals of WSIB decisions have grown significantly while compensation payouts have been slashed in half. This will allow employers' contributions to be reduced ensuring more donations to the favoured political parties (Liberal & Conservative).

Meanwhile the WSIB Chair (Liz Witmer) who has overseen this disgrace is crying crocodile tears publicly regarding the financial crisis that she and the WSIB have caused for families suffering from rubber industry exposures. This is not to mention the health crisis that their colleagues over at the Ministry of Labour have allowed to continue and fester for many decades, all in the name of corporate profits. Flock off and stop sacrificing citizens to enhance both government and industry bank accounts.

WSIB CORRUPTION

Well let's be a little more specific. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) used to be known as the Workman's Compensation Board (WCB). Whether an independent board or not I suspect that they are still under some sort of observation or supervision from the Ontario Ministry of Labour. Similarly the Ministry of Labour are represented in our provincial Cabinet by the Minister of Labour. So to call the WSIB corrupt I'm basically saying that our Ministry of Labour and our provincial government are corrupt. Good news though, you can't lay this at the feet of Doug Ford. All those bodies were corrupt long before he came along.

Liz Witmer, former Progressive Conservative Cabinet Minister, is the head of the WSIB. Not a bad "retirement" appointment is it? How she managed to stay on with the Liberals in power for so long, I really don't know unless they were as equally corrupt as the PCs and felt that she would continue to keep WSIB payouts in check.

Now to the present. Two days ago the Waterloo Region Record published the following front page story titled, "WSIB had flagged rubber cases as disease cluster." Holy crap! E-mails have been found through a Freedom of Information request that show that the WSIB many years ago knew that rubber workers were among a group of five sectors in the province who formed clusters of occupational diseases. The five sectors are firefighters, herbicide sprayers, miners exposed to McIntyre Powder, and General Electric workers (likely in Peterborough) as well as rubber workers.

So let me get this straight. Our WSIB, Ministry of Labour, and provincial Cabinet have known for perhaps twenty years or more that there are five sectors of workers who are at extremely high risk of developing occupational diseases. That kind of puts a new light on the Horticultural Technologies fire here in Kitchener some thirty years ago, now doesn't it? Firefighters who worked that fire have been dropping like flies with different cancers since then.

Back to the guilty parties. Why did they not inform the public as to the risks they and their loved ones were taking working in those sectors? Why did they insist that each and every rubber worker had to prove their sickness was caused by working in one of our local rubber factories when the facts are long known that those factories and their products caused cancers and much more? Why of the five sectors are only the firefighters given special status and don't have to prove that their jobs caused their diseases?

The answers are painful but obvious. Money and power. Our government has the power and they wanted to spend taxpayers money elsewhere rather than on assisting critically ill rubber workers. Shame on the WSIB, Ministry of Labour and both Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments. You are corrupt, self-serving liars of the worst kind who hold other people's lives as valueless.

JUSTICE SYSTEM BULLIES THRIVE IN THE PLAYGROUND FOR THE RICH

What an exquisite deal. Regional politicians are in charge of several appointments to the Waterloo Region Police Services Board (WRPB). Same politicians decide who the regional politicians are who will sit on this Board. Regional councillor Tom Galloway has been the Chair of the WRPB for many years. Yes the province have a couple of appointees they put on the Board. Hell they might even throw in the odd token progressive or free thinker. Every regressive, status quo oriented committee or board needs one or two as long as they are vastly in the minority. Meanwhile where the hell are the public announcements in the news media ahead of time telling the public when and where the next allegedly public meeting is? I have been looking for and never finding those announcements.

Several former police officers, mostly female, have sued the Waterloo Region Police Services (WRPS) and WRPB. Kelly Donovan has written a book about both the WRPS and other Ontario police services. Where the hell is the ongoing news media coverage of that lawsuit? Is our local police force going to continue forever being non-transparent and unaccountable to the public who pay their way? Will the WRPS and WRPB continue using taxpayers money to silence, bully and intimidate either former officers or the general public any time the public decide to criticize police behaviour and actions? Courts are the bread and butter of liars and cowards with money, especially liars and cowards with their hands in the public cookie jar in order to finance their assaults upon truth.

CIVILIZED CORRUPTION IN CANADA

There is third world corruption such as in Syria, Saudia Arabia, Brazil and many other countries around the world. That style of corruption is accompanied by state sanctioned, whether tacit or explicit, murder, mayhem and torture. Then we have the U.S. and Canadian styles of corruption. By corruption I simply mean bending, breaking or circumventing of the rules of doing business or politics in a country. It is also includes in my opinion a fleecing of the millions of unempowered everyday citizens who are simply trying to make a legal living for themselves and their families. This fleecing can be via taxes, fraud or even legal means in which citizens are grossly overcharged for goods and or services.

SNC-Lavalin are in the news currently. They've been caught, not for the first time, allegedly handing out bribes to foreign governments in an attempt to sell their products. Somehow either through pure good luck or possibly as a direct result of political donations, they got Canadian law changed last year allowing "remediation agreements" in place of prosecution for some offences. Now they are trying to collect on this new law in order to avoid prosecution for alleged corruption offences that occurred in Libya. Wow!

But it gets much worse. It turns out that SNC-Lavalin have been lobbying both the federal government as well as opposition parties trying to get off the hook. This lobbying pressure has been passed down the line to the now departed Attorney General. She refused to play ball and next thing you know our Prime Minister fired and demoted her to Veterans Affairs Minister. The best description of that portfolio I've ever heard is that it is the department where political careers go to die. The point is that firing and demotion pretty much satisfies the definition of undue pressure. It indicates that our legal system is at the whim or mercy of politicians, rather than being independent. This is true Canadian corruption at its finest. Laws are only for the little people. Laws are there to serve the interests of the big people not to constrain their interests or behaviour. Shameful and hypocritical.

WOOLWICH TOWNSHIP IN COURT NEXT WEEK

The address is 85 Frederick St. which I believe is the newest court house (ie. Superior Court). Ha! Believe me there is nothing superior about it except perhaps the cost to taxpayers. Regarding scheduling for example, the parties have been advised that yes they have a court date for next week. They will be informed later this week as to which day, what time and which courtroom. Pretty superior isn't it?

So what's the beef? Well the owner bought a pig in a poke. Along with the former Paleshi garage and auto wrecking yard it seems that he bought a methane problem. Oh and he also bought a chunk of land that after the fact he's being ordered around by Woolwich as to what he can and can not do on his property. For example he's being told that he can't drive over a piece of his own land. Nor can he change the landscaping in any fashion near the east side of his property. All this because Woolwich Township have an illegal buried municipal waterline through his property. I refer to it as illegal because gosh darn it the municipality forgot to ever get an easement for it. That's right it was installed about three owners ago and isn't marked on the deed. The owner previous to Mr. Rattasid ( ie. Mr Paleshi) claims that he didn't know about the waterline being installed prior to his ownership of the land.

There are other problems such as Woolwich Township advising Mr. Rattasid that there no longer was methane present when he purchased the property. This of course was based upon inadequate Conestoga Rovers (CRA) reports on behalf of the township. The township had actually removed the methane collection system prior to Mr. Rattasid's purchase of the property. This was premature and if Woolwich had been doing their due diligence and carefully reading the CRA reports they would have known that. The thirty-five year history of those studies and reports has been totally inadequate and in my opinion incompetent. Now Woolwich again want access to his land to rebuild a methane collection system that if done properly decades ago would have long resolved the problem of explosive levels of methane gas on the property as well as threatening neighbour's properties.

Through all of this Mr. Rattasid has been willing to discuss and negotiate as equals with the township in regards to permitting their continued excursions on his land to fix the problem of methane arising from the former municipal Bolender Park Landfill. As part of this process of granting access to his land he would like something in return. To date the township have decided that they would rather fight to the last taxpayers dollars then to sit down and discuss/negotiate in good faith with Mr. Rattasid. In good faith includes being truthful about the facts surrounding this site and the landfill itself.