SalishSalish SeaSea SCAN TO VISIT OUR ADVERTISERS CLICK LINKS FROM OUR Giving The Coast A Community Voice For 25 Years HOME PAGE Canadian Publications Mail Product Volume 27 Number 6 April 2-April 15, 2015 $57.75 Addressed Subscription Sales Agreement Nº 40020421 Photo: Toby Snelgrove, SNELGROVEimages.com Blue sky twice—Mayne island daffodil-filled meadow is still wet underfoot. Hedging your bets - Patrick Brown SD64 plans place-based elementary Western Canada Marine Response Corporation is the public interest when it comes to cleaning up responsible for the clean-up of oil spills anywhere marine oil spills. and middle years programs- Natalie Dunsmuir on the BC coast. It has been set up by the marine Allan terms this a clear conflict of interest. As transport industry as a Certified Response she sees it, ‘arms-length relationships between t its March 11 board meeting, School from our awareness and exploration of the Organization under the Canada Shipping Act spill preparedness and response organizations District Nº64 trustees passed a human and natural communities in which regulations, which require shippers and vessel and the companies with the financial motion recommending that three we are active and contributing citizens. owners to take responsibility for oil spills and responsibility for a spill event are necessary to Anew place-based, nature-based school School is not just preparation for what some accidents. Western Canada Marine Response ensure better decision making when major or programs be established on Salt Spring and people call ‘real life’. It must be real life— Corporation (WCMRC) has a monopoly on any catastrophic events occur’. Pender Islands. The first two, which would every day. Our learners are part of the real marine clean-up required. She comments that in Kinder Morgan’s be multi-aged kindergarten to grade three world right now. Place-based education While Kinder Morgan is responsible for any submissions to the National Energy Board, they classes, would be based at Fernwood and honours that reality and the amazing spills at Trans Mountain’s Westridge loading ‘should be transparent about its relationship to, Fulford Schools on Salt Spring Island. The potential of our youngest community terminal, ship owners and their insurers are and earnings potential from, these entities’ third recommendation is for the creation of members.’ responsible for clean-up costs once tankers leave (WCMRC and WCSS—see below). a middle years (grades 4-8) program on What Would These the terminal. Even while WCMRC is on standby, Kinder Pender Islands. If enough interest is shown Programs Be Like? by parents before the deadline of April 8, All vessels carrying crude petroleum or Morgan would appear to have made some The proposed programs would be full-time these programs would get under way this products must be ‘members’ of WMCRC. It $100,000 per year over the past five years from and teach all aspects of the curriculum. They fall. charges by the hour for all personnel and its interest in the cleanup company. The federal would most likely take place in an already equipment. WCMRC members pay a regular government guarantees a fixed rate of return on Place-based Learning? established classroom within the schools, annual subscription plus a volume-based charge equity investment. In a letter sent to parents by SD Nº64, the but children would go outside everyday to for oil transported in order to maintain the If there were a spill, the shipowners school district states that place-based explore and participate in community and Corporation’s facilities and equipment in a ready responsible would be billed by the hour for learning ‘incorporates cultural studies, environment. state. equipment and personnel, and WCMRC profits nature investigations, real world problem Roz Kempe, a parent involved in the Kinder Morgan Owns Spill would benefit, at the expense of shipowners and solving and immersion in community life Pender Island proposal, says she envisions their insurers. and mentorship.... Program structures to be Cleanup Companies a place where children work together on Kinder Morgan is in a similar position with explored include a cohort model with parent multi-disciplinary, multi-skill projects that In a filing to the National Energy Board by BC respect to Western Canadian Spill Services Ltd. participation that blends classroom, reflect their interests and get them out on economist Robyn Allan, she shows that WCMRC WCSS is responsible for pipeline oil spill cleanup outdoor, and home learning.’ the land, in the environment, and in the is owned 50.9% by Kinder Morgan’s Trans for the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Kinder Morgan Steve Dunsmuir, founder of the place- community. She stressed that teaching Mountain Pipeline (Allan’s filing has been shares ownership with two industry groups, and based Saturna Ecological Education Center communication skills, teamwork, critical removed from the NEB website.) Enbridge, the proponents of the Northern (SEEC), which started about eight years ago, thinking, and problem solving is also an Allan, writing to the Tanker Safety Expert Gateway Pipeline. Once again, Allan points out and the Middle Years Shared Ecological important factor of these programs. Panel, expresses her concern that since Kinder the potential for a conflict of interest, should there Education Community (MYSEEC), believes Collaboration and a hands-on approach to 0 Morgan receives half the profits from WCMRC, be a spill. that ‘a place-based curriculum emerges PLACE-BASED please turn to page 7 its corporate interests may take precedence over JTBUUIFTF6(5,286&2))(( MPDBUJPOT MPPLGPSUIFA*TMBOE5JEFTZFMMPXCPYFTPVUTJEFPSSBDLTJOTJEF 4JEOFZ#FBDPO"WFOVF /BOBJNP7*$POGFSFODF$FOUSF 1BSLTWJMMF)FSJUBHF$FOUSF.BMM 4PVUI%VODBO4VO7BMMFZ.BMM /BOBJNP#FBVGPSU$FOUSF $PVSUFOBZ4PVUIHBUF$FOUSF $MJòF"WFOVF %VODBO$PXJDIBO$PNNPOT.BMM /BOBJNP$PSOFS*TMBOE)XZ!)BNNPOE#BZ3E 1PSU"MCFSOJ4IPQQFST%SVH.BSU1MB[B UI"WF .JMM#BZ*TMBOE)JHIXBZ!'SBZOF3E /BOBJNP4PVUI1BSLXBZ1MB[B $BNQCFMM3JWFS5IF7JMMBHF 8JMMPX1PJOU www.islandtides.com Page 2, Island Tides, April 2, 2015 250-388-5788 [email protected] Roasting Fancy Coffee Photo: Susan Banjavich for mail orders since 1982 The last of the winter; early morning frost on Gabriola Commons boardwalk. from Thetis Island to you www.potofgoldcoffee.com Bank of Canada case - government appeal dismissed - Patrick Brown n January 26, 2015, the Federal Court of Appeal in Toronto dismissed the government’s appeal against an action brought by William Krehm, hen a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they TALISMAN Ann Emmett, and COMER (Committee for Monetary and Economic and not the leaders of the government control the situation, BOOKS &GALLERY Reform) to restore the use of the Bank of Canada to its original purpose: that is, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes.… Money ‘Funny Faces of Pender Island’ O has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; to finance government investments in infrastructure and ‘human capital’ at a ‘W Photography by Hans Tammemagi their sole object is gain.’ negligible interest rate. —Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815 April 1-15; Launch April 4, 1pm Following this judgement, the federal government has 60 days to appeal the Art Exhibit by Lorraine Thomson case to the Supreme Court of Canada, who may or may not accept the case (the nce a nation parts with control of its currency and credit, it April 16-30 SCC could let the Federal Court of Appeal’s dismissal stand). matters not who makes that nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, 250-629-6944 The case is being prosecuted by Rocco Galati, by reputation Canada’s number will wreck any nation. Until the control of currency and credit is Driftwood Ctr, Pender Island one constitutional lawyer. He believes that this is the most important case he ‘Orestored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred has ever had, and is on solid legal and constitutional grounds, and that his clients responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is should win. But he’s not counting on it. idle and futile.’ —Mackenzie King, Canada’s 10th Prime Minister, 1938 ‘Not all meritorious cases in our judicial system win,’ he says. Galati finds it curious that the case, which has been winding its way through the courts since December 2011, has attracted virtually no media attention. they say, is unconstitutional, ‘not only with respect to its specific provisions, but Some History also with respect to the underlying constitutional imperatives’. • harvesting systems And that’s not all. The plaintiffs go on to claim that the Governor of the Bank Bank of Canada Act • design • installation The original 1934 version of the provides (under s 18 (i) of Canada, in maintaining the secrecy of minutes of meetings with other central • service and (j)) for the Bank to make loans to federal, provincial, and municipal bank governors, is acting ultra vires his authority and unconstitutionally; that VISIT OUR WEBSITE! governments for ‘human capital’ expenditures (education, health, other social the Minister of Finance is required to identify, in his budget, expenditures on BOB BURGESS services) and/or infrastructure expenditures. Loans to finance these activities ‘human capital’, and list them as assets rather than expenses; that the Minister 250-246-2155 were then, and are still, a significant portion of government borrowing. of Finance is required to list all revenues, before subtracting tax credits to [email protected] Prior to the creation of the Bank of Canada, the Canadian government individuals and corporations, in his calculation of a net budgetary surplus or www.rainwaterconnection.com borrowed from private banks that issued their own banknotes. The largest of deficit (by s 91(5) of the Constitution Act, 1867). Experience Counts! these, the Bank of Montreal, served as the government’s banker. This leads to an accusation that the Defendant’s officials conspired (‘wittingly In 1938, the Bank of Canada was established as a publicly owned self-funding or unwittingly’) to ‘by-pass the sovereign rule of Canada’ in respect of financial, institution.