MP Pushes for Citizens’ Right to Participate in NAFTA Environmental Case

In the House of Commons yesterday, NDP Trade Critic Bill Blaikie asked International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew whether or not he will support a request by a Canadian NGO to participate in an ongoing NAFTA case. Pettigrew said he is undecided and Blaikie is urging Canadians to encourage the Trade Minister to stand up for the right of citizens and NGOs to participate in NAFTA cases.

In the case, a Canadian firm called Methanex, has launched a billion dollar lawsuit against the US under chapter 11 of NAFTA for profits lost as a result of California’s ban on MTBE, a gasoline additive with suspected carcinogenic properties. Read more »

Pesticide Friends and Foes Prepare For Supreme Court

On December 7th, 2000 Canada’s highest court will hear an appeal by two pesticide corporations, Chemlawn and Spraytech, challenging a by-law passed years ago by the municipality of Hudson, Quebec. The by-law would control local use and application of pesticides by homeowners and businesses in the municipality. Two previous attempts to have the by-law quashed were denied by the Quebec Trial Court and again by the Quebec Court of Appeal.

In the fall of 1999 the companies were granted leave to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada. Last February, the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), on behalf of itself and ten public interest clients successfully obtained leave from the Supreme Court to intervene in the case and provide a written factum of law as to the validity of the by-law. Read more »

Feds to Force Ontario to Reduce Coal-Fired Pollution

The Governments of Canada and the United States have finalized a draft of the Ozone Annex to the 1991 U.S.-Canada Air Quality Agreement. The Ozone Annex requires fossil power plants in southern Ontario to reduce their smog-causing nitrogen oxides emissions by approximately 50 percent by 2007.

However, the Ontario government is moving in the opposite direction. The Countdown Coal report released by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA) a few weeks prior predicted that unless the Ontario government starts to control the province’s main power producer, Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) emissions of toxic air pollution will increase by 26 percent over the next 12 years. Read more »

Ontario Government Given Bad Report Card on Environment

According to a new study, Canada’s most populated province is in for more environmental crises over the next three years, thanks to Premier Mike Harris’ failure to integrate environmental values into the core business plans of his government’s 13 ministries.

“In a year that has seen six dead in Walkerton from contaminated water, booming hazardous waste imports, and a plan to dump Toronto’s garbage in a leaking pit, it’s hard to imagine how things could get worse,” says Janet Pelley, chair of Toronto’s Sierra Club chapter. “But they will, if Premier Harris doesn’t clean up his act,” she adds. Read more »

Ontario Digs Heels in on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The Ontario government has refused to participate in a national plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, which has been agreed to by Ottawa and all the other provinces and territories.

At this week’s meeting of environment and energy ministers, Ontario pushed for national standards based on its own air-quality programs, which it claims are the strongest in the country. But none of the other provinces wanted federal standards.

The new national strategy, which was in the works months prior to the meeting without Ontario’s participation, sets broad objectives but leaves details to the provinces. Priorities include measures to promote fuel efficiency, fuel-cell technology, transit and possible underground storage of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas. Read more »

Coal Use Dramatically Increases Air Pollution

Unless the Ontario government starts to control the province’s main power producer, Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) emissions of toxic air pollution will increase by 26 percent over the next 12 years, according to a new report by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA).

Flaws in the way the electricity sector is being deregulated, particularly lax pollution trading rules that are open to abuse, mean that the air we breathe will be contaminated by 26 percent more of OPG’s nerve toxin mercury and six cancer-causing substances, according to the OCAA’s Countdown Coal report. Read more »

International Centre for Greek Philosophy and Culture

The International Centre for Greek Philosophy and Culture (ICGPC) is a non-profit academic, research and cultural Institution which was formed in 1987 and established by law in 1990. The ICGPC has its seat in Samos (Pythagorion), land of Ionia, which is also the birthplace of philosophy.

The ICGPC has its aim to promote international research into Greek philosophy, and to coordinate and develop the research carried out by specialists in Greek philosophy, and Greek Culture. The web site is fairly basic at this point in time.

The 4th Tetrology

“The 4th Tetralogy: Exploring Plato’s Middle Dialogues,” is dedicated to examining Plato’s Republic, Phaedrus, Symposium and Phaedo, and was recently put on-line for the general public. The site features the texts of Plato, hyperlinked to several search engines (with appropriate cross-links to Perseus), a new forum for scholarly exchange, and an on-going Internet discussion group that will examine the four dialogues continually in fourteen week cycles. Membership in the discussion group is open to anyone with a serious interest in the study of Plato. General editor of the site is Anthony F. Beavers

Whores Galore

Dronpack your thigh-high pleather boots and break out the fishnets: The hooker is back in fashion. After a celluloid resurgence in the ’90s, when Oscar honored both Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) and Kim Basinger (L.A. Confidential) for plying the world’s oldest profession, the whore is back on her back, only this time she’s walking a new beat: the small screen.

Two new TV shows (and one returning) are using hookers as part of story lines. With the networks getting more risque and Armani-clad execs bandying about the word “edgy” like a mantra, the hooker is proving an effective way to illustrate the moral standards — or lack thereof — of a show’s cast of characters. Read more »

No Rest for the Wicked

All roads lead to Rome, or at least they used to. Now all roads lead to that black, oblong building in Beverly Hills that houses millionaire-mogul Larry Flynt’s multimedia porn empire.

It’s the publishing house that pussy built — home to classic stroke mags like Chic, Hustler, Jail Babes and everybody’s favorite, Barely Legal. For cunt-hounds the world over, Larry Flynt Publications (LFP) is muff mecca. Every labia-licker worth his or her salt should make a pilgrimage at least once to this grand fortress of First Amendment excess and bow down in homage to that heroic, cigar-chomping titan of twat Woody Harrelson portrayed so damn well in The People vs. Larry Flynt. Read more »