It was “Canada Day” yesterday, a national holiday celebrated by many and touted as “Canada’s birthday.”
I certainly wasn’t feeling the least bit celebratory and after reading a post from Peace, Earth and Justice, a group based out of BC, I can see that I wasn’t alone.
Here it is: Canada Day 2009: 100 Reasons Not to Celebrate
an excerpt and preamble…
“No amount of gun salutes, military fly-overs, Snow bird formations, fire works explosions, flag wavings can eclipse what has been really happening in Canada. No amount of nice sounding rhetoric such as in the minority government’s 2007 Speech from the Throne, comparing “Canada to the guiding light of the North Star”, can prevent Canada from now being perceived as an international pariah of corporatism and militarism. Canada has increasingly become and international rogue state, contributing to war and conflict, to violating human rights, to denying social justice, and to destroying the environment.”
Canada Day 2009: 100 Reasons Not to Celebrate.
Also published on Canada Day, this Toronto Star article noted our slide to last place on the G8 climate scorecard.
from the article…
Canada dead last on green list
Toronto Star, July 1, 2009 by Catherine Porter
“While countries like Germany and England have substantially cut their greenhouse gas emissions over the past two decades, Canada’s emissions are continuing to skyrocket, now 26 per cent above 1990 levels.
“We emit more greenhouse gases than half the countries in the world put together,” said Keith Stewart, WWF-Canada’s climate change campaign manager.”
You can find other reasons not to go on a a flag waving spree in a blog post of mine:
Ten reasons to boycott Canada
This country needs to wake up and wake up fast.
