The Monsanto Corporation has known the dangers of PCB’s since the 1930’s.
People have died as result of being around this product and the damage to the environment has been substantial.
When eventually this product was banned in the U.S. and Canada, Monsanto kept on selling PCB’s to third world countries.
In the 1970’s Monsanto began producing the herbicide Roundup, which was marketed as a safe herbicide for widespread commercial and consumer use. Even though its key ingredient, glyphosate, is a highly toxic poison for animals and humans.
This corporation also pushed the genetic engineering of wheat, corn and soybeans and is in control of 80 per cent or more of these seeds worldwide.
Monsanto has been repeatedly fined for mislabeling containers of Roundup, failing to report health data and chemical spills and improper chemical deposition. Monsanto has discharged 37 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, land, water and underground.
This is just part of the list. Why is the top brass of this criminal corporation not in jail?
After the oil disaster in Alaska and other places why are oil tankers not double hulled or oil transported in separate containers?
Why is off-shore oil drilling still allowed anywhere in this world when we know the environmental and economic consequences of a spill are grave and there is a prediction for increasingly stronger storms and the human error factor will always remain a possibility.
It has been noted that banks and financial institutions do business the same as before the latest world wide recession.
Why are governments not stepping in or changing the law? An article “Budget deliberations” in the Observer of January 28–2011 states that with the increased loss of industrial assessments, council has directed city staff to draft a budget with a 5.5 per cent tax increase to residents and businesses.
On the other hand the city plans to return $ 685,000 to West Fraser. It is accepted as normal that when an ordinary citizens assessment goes up the tax goes up with it.
West Fraser has recently built a state of the art brand new mill. I guess that would have run in the millions.
My question is did West Fraser pay a higher assessment rate like the small businesses and residents of Quesnel and do small businesses and residents who go through a tough time also get money back?
We also know that the raw log export has increased and that has put profit in the pockets in the logging end of the business but not in the pockets of the people who work in the mills.
My question is would the money returned to West Fraser not have been better spent on fire guards around the city and hopefully the suburbs where most of the people live?
We have been lucky so far, how far do we have to push our luck?
In the 1980’s and 90’s secondary industries were looked at as a safeguard to offset the job loss in the logging industry.
My questions is what happened because I have not seen any with the exception of the use of smaller logs in the mills.
My last question is does anybody have any idea how long it will be before the corporate sector will tell us who to vote for?
Bert de Vink’s a long-time Quesnel resident who wrote for the Cariboo Observer from the mid 80’s to the late 90’s. The Observer is pleased de Vink once again decided to put pen to paper.