Quesnel Ambassador Leadership Program – 2023 New Candidate Presentation
Mayor Paull introduced the 2023 Candidates and the 2022 Ambassadors, while Councillor McKelvie led the pinning ceremony.
Coordinator: Rose Scott
2023 CANDIDATES & SPONSORS
• Avery Cassidy – Wizards Garage • Anna Simpson – O’Flynn Roofing Ltd • Makenzie Konrad – West Quesnel Business Association • Alexi Howe – Hohmann Brothers Logging Ltd • Samuel Agboji – William Lacy Real Estate • Jamie-Lynn Fedoruk – Craig’s Table
2022 AMBASSADORS
• Nevaeh Kueber • Jada Crossman
Photo courtesy of the Quesnel Ambassador Leadership Program
Delegation – City of Quesnel Water System Update
New information on the effects of manganese on human health prompted the 2019 change to regulations on Maximum Acceptable Concentration (MAC) for manganese in drinking water. Northern Health identified that the manganese levels in Quesnel drinking water exceed the new guidelines of Health Canada and, the City of Quesnel is working with Urban Systems on water system updates to meet the new guidelines.
Council adopted the City of Quesnel 2020 Water Conservation Strategy, which outlines phased implementation of measures to reduce overall water demands on in the City.
Notices on Title
Council directed Staff to file a Notice on Title, for contravention of the City of Quesnel building regulations, for the following properties:
• 495 Edkins Street • 223 Redden Road • Lot A Redden Road • Lot B Redden Road
Operating Budget – 2023
Council approved the 2023 Operating Budget which includes a 5.3% increase in the total tax levy driven largely by inflation. Council also approved a 1% tax shift from Commercial tax payers to Residential tax payers, which will see residential municipal taxes increasing by approximately 9.5% or $115.50 for the average residence and commercial municipal taxes decreasing by approximately $3.87 per $100,000 of assessment.
Bylaws
• Bylaw 1939 City of Quesnel Comprehensive Fees and Charges Amendment Bylaw 1939 of 2023 – Final Adoption
• Bylaw 1940 City of Quesnel Appointment of Officer and Delegation of Authority Amendment Bylaw 1940 of 2023 – Final Adoption
• Bylaw 1941 City of Quesnel Parks and Public Places Bylaw 1941 of 2023 - First Reading
Council Highlights provide a summary of business conducted by Council at Regular Council meetings. For specific details, visit www.quesnel.ca. Contact: Rhya Hartley, Deputy Corporate Administrator at 250-991-7471.
Vladimir Putin’s Address to the Russian Federal Assembly
February 21, 2023
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin delivered his Address to the Federal Assembly. The ceremony took place in Gostiny Dvor, Moscow. February 21, 2023 13:50 Moscow
President of Russia Vladimir Putin:
Good afternoon, Members of the Federation Assembly – senators, State Duma deputies, Citizens of Russia,
This Presidential Address comes, as we all know, at a difficult, watershed period for our country. This is a time of radical, irreversible change in the entire world, of crucial historical events that will determine the future of our country and our people, a time when every one of us bears a colossal responsibility.
One year ago, to protect the people in our historical lands, to ensure the security of our country and to eliminate the threat coming from the neo-Nazi regime that had taken hold in Ukraine after the 2014 coup, it was decided to begin the special military operation. Step by step, carefully and consistently we will deal with the tasks we have at hand.
Since 2014, Donbass has been fighting for the right to live in their land and to speak their native tongue. It fought and never gave up amid the blockade, constant shelling and the Kiev regime’s overt hatred. It hoped and waited that Russia would come to help.
In the meantime, as you know well, we were doing everything in our power to solve this problem by peaceful means, and patiently conducted talks on a peaceful solution to this devastating conflict.
This appalling method of deception has been tried and tested many times before. They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this shame. The concepts of honour, trust, and decency are not for them.
Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world. It turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same disdain, like a master. After all, they cynically deceived them too, tricked them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN Security Council resolutions on Donbass. Indeed, the Western elites have become a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.
We firmly defend our interests as well as our belief that in today’s world there should be no division into so-called civilized countries and all the rest and that there is a need for an honest partnership that rejects any exclusivity, especially an aggressive one.
We were open and sincerely ready for a constructive dialogue with the West; we said and insisted that both Europe and the whole world needed an indivisible security system equal for all countries, and for many years we suggested that our partners discuss this idea together and work on its implementation. But in response, we received either an indistinct or hypocritical reaction, as far as words were concerned. But there were also actions: NATO’s expansion to our borders, the creation of new deployment areas for missile defence in Europe and Asia – they decided to take cover from us under an ‘umbrella’ – deployment of military contingents, and not just near Russia’s borders.
I would like to stress –in fact, this is well-known – that no other country has so many military bases abroad as the United States. There are hundreds of them – I want to emphasize this – hundreds of bases all over the world; the planet is covered with them, and one look at the map is enough to see this.
The whole world witnessed how they withdrew from fundamental agreements on weapons, including the treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles, unilaterally tearing up the fundamental agreements that maintain world peace. For some reason, they did it. They do not do anything without a reason, as we know.
Finally, in December 2021, we officially submitted draft agreements on security guarantees to the USA and NATO. In essence, all key, fundamental points were rejected. After that it finally became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggressive plans had been given and they were not going to stop.
The threat was growing by the day. Judging by the information we received, there was no doubt that everything would be in place by February 2022 for launching yet another bloody punitive operation in Donbass. Let me remind you that back in 2014, the Kiev regime sent its artillery, tanks and warplanes to fight in Donbass.
We all remember the aerial footage of airstrikes targeting Donetsk. Other cities also suffered from airstrikes. In 2015, they tried to mount a frontal assault against Donbass again, while keeping the blockade in place and continuing to shell and terrorize civilians. Let me remind you that all of this was completely at odds with the documents and resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, but everyone pretended that nothing was happening.
Let me reiterate that they were the ones who started this war, while we used force and are using it to stop the war.
Those who plotted a new attack against Donetsk in the Donbass region, and against Lugansk understood that Crimea and Sevastopol would be the next target. We realized this as well. Even today, Kiev is openly discussing far-reaching plans of this kind. They exposed themselves by making public what we knew already.
We are defending human lives and our common home, while the West seeks unlimited power. It has already spent over $150 billion on helping and arming the Kiev regime. To give you an idea, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the G7 countries earmarked about $60 billion in 2020–2021 to help the world’s poorest countries. Is this clear? They spent $150 billion on the war, while giving $60 billion to the poorest countries, despite pretending to care about them all the time, and also conditioning this support on obedience on behalf of the beneficiary countries. What about all this talk of fighting poverty, sustainable development and protection of the environment? Where did it all go? Has it all vanished? Meanwhile, they keep channeling more money into the war effort. They eagerly invest in sowing unrest and encouraging government coups in other countries around the world.
The recent Munich Conference turned into an endless stream of accusations against Russia. One gets the impression that this was done so that everyone would forget what the so-called West has been doing over the past decades. They were the ones who let the genie out of the bottle, plunging entire regions into chaos.
According to US experts, almost 900,000 people were killed during wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, and over 38 million became refugees. Please note, we did not invent these statistics; it is the Americans who are providing them. They are now simply trying to erase all this from the memory of humankind, and they are pretending that all this never happened. However, no one in the world has forgotten this or will ever forget it.
None of them cares about human casualties and tragedies because many trillions of dollars are at stake, of course. They can also continue to rob everyone under the guise of democracy and freedoms, to impose neo-Liberal and essentially totalitarian values, to brand entire countries and nations, to publicly insult their leaders, to suppress dissent in their own countries and to divert attention from corruption scandals by creating an enemy image. We continue to see all this on television, which highlights greater domestic economic, social and inter-ethnic problems, contradictions and disagreements.
I would like to recall that, in the 1930s, the West had virtually paved the way to power for the Nazis in Germany. In our time, they started turning Ukraine into an “anti-Russia.”
Actually, this project is not new. People who are knowledgeable about history at least to some extent realize that this project dates back to the 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland had conceived it for one purpose, that is, to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine. This is their goal. There is nothing new here; they are repeating everything.
The West expedited the implementation of this project today by supporting the 2014 coup. That was a bloody, anti-state and unconstitutional coup. They pretended that nothing happened, and that this is how things should be. They even said how much money they had spent on it. Russophobia and extremely aggressive nationalism formed its ideological foundation.
Quite recently, a brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was named Edelweiss after a Nazi division whose personnel were involved in deportations, executing prisoners of war and conducting punitive operations against partisans in Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. We are ashamed to talk about this, but they are not. Personnel serving with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ukrainian National Guard are particularly fond of chevrons formerly worn by soldiers from Das Reich, Totenkopf (Death’s Head) and Galichina divisions and other SS units. Their hands are also stained with blood. Ukrainian armoured vehicles feature insignia of the Nazi German Wehrmacht.
Neo-Nazis are open about whose heirs they consider themselves to be. Surprisingly, none of the powers that be in the West are seeing it. Why? Because they – pardon my language – could not care less about it. They do not care who they are betting on in their fight against us, against Russia. In fact, anyone will do as long as they fight against us and our country. Indeed, we saw terrorists and neo-Nazis in their ranks. They would let all kinds of ghouls join their ranks, for God’s sake, as long as they act on their will as a weapon against Russia.
In fact, the anti-Russia project is part of the revanchist policy towards our country to create flash points of instability and conflicts next to our borders. Back then, in the 1930s, and now the design remains the same and it is to direct aggression to the East, to spark a war in Europe, and to eliminate competitors by using a proxy force.
We are not at war with the people of Ukraine. I have made that clear many times. The people of Ukraine have become hostages of the Kiev regime and its Western handlers, who have in fact occupied that country in the political, military and economic sense and have been destroying Ukrainian industry for decades now as they plundered its natural resources. This led to social degradation and an immeasurable increase in poverty and inequality. Recruiting resources for military operations in these circumstances was easy. Nobody was thinking about people, who were conditioned for slaughter and eventually became expendables. It is a sad and dreadful thing to say, but it is a fact.
Responsibility for inciting and escalating the Ukraine conflict as well as the sheer number of casualties lies entirely with the Western elites and, of course, today’s Kiev regime, for which the Ukrainian people are, in fact, not its own people. The current Ukrainian regime is serving not national interests, but the interests of third countries.
The West is using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia and as a testing range. I am not going to discuss in detail the West’s attempts to turn the war around, or their plans to ramp up military supplies, since everyone is well aware of that. However, there is one circumstance that everyone should be clear about: the longer the range of the Western systems that will be supplied to Ukraine, the further we will have to move the threat away from our borders. This is obvious.
The Western elite make no secret of their goal, which is, I quote, “Russia’s strategic defeat.” What does this mean to us? This means they plan to finish us once and for all. In other words, they plan to grow a local conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and we will respond accordingly, because this represents an existential threat to our country.
However, they too realize it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield and are conducting increasingly aggressive information attacks against us targeting primarily the younger generation. They never stop lying and distorting historical facts as they attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional religious organizations in our country.
Look what they are doing to their own people. It is all about the destruction of the family, of cultural and national identity, perversion and abuse of children, including pedophilia, all of which are declared normal in their life. They are forcing the priests to bless same-sex marriages. Bless their hearts, let them do as they please. Here is what I would like to say in this regard. Adult people can do as they please. We in Russia have always seen it that way and always will: no one is going to intrude into other people’s private lives, and we are not going to do it, either.
But here is what I would like to tell them: look at the holy scripture and the main books of other world religions. They say it all, including that family is the union of a man and a woman, but these sacred texts are now being questioned. Reportedly, the Anglican Church is planning, just planning, to explore the idea of a gender-neutral god. What is there to say? Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Millions of people in the West realize that they are being led to a spiritual disaster. Frankly, the elite appear to have gone crazy, and it looks like there is no cure for that. But like I said, these are their problems, while we must protect our children, which we will do. We will protect our children from degradation and degeneration.
Clearly, the West will try to undermine and divide our society and to bet on the fifth columnists who, throughout history, and I want to emphasize this, have been using the same poison of contempt for their own Fatherland and the desire to make money by selling this poison to anyone who is willing to pay for it. It has always been that way.
Those who have embarked on the road of outright betrayal, committing terrorist and other crimes against the security of our society and the country’s territorial integrity, will be held accountable for this under law. But we will never behave like the Kiev regime and the Western elite, which have been and still are involved in witch hunts. We will not settle scores with those who take a step aside and turn their back on their Motherland. Let this be on their conscience, let them live with this – they will have to live with it. The main point is that our people, the citizens of Russia, have given them a moral assessment.
I am proud, and I think we are all proud that our multi-ethnic nation, the absolute majority of our citizens, have taken a principled stance on the special military operation. They understand the basic idea of what we are doing and support our actions on the defence of Donbass. This support primarily revealed their true patriotism – a feeling that is historically inherent in our nation. It is stunning in its dignity and deep understanding by everyone – I will stress, everyone – of the inseparable link between one’s own destiny and the destiny of the Fatherland.
My dear friends, I would like to thank everyone, all the people of Russia for their courage and resolve. I would like to thank our heroes, soldiers and officers in the Army and the Navy, the Russian Guards, the secret services staff, and all structures of authority, the fighters in Donetsk and Lugansk corps, volunteers and patriots who are now fighting in the ranks of the BARS combat army reserve.
I would like to apologize that I will not be able to mention everyone during today’s speech. You know, when I was drafting this speech, I wrote a very long list of these heroic units but then removed it from my text because, as I said, it is impossible to mention everyone, and I was afraid to offend anyone I might leave out.
My deepest gratitude to the parents, wives and families of our defenders, the doctors and paramedics, combat medics and medical nurses that are saving the wounded; to the railway workers and drivers that are supplying the front; to the builders that are erecting fortifications and restoring housing, roads and civilian facilities; to the workers and engineers at defence companies, who are now working almost around-the-clock, in several shifts; and to rural workers who reliably ensure food security for the country.
I am grateful to the teachers who sincerely care for the young generations of Russia, especially those that are working in very difficult, almost front-line conditions; the cultural figures that are visiting the zone of hostilities and hospitals to support the soldiers and officers; volunteers that are helping the front and civilians; journalists, primarily war correspondents, that are risking their lives to tell the truth to the world; pastors of Russia’s traditional religions and military clergy, whose wise words support and inspire people; government officials and business people – all those who fulfill their professional, civil and simply human duty.
My special words go to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. You, my friends, determined your future at the referendums and made a clear choice despite the neo-Nazis’ threats and violence, amid the close military actions. But there has been nothing stronger than your intent to be with Russia, with your Motherland.
(Applause)
I want to emphasize that this is the reaction of the audience to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Once again, our deepest respect for them all.
We have already begun and will expand a major socioeconomic recovery and development program for these new regions within the Federation. It includes restoring production facilities, jobs, and the ports on the Sea of Azov, which again became Russia’s landlocked sea, and building new, modern road,s like we did in Crimea, which now has a reliable land transport corridor with all of Russia. We will definitely implement all of these plans together.
Russia’s regions are currently providing direct assistance to the cities, districts and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. They are doing it sincerely, like true brothers and sisters. We are together again, which means that we have become even stronger, and we will do everything in our power to bring back the long-awaited peace to our land and ensure the safety of our people. Our soldiers, our heroes are fighting for this, for their ancestors, for the future of their children and grandchildren, for uniting our people.
Friends, I would like to ask you to pay your respects to our fellow soldiers who were killed in the attacks of neo-Nazis and raiders, who gave up their lives for Russia, for civilians, the elderly, women and children.
(A minute of silence)
Thank you.
We all understand, and I understand also how unbearably hard it is for their wives, sons and daughters, for their parents who raised those dignified defenders of the Fatherland – like the Young Guard members from Krasnodon, young men and women who fought against Nazism and for Donbass during the Great Patriotic War. Everyone in Russia remembers their courage, resilience, enormous strength of spirit and self-sacrifice to this day.
Our duty is to support the families that have lost their loved ones and to help them raise their children and give them an education and a job. The family of each participant in the special military operation must be a priority and treated with care and respect. Their needs must be responded to immediately, without bureaucratic delays.
I suggest establishing a dedicated state fund for bringing targeted, personalized assistance to the families of fallen fighters, as well as veterans of the special military operation. This entity will be tasked with coordinating efforts to offer social, medical support and counseling, and also address matters related to sending them to health resorts and providing rehabilitation services, while also assisting them in education, sports, employment and in acquiring a new profession. This fund will also have an essential mission to ensure long-term home care and high-technology prosthetics for those who need that.
I am asking the Government to work with the State Council Commission on Social Policy and with the regions to resolve the organizational matters as quickly as possible.
The state fund must be transparent in its work, while streamlining assistance and operating as a one-stop-shop, free from red tape or administrative barriers. Every family without exception, and every veteran will have their personal social worker, a coordinator, who will be there for them in person to resolve in real time any issue they might face. Let me emphasize that the fund must open its offices in all regions of the Russian Federation in 2023.
We already have measures in place for supporting Great Patriotic War veterans, combat veterans, as well as participants in local conflicts. I believe these essential elements will be added to the state fund’s mission moving forward. We need to explore this possibility, and I am asking the Government to do so.
Make no mistake: the fact that we are establishing a state fund does not mean that other institutions or officials at other levels of government will be relieved of their responsibility. I expect all federal agencies, regions and municipalities to stay focused on veterans, on service personnel and their families. In this context, I would like to thank the senior regional officials, mayors, and governors who routinely meet with people, including by visiting the line of contact, and support their fellow countrymen.
On a special note, let me say that today, career service personnel, mobilized conscripts, and volunteers all share frontline hardships, including in terms of provisions, supplies and equipment, remuneration, and insurance payments to the wounded, as well as healthcare services. However, there are complaints that make it all the way to my office, as well as to the governors, as they have been telling me, and to the military prosecutor’s office and the Human Rights Commissioner, showing that some of these issues have yet to be resolved. We need to get to the bottom of each complaint on a case-by-case basis.
And one more thing: everyone understands that serving in the special military operation zone causes immense physical and mental stress, since people risk their lives and health every day. For this reason, I believe that the mobilized conscripts, as well as all service personnel, and all those taking part in the special military operation, including volunteers, must benefit from a leave of absence of at least 14 days every six months without counting the time it takes them to travel to their destination. This way, every fighter will be able to meet family and spend time with their loved ones.
Colleagues, as you are aware, a 2021–2025 plan for building and developing the Armed Forces was approved by a Presidential Executive Order and is being implemented and adjusted as necessary. Importantly, our next steps to reinforce the Army and the Navy and to secure the current and future development of the Armed Forces must be based on actual combat experience gained during the special military operation, which is extremely important, I would even say absolutely invaluable to us.
For example, the latest systems account for over 91 percent, 91.3 percent, of Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces. To reiterate, based on our newly acquired experience, we must access a similarly high quality level for all other components of the Armed Forces.
Officers and sergeants who act as competent, modern and decisive commanders, and they are many, will be promoted to higher positions as a matter of priority, sent to military universities and academies, and will serve as a powerful personnel reserve for the Armed Forces. Without a doubt, they are a valuable resource in civilian life and at governments at all levels. I just want our colleagues to pay attention to that. It is very important. The people must know that the Motherland appreciates their contribution to the defence of the Fatherland.
We will widely introduce the latest technology to ensure high-quality standards in the Army and Navy. We have corresponding pilot projects and samples of weapons and equipment in each area. Many of them are significantly superior to their foreign counterparts. Our goal is to start mass production. This work is underway and is picking up pace. Importantly, this relies on domestic research and the industrial base and involves small- and medium-sized high-tech businesses in implementation of the state defence order.
Today, our plants, design bureaus and research teams employ experienced specialists and increasing numbers of talented and highly skilled young people who are oriented towards breakthrough achievements while remaining true to the tradition of Russian gunsmiths, which is to spare no effort to ensure victory.
We will certainly strengthen the guarantees for our workforce, in part concerning salaries and social security. I propose launching a special program for low-cost rental housing for defence industry employees. The rental payments for them will be significantly lower than the going market rate, since a significant portion of it will be covered by the state.
The Government reviewed this issue. I instruct you to work through the details of this program and start building such rental housing without delay, primarily, in the cities that are major defence, industrial and research centres.
Colleagues,
As I have already said, the West has opened not only military and informational warfare against us, but is also seeking to fight us on the economic front. However, they have not succeeded on any of these fronts, and never will. Moreover, those who initiated the sanctions are punishing themselves: they sent prices soaring in their own countries, destroyed jobs, forced companies to close, and caused an energy crisis, while telling their people that the Russians were to blame for all of this. We hear that.
What means did they use against us in their efforts to attack us with sanctions? They tried disrupting economic ties with Russian companies and depriving the financial system of its communication channels to shutter our economy, isolate us from export markets and thus undermine our revenues. They also stole our foreign exchange reserves, to call a spade a spade, tried to depreciate the ruble and drive inflation to destructive heights.
Let me reiterate that the sanctions against Russia are merely a means, while the aim as declared by the Western leaders, to quote them, is to make us suffer. “Make them suffer” – what a humane attitude. They want to make our people suffer, which is designed to destabilize our society from within.
However, their gamble failed to pay off. The Russian economy, as well as its governance model proved to be much more resilient than the West thought. The Government, parliament, the Bank of Russia, the regions and of course the business community and their employees all worked together to ensure that the economic situation remained stable, offered people protection and preserved jobs, prevented shortages, including of essential goods, and supported the financial system and business owners who invest in their enterprises, which also means investing in national development.
As early as in March 2022, we launched a dedicated assistance package for businesses and the economy worth about a trillion rubles. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this has nothing to do with printing money. Not at all. Everything we do is solidly rooted in market principles.
In 2022, there was a decline in the gross domestic product. Mr. Mishustin called me to say, “I would like to ask you to mention this.” I think that these data were released yesterday, right on schedule.
You may remember that some predicted that the economy would shrink by 20 to 25 percent, or maybe 10 percent. Only recently, we spoke about a 2.9 percent decline, and I was the one who announced this figure. Later it came down to 2.5 percent. However, in 2022, the GDP declined by 2.1 percent, according to the latest data. And we must be mindful of the fact that back in February and March of last year some predicted that the economy would be in free fall.
Russian businesses have restructured their logistics and have strengthened their ties with responsible, predictable partners – there are many of them, they are the majority in the world.
I would like to note that the share of the Russian ruble in our international settlements has doubled as compared to December 2021, reaching one third of the total, and including the currencies of the friendly countries, it exceeds half of all transactions.
We will continue working with our partners to create a sustainable, safe system of international settlements, which will be independent of the dollar and other Western reserve currencies that are bound to lose their universal appeal with this policy of the Western elite, the Western rulers. They are doing all this to themselves with their own hands.
We are not the ones reducing transactions in dollars or other so-called universal currencies – they are doing everything with their own hands.
You know, there is a maxim, cannons versus butter. Of course, national defence is the top priority, but in resolving strategic tasks in this area, we should not repeat the mistakes of the past and should not destroy our own economy. We have everything we need to both ensure our security and create conditions for confident progress in our country. We are acting in line with this logic and we intend to continue doing this.
Thus, many basic, I will stress, civilian industries in the national economy are far from being in decline, they have increased their production last year by a considerable amount. The scale of housing put into service exceeded 100 million square meters for the first time in our modern history.
As for agricultural production, it recorded two-digit growth rates last year. Thank you very much. We are most grateful to our agricultural producers. Russian agrarians harvested a record amount – over 150 million tonnes of grain, including over 100 million tonnes of wheat. By the end of the agricultural season, that is, June 30, 2023, we will bring our grain exports to 55–60 million tonnes.
Just 10 or 15 years ago, this seemed like a fairy tale, an absolutely unfeasible plan. If you remember, and I am sure some people do remember this – the former Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture are here – just recently, agrarians took in 60 million tonnes overall in a year, whereas now 55–60 million is their export potential alone. I am convinced we have every opportunity for a similar breakthrough in other areas as well.
We prevented the labour market from collapsing. On the contrary, we were able to reduce unemployment in the current environment. Today, considering the major challenges coming at us from all sides, the labour market is even better than it used to be. You may remember that the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent before the pandemic, and now, I believe, it is 3.7 percent. What is the figure, Mr. Mishustin? 3.7 percent? This is an all-time low.
Let me reiterate that the Russian economy has prevailed over the risks it faced – it has prevailed. Of course, it was impossible to anticipate many of them, and we had to respond literally on the fly, dealing with issues as they emerged. Both the state and businesses had to move quickly. I will note that private actors, SMEs, played an essential role in these efforts, and we must remember this. We avoided having to apply excessive regulation or distorting the economy by giving the state a more prominent role.
What else there is to say? The recession was limited to the second quarter of 2022, while the economy grew in the third and fourth quarters. In fact, the Russian economy has embarked on a new growth cycle. Experts believe that it will rely on a fundamentally new model and structure. New, promising global markets, including the Asia-Pacific, are taking precedence, as is the domestic market, with its research, technology and workforce no longer geared toward exporting commodities but manufacturing goods with high added value. This will help Russia unleash its immense potential in all spheres and sectors.
We expect to see a solid increase in domestic demand as early as this year. I am convinced that companies will use this opportunity to expand their manufacturing, make new products that are in high demand, and to take over the market niches vacated or about to be vacated by Western companies as they withdraw.
Today, we clearly see what is going on and understand the structural issues we have to address in logistics, technology, finance, and human resources. Over the past years, we have been talking a lot and at length about the need to restructure our economy. Now these changes are a vital necessity, a game changer, and all for the better. We know what needs to be done to enable Russia to make steady progress and to develop independently regardless of any outside pressure or threats, while guaranteeing our national security and interests.
I would like to point out and to emphasize that the essence of our task is not to adapt to circumstances. Our strategic task is to take the economy to a new horizon. Everything is changing now, and changing extremely fast. This is not only a time of challenges but also a time of opportunities. This is really so today. And our future depends on the way we realize these opportunities. We must put an end – and I want to emphasize this – to all interagency conflicts, red tape, grievances, doublespeak, or any other nonsense. Everything we do must contribute to achieving our goals and delivering results. This is what we must strive to achieve.
Enabling Russian companies and small family-run businesses to successfully tap the market is a victory in itself. Building cutting-edge factories and kilometres of new roads is a victory. Every new school, every new kindergarten we build is a victory. Scientific discoveries and new technologies – these are also victories, of course. What matters is that all of us contribute to our shared success.
What areas should we focus the partnership of the state, the regions and domestic business on?
First, we will expand promising foreign economic ties and build new logistics corridors. A decision has already been made to extend the Moscow-Kazan expressway to Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, and eventually to Irkutsk and Vladivostok with branches to Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China. This will, in part, allows us to considerably expand our ties with Southeast Asian markets.
We will develop Black Sea and Sea of Azov ports. We will pay special attention to the North-South international corridor, as those who work on this every day know. Vessels with a draft of up to 4.5 meters will be able to pass through the Volga-Caspian Sea Canal this year. This will open up new routes for business cooperation with India, Iran, Pakistan, and the Middle Eastern countries. We will continue developing this corridor.
Our plans include expedited modernization of the eastern railways – the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur Railway (BAM) – and building up the potential of the Northern Sea Route. This will create not only additional freight traffic but also a foundation for reaching our national goals on developing Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East.
The infrastructure of the regions and the development of infrastructure, including communications, telecommunications and railways will receive a powerful impetus. Next year, 2024, we will bring to a proper condition at least 85 percent of all roads in the country’s largest metropolises, as well as over half of all regional and municipal roads. I am sure we will achieve this.
We will also continue our free gas distribution program. We have already made the decision to extend it to social facilities – kindergartens and schools, outpatient clinics and hospitals, as well as primary healthcare centres. This program will now be permanent for our citizens – they can always request a connection to the gas distribution system.
This year, we will launch a large program to build and repair housing and utility systems. Over the next ten years, we plan to invest at least 4.5 trillion rubles in this. We know how important this is for our people and how neglected this area has been. It is necessary to improve this situation, and we will do it. It is important to give the programme a powerful start. So, I would like to ask the Government to ensure stable funding for this.
Second, we will need to significantly expand our economy’s production capabilities and to increase domestic industrial capacity.
An industrial mortgage tool has been created, and an easy-term loan can now be taken out not only to purchase production facilities, but also to build or upgrade them. The size of such a loan was discussed many times and there were plans to increase it. It is a decent amount for a first step: up to 500 million rubles. It is available at a rate of 3 or 5 percent for up to seven years. It sounds like a very good program and should be put to good use.
New terms for industrial clusters took effect this year, including a lower fiscal and administrative burden on resident companies, and long-term state orders and subsidies to support demand for their innovative products, which are just entering the market.
According to estimates, these measures will generate high-demand projects worth over 10 trillion rubles by 2030. Investment is expected to reach about 2 trillion this year alone. Please note that these are not forecasts, but existing benchmarks.
Therefore, I would like the Government to expedite the launch of these projects, give a hand to businesses and come up with systemic support measures, including tax incentives. I am aware that the financial bloc does not like to provide incentives, and I partly share this approach: the taxation system must be consistent and without niches or exemptions, but this particular case calls for a creative approach.
So, starting this year, Russian companies will be able to reduce their revenue taxes if they purchase advanced domestic IT solutions and AI-enhanced products. Moreover, these expenses will be credited at one and a half times the actual cost, meaning that every ruble invested in purchasing such products will result in a tax deduction of 1.5 rubles.
I propose extending these deductions to purchases of all kinds of Russian high-tech equipment. I would like the Government to come up with a list of such equipment by specific industry and with the procedure for granting deductions. This is a good solution to reinvigorate the economy.
Third, a crucial issue on our economic development agenda to do with the new sources of funding investment, which we have been talking about a lot.
Thanks to our strong payments balance, Russia does not need to borrow funds abroad, kowtow and beg for money, and then hold long discussions on what, how much and on what conditions we would pay back. Russian banks are working stably and sustainably and have a solid margin for security.
In 2022, the volume of bank loans for the corporate sector increased, I repeat, increased. There was considerable concern about that, but we have reported growth, an increase of 14 percent, or more than we reported in 2021, before the military operation. In 2021, the figure was 11.7 percent; last year, it was 14 percent. The mortgage portfolio went up by 20.4 percent. We are growing.
Last year, the banking sector as a whole operated at a profit. It was not as large as in the preceding years, but it was considerable nevertheless: 203 billion rubles. This is another indicator of the stability of the Russian financial sector.
According to our estimates, inflation in Russia will approach the target figure of 4 percent in the second quarter this year. I would like to remind you that the inflation rate has reached 12, 17 and 20 percent in some EU countries. Our figure is 4 or 5 percent; the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry are still discussing the figure, but it will be close to the target. Given these positive dynamics and other macroeconomic parameters, we are creating objective conditions for lowering long-term interest rates in the economy, which means that loans for the real economic sector will become more affordable.
Individual long-term savings are a vital source of investment resources around the world, and we must also stimulate their attraction into the investment sphere. I would like the Government to expedite the submission of draft laws to the State Duma to launch the relevant state program as soon as this April.
It is important to create additional conditions to encourage people to invest and earn at home, in the country. At the same time, it is necessary to guarantee the safety of people’s investment in voluntary retirement savings. We should create a mechanism here similar to the one used for insuring bank deposits. I would like to remind you that such savings, worth up to 1.4 million rubles, are insured by the state on guarantee deposits. I propose doubling the sum to 2.8 million rubles for voluntary retirement savings. Likewise, we must protect people’s investment in other long-term investment instruments, including against the possible bankruptcy of financial brokers.
Separate decisions must be taken to attract funds to rapidly growing and high-tech businesses. We will approve support for the placement of their shares on the domestic stock market, including tax benefits for both the companies and the buyers of their stock.
Freedom of enterprise is a vital element of economic sovereignty. I will repeat: against the backdrop of external attempts to contain Russia, private businesses have proven their ability to quickly adapt to the changing environment and ensure economic growth in difficult conditions. So, every business initiative aimed at benefiting the country should receive support.
I believe it is necessary to return, in this context, to the revision of a number of norms of criminal law as regards the economic elements of crime. Of course, the state must control what is happening in this area. We should not allow an anything-goes attitude here but we should not go too far, either. It is necessary to move faster towards the decriminalization I mentioned. I hope the Government will consistently and seriously conduct this work together with Parliament, the law-enforcement bodies and business associations.
At the same time, I would like to ask the Government to suggest, in close cooperation with Parliament, additional measures for speeding up the de-offshorisation of the economy. Businesses, primarily those operating in key sectors and industries should operate in Russian jurisdiction – this is a fundamental principle.
Colleagues, in this context I would like to make a small philosophical digression. This is what I would like to single out.
We remember what problems and imbalances the Soviet economy faced in its later stages. This is why after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its planned system, in the chaos of the 1990s, the country began to create its economy along the lines of market relations and private ownership. Overall, this was the right thing to do. The Western countries were largely an example to follow in this respect. As you know, their advisers were a dime a dozen, and it seemed enough to simply copy their models. True, I remember they still argued with each other – the Europeans argued with the Americans on how the Russian economy should develop.
And what happened as a result? Our national economy was largely oriented to the West and for the most part as a source of raw materials. Naturally, there were different nuances, but overall, we were seen as a source of raw materials. The reasons for this are also clear – naturally, the new Russian businesses that were taking shape were primarily oriented toward generating profit, quick and easy profit in the first place. What could provide this? Of course, the sale of resources – oil, gas, metals and timber.
Few people thought about other alternatives or, probably, they did not have the opportunity to invest long-term. This is the reason other, more complex industries did not make much headway. It took us years – other governments saw this clearly – to break this negative trend. We had to adjust our tax system and make large-scale public investments.
We have achieved real and visible change. Indeed, the results are there, but, again, we should keep in mind the circumstances in which our major businesses developed. Technologies were coming from the West, cheaper sources of financing and lucrative markets were in the West, and capital started flowing to the West as well. Unfortunately, instead of expanding production and buying equipment and technology to create new jobs in Russia, they spent their money on foreign mansions, yachts and luxury real estate.
They began to invest in the economy later, but initially the money flowed rapidly to the West for consumption purposes. And since their money was there, that is where their children were educated, where their life was, their future. It was very difficult and almost impossible for the state to track and prevent these developments, because we lived in a free market paradigm.
Recent events have clearly shown that the image of the West as a safe haven for capital was a mirage. Those who failed to understand this in time, who saw Russia only as a source of income and planned to live mostly abroad, have lost a lot. They just got robbed there and saw even their legitimate money taken away.
At some point I made a joke – many may still remember it – I told Russian business people that they will make themselves sick running from courtroom to courtroom and from office to office in the West trying to save their money. That is exactly how it turned out.
You know, I will say something that is quite simple, but truly important. Trust me, not a single ordinary citizen in our country felt sorry for those who lost their assets in foreign banks, lost their yachts or palaces abroad, and so on. In their conversations around the kitchen table, people have all recalled the privatization of the 1990s, when enterprises that had been built by our entire nation were sold for next to nothing and the so-called new elites flaunted their lavish lifestyle.
There are other key aspects. During the years that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West never stopped trying to set the post-Soviet states on fire and, most importantly, finish off Russia as the largest surviving portion of the historical reaches of our state. They encouraged international terrorists to assault us, provoked regional conflicts along the perimeter of our borders, ignored our interests and tried to contain and suppress our economy.
I am saying this because big business in Russia controls strategic enterprises with thousands of workers that determine the socioeconomic well-being of many regions and, hence, the overall state of affairs. So, whenever leaders or owners of such businesses become dependent on governments that adopt policies that are unfriendly to Russia, this poses a great threat to us, a danger to our country. This is an untenable situation.
Yes, everyone has a choice. Some may choose to live in a seized mansion with a blocked account, trying to find a place for themselves in a seemingly attractive Western capital, a resort or some other comfortable place abroad. Anyone has the right to do that, and we will never infringe on it. But it is time to see that in the West these people have always been and will always remain second class strangers who can be treated any way, and their money, connections and the acquired titles of counts, peers or mayors will not help at all. They must understand that they are second class people there.
There is another option: to stay with your Motherland, to work for your compatriots, not only to open new businesses but also to change life around you in cities, towns and throughout your country. We have quite a few business people like this, real fighters in our business community, and we associate the future of our business with them. Everyone must know that the sources of their prosperity and their future can only be here, in their native country Russia.
If they do, we will create a very strong and self-sufficient economy that will not remain aloof in the world but will make use of all its competitive advantages. Russian capital, the money earned here, must be put to work for the country, for our national development. Today, we see huge potential in the development of infrastructure, the manufacturing sector, in domestic tourism and many other industries.
I would like those who have come up against the predatory mores of the West to hear what I have to say: running around with cap in hand, begging for your own money makes no sense, and most importantly, it accomplishes nothing, especially now that you realize who you are dealing with. Stop clinging to the past, resorting to the courts to get at least something back. Change your lives and your jobs, because you are strong people – I am addressing our business people now, many of whom I have known for years, who know what is what in life.
Launch new projects, earn money, work hard for Russia, invest in enterprises and jobs, and help schools and universities, science and healthcare, culture and sports. In this way, you will increase your wealth and will also win the respect and gratitude of the people for a generation ahead. The state and society will certainly support you.
Let us consider this as a message for your business: get moving in the right direction.
[Editor’s Note: After posting the initial article by Dr. Makis last evening the Cariboo Sentinel received word of yet another B.C. Doctor who had recently passed away on January 27th, 2023. I alerted Dr. Makis to the fact and he immediately responded with a second Substack article which is presented here.
The question posed by Dr. Makis is a legitimate one to ask given the behaviour of both the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), the current Leftist (aka commie) NDP government of B.C. and the mainstream media which is basically on life support at this time in world history.
I would highly recommend that readers interested in this phenomenon look up Dr. Makis on Substack and subscribe to his posts and support his vitally important work of keeping an open and honest record of the growing misfeasance being displayed by the medical profession, Canadian governments and the sold-out msm.]
Top Vancouver cardiologist just died suddenly – is information on Canadian doctor sudden deaths being censored on the internet?
A mysterious sudden death…
BY DR. WILLIAM MAKIS, MD
I received an email cautiously asking: “Is he on this list?” (our list of 132 Canadian doctor sudden deaths).
A top Vancouver cardiologist was seeing patients recently. A few days later, one of his patients was informed their cardiologist had just died suddenly.
He is not on our list. I don’t recognize his name. How did we miss this?
Dr.Andrew (Andrzej) Jakubowski died on January 27, 2023. He was 68 years old.
Dr.Jakubowski was the Program Medical Director of the Healthy Heart Program at Richmond Hospital in British Columbia (click here). Other than that, any further information is difficult to come by.
We had heard rumors that funeral homes are being advised to suppress information on sudden deaths, especially when it comes to Canadian doctors. I experienced this first hand with the sudden death of Edmonton Psychiatrist Dr.Michael Marshall.
For weeks, information on Dr.Marshall was impossible to come by. We couldn’t find out how old he was. There was no obituary. For one of the most famous doctors in Edmonton, Alberta, it was almost as if there was a media blackout. He was 45 years old when he died suddenly. A few weeks later, Edmonton Journal speculated about his cause of death:
“he’d recently suffered a head injury, but it’s unclear if that contributed in any way, or if there was another medical issue at play” (click here).
It’s very strange for mainstream media to speculate on the cause of death of a local doctor, but that bizarre media speculation drew attention away from the fact he was fully COVID-19 vaccinated and may have suffered a vaccine related injury and death.
Dr.Jakubowski’s obituary has no photo, no indication he was a doctor, no history of where he went to medical school, or where he worked throughout his distinguished career as a top cardiologist in Vancouver. Nothing (click here).
Anyone searching for information on Canadian doctor sudden deaths would never find him. And perhaps this is intentional.
~Ω~
COVID Intel – by Dr.William Makis is a reader- supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Canadian Medical Associations maintain a conspiracy of silence
By Dr. William Makis MD
In 2021, Canadian doctors were mandated to be fully COVID-19 vaccinated, in order to keep their jobs. Very few escaped these mandates. No exemptions given.
Since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020, a total of 132 actively practicing Canadian doctors under age 70 have died suddenly or unexpectedly.
Canadian physician mortality in 2022 was 53% higher than 2019, based on the largest database of its kind assembled diligently by our team (a total of 2250 doctor deaths documented, spanning the years 2019-2023). This data is solid.
I have sent a third letter to the Canadian Medical Association (“CMA”) about these sudden deaths. To date, CMA has refused to respond. CMA fully supported unscientific and unethical COVID-19 vaccine mandates that were forced on their own physician members. Now this Ottawa-based bureaucracy ignores the damage done.
2022/23 Sudden and unexpected Canadian doctor deaths:
[***Editor’s Note: At times the wonderful world of social media can be a tad confusticating. The recent issue surrounding the case of Dr. Hoffe is a good example of what can happen when otherwise well-meaning, conscientious supporters send out information to the net that’s not fully correct and which ends up spawning confusion as to what’s actually going on.
Shit happens like this all the time and I’m just as guilty of it as anyone else, especially when one is working in the field and the field is now so immense that it’s easy to trip over the keys on one’s pc and send something out without having fully checked it out.
Setting the record straight is always helpful, even in retrospect and that’s what this post is for.
I received the following email below from Dr. Hoffe’s lawyer, Michael Alexander, last evening and I’m posting it and the original statement that ended up slipping into the Rumour Mill.]
Re: Status of Dr. Hoffe’s case
Hi Arthur,
I’m sorry to be so delayed in getting back to you. I’ve been very wrapped up in getting the adjournment for Charles, which was successful.
Here is the original statement, which I had misplaced on my computer. It’s the same as below, but it contains a paragraph that Vaccine Choice excluded. I’m sure this is too late to go press. But, if you wanted to report on the latest news, which you may done already, it would be that we did get the adjournment, and I will putting out a press release shortly about what this means going forward.
An unidentified party sent out an e-mail regarding Dr. Hoffe’s case on the weekend, and it has caused considerable misunderstanding and harm. Dr. Hoffe and I have reviewed the e-mail, and Dr. Hoffe has authorized me to correct misapprehensions resulting from it.
First, I have not missed any deadlines for Dr. Hoffe or any of my other physician clients. Dr. Hoffe was scheduled for a hearing at the College of Physicians in BC, which was to begin on February 12th. However, I experienced a serious adverse health event just before Christmas and ended up in the ER, and I am still recovering from the episode. Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, I notified the College that I would need an adjournment of the hearing on health grounds. At that time, all filing deadlines were provisionally suspended. Subsequently, I provided a medical note to the College in pursuit of the adjournment. Later today, February 7th, my external counsel in BC will appear at a College case conference to formally present the request for a re-scheduling of Dr. Hoffe’s hearing.
Second, Dr. Hoffe was charged under the old Health Professions Act. It is by no means clear at this point that the College has a right to try him under the new legislation, with its enhanced penalties. Those who suggest otherwise have jumped the gun.
Third, this e-mail was brought to my attention on Saturday evening when I attended the dinner for the Justice for the Vaccinated Conference in Toronto. During the pre-dinner reception, I learned that an attendee was spreading false information about my conduct of the Hoffe case and other physician cases on my docket. I had a meeting with her at the end of the evening in the presence of conference organizers. We had a professional and civilized conversation, and I was able to disabuse her of her mistaken views. However, another e-mail was soon circulated stating that we had been engaged in a “fight.” That is not true. The matter was resolved amicably.
Finally, some of the people who circulated the original e-mail know me or have social media connections with me. They could easily have reached out to me for clarification. If they had, this whole affair, which has been damaging for me and Dr. Hoffe, might been stopped in its tracks. Social media is a great way for us to share information and remain united in our efforts, but when it degenerates and becomes a rumour mill, as in this case, it harms the very people we are trying to help. Please think twice before tweeting, texting or posting unsubstantiated claims.
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” ~Thomas Paine, The Crisis Papers, 1776
[Editor’s Note: It was twenty years ago that I first wrote the article Dismantling the Infrastructure of Tyranny. Over the past two decades I believe what I predicted back in 2003 has basically unfolded as the political landscape globally continues to darken like a winter sky polluted by chemtrails that gradually spread their poison-laden ordnance across our Great Mother.
Still though, when one scans Cyberspace and Social Media with a discerning eye it’s now possible to catch a glimpse of a nascent global uprising slowing emerging out of the last three years of what obviously is an undeclared war by the NWO psychopaths upon the whole of humanity and the planet itself.
Commentary on any articles posted to the Cariboo Sentinel is encouraged.]
On March 19, 2003, only hours before the arrival of Spring Equinox, the USA and its motley crew of sword-rattling sycophants commenced bombing the independent, sovereign nation of Iraq. It was, and continues to be, an overt, shameless act of premeditated hostility. It was also a decisive moment; not only for the USA, but for this writer. It was then and there that I decided I’d finally had enough. And so, without further adieu, I sat down at my keyboard and typed up a Declaration of War aimed at the instigating aggressor nation – the United States of America. I did so, not as a Canadian subject, but as a free and sovereign citizen of the planet Earth. What follows is my rationale for making such a radical and provocative decision.
Call it a temporary loss of insanity or possibly a state of momentary, yet justified, rage. Call it whatever but the time had arrived, after close to forty years of peaceful protesting, where I was finally forced to face my deepest fear of all – the recognition and realization that peaceful means alone, in the face of iron-heeled belligerence and bellicose aggression – was now no longer the appropriate response to the USA’s new rules of engagement.
I knew of course it was coming. It was just a matter of time. A foregone conclusion so to speak. The clarity of the US’s intent had been indelibly outlined in graphic detail throughout the tumultuous sixties. The Vietnam war had exposed to the eyes and nose of the global public not only the dirty dealings of the US military but also the stench of collusion and cover-up that rose high above the White House and the office of the Presidency. In fact all that’s taken place since then has been but an embellishment of the original US plan for world hegemony. So now, when the American-led forces of imperialism made their Mephistophelian choice and struck Iraq preemptively rather than adhere to international law, I knew our world, at that precise moment, was historically and psychically altered forever.
Illusions tend to stick to us, as Lenny Bruce once said, like “snot to a suede jacket” and they’re not easily removed. And in this case the illusion that the US administration would somehow come to its senses rather than use its might to try and legitimize something obviously not morally or legally supportable was the one I had stubbornly clung to. So when President George W. Bush set this historic act of supreme aggression in motion it was as if the last veil suddenly had fallen from my eyes, leaving me, for a brief moment, awe struck at the realization that my deepest and most sacred principles regarding human co-existence were now shattered!
I sat before my computer numbed, yet reflective, like some Nietzschean Zarathustra who, when he heard the old saint in the woods say to him, “With singing, weeping, laughing, and muttering I praise the God who is my God” remarked to himself, “Could it be possible! This old saint has not yet heard in his forest that God is dead!”
And now?
Whenever an individual or a group or a nation-state resolves to use sheer brute force as their ultimate means of negotiation those about to die or to be victimized in other ways must recognize this impending reality and act directly and decisively to defend themselves.
The realization was profound. What it meant was that the world was no longer held together by a common consensus. Like Nietzsche’s god, international law was suddenly dead – a victim of the collateral damage sustained by the USA’s insatiable and tyrannical quest for global domination. With a mere click, Might Mouse George had deleted it from the text of humankind’s file for world peace and security and, like some strange zen awakening, I was left contemplating the reality of Evil, appearing in a most hideous and threatening aspect as the once-renowned US of A – the home of individual freedom and liberty – and manifesting before my mind’s eye as the preeminent and deadly visage of Darth Vader and the Evil Empire.
I saw it as the final wake up call for the natural-born, sovereign citizens of this beleaguered planet. A bright, blood-red signal to stop dreaming that we could somehow, by a showing of good will, trust, patience, dialogue, love and compassion, end the acrimony and the atrocities being perpetrated by this once proud and noble nation; one now held firmly by the hawk’s claws of a righteous, sociopathic tyrant.
As an avid peace activist and radical thinker since the mid-sixties I had continuously quested for universal sister and brotherhood, trying every conceivable trick in the book to advance the concepts of peace, human rights and social/economic justice. Now, witnessing what the US had initiated, I felt molested and pained, as deeply as I imagine rape must affect a woman. It was as if my most sacred, precious heart-center had been violated and abused to the point where the foundation of my whole belief structure, my Being itself, now teetered on the brink of collapse like the Twin Towers of 9/11. It was at this point that I knew, with a finality beyond question, that the people of this planet were openly under attack by a vicious and diabolical presence.
Too many factors, too many parameters, and too many strategies have been debated and tried repeatedly in humanity’s relentless pursuit of the elusive Grail of justice to even begin assessing their specific degree of applicability and appropriateness in this short article. This is neither the place nor the intent. Instead, it must suffice to say that they are all, in some way correct, and shall remain so, even after the radical proposition that I wish to introduce into this general discussion of war and peace. But at the same time that we are reassessing our achievements in the context of the old paradigm of universal consensus we must also begin giving serious consideration to the new world disorder in which we suddenly find ourselves – a world cruising rather swiftly toward an ominous abyss, filled with chaos and madness wherein Might is seen as Right and Love and Peace are viewed as a contemptible form of Weakness.
There is though one element of prime importance in this proposed re-tooling of our basic values and goals that must be profiled beforehand and it’s the mainstream media and more specifically the North American variety. There has always been a persistent reluctance on the part of the Peace Movement in general to acknowledge that an ongoing, covert program of anti-social, debilitating propaganda has been operative throughout the world since at least the turn of the 20th Century when the initial media conglomerates were created. It’s my contention, based on four decades of observation and research, that this omnipresent agenda for social, institutional and spiritual persuasion of the bulk of humanity was designed to circumvent appropriate responses to national and international crises and that it has been the overall determining factor in why we’ve held back on the final push toward achieving our collectively agreed-upon goals for world peace.
Call it a conspiracy if you will for that is precisely what it is. In trying to ignore this program of mass mind-control, especially the portion of it which has been systematically occurring since the creation of the US’s National Security Association and the Central Intelligence Agency back in 1947, we have foolishly overlooked the most critical and sinister component of our captor’s power over us and our potential actions. The Mainstream Mind-control Media (M3), as I refer to it, IS the Orwellian Big Brother controlling, dispensing and influencing our perceptions of what constitute social, political and spiritual realities and IS therefore a stupendously potent psychic force intentionally being used to inculcate the general public with specific, intentional propaganda designed to create and reinforce a particular mindset which continues to be the main stumbling block to the movement’s understanding of the extent and intent of the US government’s policies, both domestic and foreign. Because of the M3’s purposeful withholding of the required nutrients of vital information from our minds it now becomes extremely imperative that this mind-controlling entity be dissolved in as quick and pragmatic a manner as possible.
Mental prisons
All that we have accomplished en masse as a Peace Movement over the past forty years has only led us, step by step, victim by victim, martyr by martyr, up to the front of the oaken doors of Freedom. We are still within the prison walls. What I wish to offer to those who are standing before that portal to peace, desperately awaiting a final closure to the killing, suffering and injustice in the world, is the proposition that in order for the peace-loving people of the world to step across the final threshold to lasting liberty, happiness, and justice we must first perform the radical and necessary act of dismantling what I refer to as the infrastructure of tyranny.*
At the end of the day, and after half a century of struggles, what this implies is that we must metaphorically, and literally, bust down the doors of this exoterically-induced psychic prison which has kept us stifled and confined inside our heads and hearts and shackled us with the seemingly omniscient belief that good will, and good will alone, could and would eventually liberate us all from the horror and suffering of needless and endless war. This belief, inculcated over generations by tyrants, monarchs, organized religions, centralized state governments (both capitalist and communist) and now transnational corporations, has finally reached its apex in our time and proven to be incapable of halting the juggernaut of uncontrolled aggression. Instead of resolving the endless dilemma of increased and ongoing violence, rogue states such as the USA, Great Britain, Spain and Australia are now acting unilaterally, while at the same time broadcasting via the M3, their sinister siren songs of insanity to those nations still holding on to the old paradigm of peace, relentlessly and desperately attempting to recruit more countries to join them in their collective madness. As a result, what we’re now witnessing in Iraq will soon be spreading throughout the world body politic, like some alien form of rampant cancer, bringing with it increased death and chaos.
That infrastructure which, in all its implied enormity and influence, allows, supports, promotes and perpetuates the present reign of terror emanating from the USA and its aggressor allies, MUST be dismantled from the absolute bottom to the acme of its power structure. In order to accomplish that objective it will require an intensity of direct action and civil disobedience far beyond all we have witnessed in the past. What this means for people everywhere is that, coupled with courage, trust and an inestimable sacrifice of self, must come the recognition that we’re now swiftly moving into a place we’ve been conditioned to fear and loath for lifetimes – GLOBAL REVOLUTION!
Forms of transformation
The forms this final battle will take are impossible to describe. They will be as varied and as spontaneous as the individuals and groups who perform them but it should be understood that in a major sense they will be anarchistic or leaderless in design and strategy in order to forbid the encircling and assault that will occur once the process assumes massive proportions. The Creature will not willingly lay down its arms. That we can rest assured of. The struggles now occurring in the streets of America and in cities around the world are indicative of the varied, imaginative and creative ways that individuals and groups can act in order to bring this dismantling process about. As the chanting among the movement’s partisans declares, “There ain’t no power like the power of the people ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!” And it won’t! once we’ve made the quantum leap to understanding and realizing that our personal responsibility demands that we participate and act to ensure this final outcome. It can’t stop unless we choose instead to succumb and submit to the Evil which now fully penetrates that political/ideological hydra we euphemistically recognize as the New World Order.
As the singer/songwriter John Prine once said, and to which I liken the USA’s actions, they’ve “crossed the evil line today” leaving the world a much sadder, forlorn, fearful and destitute environment in which to try to live a life secure in happiness, peace and harmony. Today’s US government is now controlled by a diabolic cabal of murderers, perverts and religions fanatics with George W. Bush as the mythical Beast of the Apocalypse. Through deceit and malice, and aided and abetted by the M3, he’s now wrapped his nation in sheep’s clothing adorned and studded with stars and stripes and has set upon a course of action that can only lead to a hell on Earth for everyone.
Such is the scenario which has now brought us to the point where, as a Peace Movement in these final hours, we must confront that dark night of our collective soul we previously backed away from and hoped we’d never have to face. The choice is now clear. The longer we hold back the more our rightful, personal power will be sucked from us and used by this Armageddon-bound bully to enhance his position and power and inflict further pain and suffering upon generations to come. Yet, for those with the courage and tenacity to pass through this ring of fire and emerge on the other side unscathed and reaffirmed in the deep conviction that this cruel and inhumane infrastructure can be dismantled and transformed it can, and will be, the glorious beginning of a new dawn for humankind, one that will shine on crazily forever! We can make it happen. We must! And we shall!
Violence
And so ultimately my initial outburst of justified rage over this indefensible war against the people of Iraq was, in a very real sense, my personal passage to the realization and acceptance that more radical means are necessary if we are to stop this global touring terror-show now being billed as the inevitable and essential precursor to the final security and protection of the human family. That said, there leaves the question of violence itself to be addressed.
With respect to that oft-cited topic I will state in the most unequivocal manner possible that I am not proposing the movement begin employing the same tactics as its repulsive and misguided opponent and suddenly begin violently opposing those currently responsible for the bloodshed and mayhem in Iraq and elsewhere. Such a case scenario I would acknowledge as only one possible course of action, if and when all other imaginative modes of monkey-wrenching have failed to accomplish the objective thus sought. It must be remembered that as there are many ways to skin a cat there are also many ways to prune a bush. What I am cautioning though and now have accepted as inevitable, is that such actions may arise should all other attempts at facilitating this transformation fail.
I am not making a judgment one way or the other on the use or non-use of violence. I admit that there is a moral demarcation line here that has in some ways hamstrung the peace movement since its inception and it’s one that I would suggest the forces of Evil have consistently used to their advantage. From cheek to cheek down through recorded history we’ve been martyred and murdered and mind-controlled and enslaved and I am asserting that such a position is no longer valid, tenable or acceptable in the situation that we are now in. As one great writer remarked in his book, Janus: A Summing Up:
“From the dawn of consciousness until 6 August 1945, man had to live with the prospect of his death as an individual; since the day when the first atomic bomb outshone the sun over Hiroshima, mankind as a whole had to live with the prospect of its extinction as a species. We have been taught to accept the transitoriness of personal existence, while taking the potential immorality of the human race for granted. This belief has ceased to be valid. We have to revise our axioms.
It is not an easy task. There are periods of incubation before a new idea takes hold of the mind; the Copernican doctrine which so radically downgraded man’s status in the universe took nearly a century until it penetrated European consciousness. The new downgrading of our species to the status of mortality is even more difficult to digest.”
That, I would suggest is the haunting position we now find ourselves in. With a nuclear holocaust a stark and grim possibility if this illegal war is not curtailed soon will we be able to find the time to assimilate such a dreadful revelation?
I would also add here for clarification that, for the benefit of those who still struggle with the concept of violence, I consider the destruction of physical objects, be they vacant buildings, bridges, banks or bombs, not something to associate with the term violent. To me violence is an act perpetrated upon other sentient life-forms not man-made objects.
Symbolically therefore, my act of declaring war upon the government of the United States of America was the final voicing of my pent-up rage and the notice given that I WILL RESIST the tyranny planned by Bush and the New World Order. For that reason and that reason alone I feel clear in saying it was both necessary and justified. Like some primal scream from the depths of my Being it confirmed, once and for all, that the spiritual warrior within me will NEVER succumb to any fascist, totalitarian agenda emanating from the US government or any other centralized State apparatus.
With a little help from our friends
The next step for the resistance movement is to present to the world a blueprint of the nuts, bolts, beams, girders and facades that comprise this infrastructure of tyranny. One that will give each and every one of us a clear picture of who and what it is that supports this massive, psychotic edifice of Evil currently plaguing the peace of the planet. Given the road map and the actual locations of the facilities and the players who perpetuate this scheme for ecological and genocidal disaster it will then be the personal responsibility of the partisans of peace to decide on their own strategies and courses of action.
This superstructure of death and destruction must be dismantled piece by piece rather than crumble like the detonated Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Then, it can be replaced by a new, decentralized global Sanctuary constructed from the recycled remains. Out of that transformative process will come a new home for the human family, one built from the organic constituents of Love, Peace, Justice and Universal Harmony where all of us who truly value the things of the spirit and the flesh can live in safety and freedom.
Finally I would say, please remember that each of us can and must attempt to perform some task which will help to bring that reality to fruition. Recall the immortal words of John Lennon who once said that we CAN get by with a little help from our friends. Let us not falter. Let us not fail. Let us just begin and DO IT! Namaste!
~Ω~
*It should be noted here and with all previous and subsequent suggestions as to courses of action that the details of such strategies and the descriptions of the multi and varied components of such a superstructure remain beyond the scope of this particular article.
Arthur Topham is a writer, father and grandpa living with his lovely wife Shasta in the wilds of central B.C. He is also the founding publisher and editor of the now defunct Radical Press and The Radical, an alternative newspaper once published in British Columbia, Canada and now suspended in a devachanic. Arthur spends much of his time in cyberspace monitoring the movements of the Beast and keeping his readers informed on his website https://www.cariboosentinel.ca He appreciates hearing from readers and can be emailed at arthurtopham@nym.hush.com
A sign for a COVID-19 vaccination clinic run by Vancouver Coastal Health in Richmond, B.C., on April 10, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward) By Jeff Sandes February 12, 2023Updated: February 12, 2023
[Editor’s Note: It’s with great relief that news of Dr. Hoffe’s hearing before the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC has been postponed and I want to thank all the good folks across the nation who were so conscientiously quick in firing off letters of support for Charles Hoffe to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC. BIG THANKS also to Jeff Sandes and the Epoch Times for running his story.
Please note that the images in the body of the article and any urls attached to them are mine and not those of Epoch Times.]
Hearing of BC Doctor Who Spoke Out Against COVID Protocols Postponed by Regulatory College
By Jeff Sandes
The first doctor in British Columbia to face a disciplinary hearing in front of the province’s College of Physicians and Surgeons related to COVID-19 protocol has had his review postponed.
Lytton, B.C. before the fire
Dr. Charles Hoffe from Lytton, B.C., was scheduled to begin his 10-day hearing before a college discipline committee panel on Feb. 13, but his lawyer, who spent several weeks in hospital recently, had applied multiple times to postpone the hearing so he could prepare. After a case conference on Feb. 7 and 8, the panel notified Hoffe and his lawyer of the adjournment on Feb. 9. A new date for his hearing has not yet been publicly announced.
Hoffe says he’s relieved.
“We initially asked for this adjournment seven and a half weeks ago, but the college was so reluctant to give it that they’ve literally approved it four days before the trial starts,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Clearly, they have done this with great reluctance. But you know, time and truth go hand in hand, and with every passing week, more and more scientific evidence validates everything they have accused me of, showing they are wrong. So they clearly need to drop all of these absurd charges against me and all of the other doctors, and they need to go back to [being] the guardians of medical ethics, which is what they’re supposed to be.”
The citation listed three examples, with more left unnamed. Hoffe is accused of recommending ivermectin as a treatment for COVID and where to get it without a prescription; saying COVID vaccines can cause harm including neurological injuries, female infertility, and even death not recognized by public health; and expressing that vaccinated people can cause harm to those who remain vaccine free.
Support
Many of Hoffe’s supporters wrote to the college in recent weeks to show their opposition to any disciplinary action against Hoffe.
In a citation issued to Hoffe in February 2022, the college alleged he “contravened standards imposed under the Health Professions Act, including but not limited to the Canadian Medical Association’s Code of Ethicsand Professionalism by publishing statements on social media and other digital platforms that were misleading, incorrect or inflammatory about vaccinations, treatments, and public measure relating to COVID-19.”
Former police officer Ivan DeSilva used to work with the college when he was a detective with the Vancouver Police Department’s Sex Crimes and Child Abuse units, handling many of their investigations.
DeSilva now hosts his “A Biblical Frame” podcast. He has interviewed Hoffe on his podcast, having previously met him, and as a supporter he wrote a letter to the college speaking to Hoffe’s professionalism and integrity.
He says the college now operates with a different mandate than when he was with the Vancouver Police Department.
“When I wrote this letter, I basically said there was a time when I worked with the college and their investigative body and saw how they did their investigations,” DeSilva said in an interview. “I developed respect for them, and it is out of that sense of high regard for them that I’m surprised that they’re taking this approach with Dr. Hoffe because it doesn’t seem to gel with the college I knew.”
Now he says he wonders whether the college has “become another political tool of the government.”
DeSilva says the recent passing of Bill 36, the Health Professions and Occupations Act, suggests to him the B.C. government is looking to replace medical professionals in the province’s colleges with government bureaucrats, which could compromise their integrity.
The Epoch Times reached out to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia but did not receive a reply.
Controversy
Hoffe created controversy in April 2021 when he wrote an open letterto B.C. Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry describing the severe adverse events some of his patients were experiencing after receiving the COVID vaccines, and asking whether the province should reconsider the rollout.
“In our small community of Lytton, BC, we have one person dead, and three people who look as though they will be permanently disabled, following their first dose of the Moderna vaccine. The age of those affected ranges from 38 to 82 years of age,” he wrote.
Before writing the letter, Hoffe had been censored from communicating with other doctors about side effects and the person he was told to direct all of his questions to at Interior Health ignored his repeated requests to address his concerns, he says. He was banned from working in provincial hospitals and all of his submissions of vaccine adverse events were overturned and deemed to be coincidence.
Former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Brian Peckford also wrote to the collegein support of Hoffe and highlighted its lack of adherence to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a document he helped create.
“I urge you to abandon your present course and permit Dr. Hoffe to continue his excellent medical practice providing care in freedom, valuing the right of the person and in practicing the principle of doing no harm,” Peckford wrote.
“May I remind you of the Charter provision of ‘life, liberty and security of the person.’ This is in Canada’s most important document, our Constitution.”
The Epoch Times contacted the B.C. Ministry of Health asking about oversight of the college and whether provisions in Bill 36 were designed to provide additional protections to the college or its members, but did not receive a response by press time.
[Editor’s Note: Recent events in the County of Thorhild, Alberta, north of Edmonton, have sparked a tinder of debate virtually setting off a mini-firestorm of interest in Land Use Bylaws that appear to be surreptitiously slipping into Canada via some rather suspect sources out of the country. I’m not sure why or how Green Spaces Alliance (GSA) located in Pune, India has penetrated the Alberta market when it comes to designing and/or influencing Land Use Bylaws (LUB) for rural Canada but one thing is certain, a small group of concerned citizens living in Thorhild Country who refer to themselves as “Thorhild County Residents United” managed to organize and effectively lobby their local Council and then issue the following public statement:
“WE DID IT! We here in Thorhild County have some really amazing news! Thorhild County held a Special Meeting on 2pm on Feb 2, 2023 at the Thorhild County Council Chambers with the specific intent to defeat the proposed Land Use Bylaw! The proposed Land Use Bylaw was unanimously defeated!”
In an email to the group from Shannon Stubbs, M.P. on February 1st, 2023 she had the following to say:
Thank you for reaching out to us on this important issue, we appreciate that you included the email strain below it helps a lot for us to be able to follow the issue. We want you to know we have been looking into it as many people have reached out and we are trying to follow up with everyone to give them as much information as we can, we have seen this strain of emails sent from your group from a few residents that are following it, so the message you are trying to share is getting out to people.
Regarding the Land Use Bylaws itself, there is a requirement for municipalities to either develop or update their land use bylaws to include regulations for development. However it does not require use of consultants nor does is give specific requirements for the development regulations. Many administrations are doing them in house. If there is a land use bylaw being put forward, it is important people reach out to their elected officials as those local municipal officials have full power to change or create them, so they can act on the concerns and address it. The steps you listed below would be the steps that would be recommended for bylaw concerns, so that information to people in your email below is great, as it provides not only an overview but also action steps.
Some of the other communities that have updated did not change any level of authority, nor did they add in any other government levels, they only addressed zoning, and process for application for development so there was very little concern by their residents, however that is why residents have the right and should reach out to their local municipality who is putting this forward. We also encourage people to reach out to their provincial representative as it is always good to loop in your local MLA. If every anyone has trouble getting those contacts, please never hesitate to reach out, while that is provincial, we are still happy to help with that. It is also fair to raise concerns with the local municipality in regards to whom they chose to contract as there was not requirement to contract a specific group.
We will continue to follow it this also so please feel free to loop us in on these concerns and reach out if you need additional information we are happy to try find it for you. You can email back to this email or my direct email is below and I am happy to have you contact me directly.
Take care,
Office of MP Shannon Stubbs Lakeland Shadow Minister for Natural Resources
This is but a short introduction to what is an extensive coverage of this issue. The importance of understanding what’s going on behind the scenes when it comes to international organizations effectively influencing Canadian Land Use Bylaws is an issue that rural communities across the country need to be made aware of for as one will see (and hopefully learn from the information contained in this article) it’s critical that counties and regional districts like those we have in B.C. as well as municipalities everywhere, understand the possible repercussions should some of these new (world order?) initiatives begin to take root in Canada.
As will be visibly evident from the two graphics in black in the article depicting some of the glaring anti-democratic rules and regulations that the folks in Thorhild County discovered when they dug below the surface rhetoric and discovered the fine print, these Land Use Bylaws can contain laws that would scare the living daylights out of the average Canadian citizen who values their fundamental human rights and freedoms.
It’s my intention to send this story out to as many regional districts in the province of B.C. as possible along with every rural hamlet, town and city. As I said once a person realizes the overall agenda here it’s certain to cause a major backlash everywhere there are citizens who don’t wish to be told how many chickens they may want to have roosting in their henhouse.]
Thank you for reaching out to us. We are in Thorhild County, northeast of Edmonton and just defeated the proposed Land Use Bylaw in our county. Unfortunately, we don’t have contact information for groups out of Thornhill.
We’re a small group of Thorhild County residents (we aren’t politicians or lawyers, and we have farms, families, and day jobs) in Thorhild County who stumbled onto our proposed Land Use Bylaw (LUB). None of us expected that our concern and experience would reach so many people. We are pleased that it has, though! We are not associated with the government at any level, and none of us are lawyers (some of us do have municipal government experience, though not as elected officials). Our group of Thorhild County residents are the ones who sounded the alarm to the proposed Land Use Bylaw, got the momentum going on Facebook, in person, and by email, and have been fielding emails, phone calls, and Facebook messages from across the country about our story here in Thorhild and on how to approach the LUB in municipalities – including Councillors from other municipalities.
Our group hasn’t actually put out any videos – any videos that you have seen on social media aren’t directly related to our group. We do have some interviews on podcasts, mostly available through Rumble.
Our group hasn’t actually put out any videos – any videos that you have seen on social media aren’t directly related to our group. We do have some interviews on podcasts, mostly available through Rumble.
There are videos that we have seen from TikTok and YouTube, but most of them have incorrect information about the proposed Land Use Bylaw in Thorhild County and contain levels of alarmism and action items that we do not support or condone. Our Councillors are still members of our community and remain our Council – we in the community still have to work with them, so all county residents who have been engaged in this process have been encouraged to be positive and collaborative, since this was the course of action which was agreed upon in our community meeting (detailed below). Calling Council and threatening or reaming them out is not what we encourage in ANY municipality – it is not the way in which to get Councils to work with us, the public – their residents. In our experience that we are currently living, these TikTokers who have hijacked our efforts in posting sensational videos are the reason why Councillors hate us (their residents) and refuse to be civil with the residents in our county – NOT a successful outcome for any municipality when there is the potential to build good working relationships to create and maintain communities that everyone is happy with (the only way to successfully build a strong community that is protected from any top-down measures). We only endorse positive, respectful communication as this is what we expect for ourselves.
While we thank everyone who has endeavoured to bring attention to this, we as a group of concerned citizens and moderators of the FB page, the website, and the public meeting organizers, have not spoken with any creators. They may well have had an impact outside of Thorhild County, but we give full credit to the engaged residents of Thorhild County who took the initiative to get involved. Our own residents here were instrumental in affecting change for our own community. It also seems that a couple of TikTokers have taken credit for our community’s efforts and are taking all of the credit for the momentum our community has seen in defeating the proposed Land Use Bylaw – we had momentum long before any TikTokers went viral (we have attached primary sources in the email further down).
We believe in information transparency and have been encouraging people to engage with their municipalities about their Land Use Bylaws. We have also been providing people with guidance on how to get engaged – we’ve attached the information below for you. This process was successful for us. The information that we provide below has links to original sources: municipal government and provincial government resources.
All the best,
Voice of Thorhild County
WE DID IT!
WE DID IT! We here in Thorhild County have some really amazing news! Thorhild County held a Special Meeting on 2pm on Feb 2, 2023 at the Thorhild County Council Chambers with the specific intent to defeat the proposed Land Use Bylaw! The proposed Land Use Bylaw was unanimously defeated!
We are so grateful that Council listened to the feedback from our community – thank you, Councillors!
***Editor’s Note: I’ve added the text of the News Release below:
Local News
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 3070
Council to Hold Special Council Meeting Regarding Draft Land Use Bylaw Thorhild, AB…Thorhild County’s Reeve, Joyce Pierce, has called a Special Council meeting on February 2, 2023, at 2 pm at the Thorhild County Council Chambers with the intent of defeating second reading of the draft Land Use Bylaw.
Bylaw 14-2022 received its First Reading on November 22, 2022, and was followed by a public hearing on January 10, 2023. Many residents have voiced concerns over some of the proposed regulations during the public hearing and since that time.
“We recognize that residents have many questions and concerns about the draft bylaw in its current form,” said Reeve Pierce. “While we intended to take time to look at areas where the bylaw could be changed to reduce the level of concerns, Council has clearly heard that this Land Use Bylaw is not acceptable to the public.”
A draft bylaw can be rescinded by either defeating the Second or Third Readings or if the bylaw does not receive the Third reading within two years of the First Reading.
All Alberta municipalities must have a land use bylaw in place. The County will continue using the current land use bylaw established in 2015, which remains in effect.
The only matter to be discussed at the February 2, 2023, Special Council Meeting is the Second Reading of Land Use Bylaw 14-2022. The draft bylaw will be defeated if the Second Reading does not pass.
Residents can listen to live audio of the Special Council meeting by visiting www.thorhildcounty.com and clicking on the meeting link listed under Council Events.
For the hundreds of people who have been emailing us for guidance and help, this is an example displaying how community engagement is successful. Democracy at its finest. We believe in information transparency and have attached the information that we have been sharing in the email below – these are the steps that we followed. It’s a long email full of valid information and links to each source – municipal and provincial.
Additionally, we received an email directly from our MP Shannon Stubb’s office this morning – we had been CC’d into a fellow citizen’s email and she responded to us directly that “The steps [we] listed below would be the steps that would be recommended for bylaw concerns, so that information to people in your email below is great, as it provides not only an overview but also action steps.”
We have attached that email for your reference, as well.
Congratulations, Thorhild County residents!
Keep engaging with your municipal governments.
Information that we’ve been sharing on our process and what you can do:
Because there is so much information to be had surrounding this conversation, we have found it best to provide it through email or social media – it’s a long email, but we have a lot of valid information in one spot, with links to the municipal or provincial sources. We believe in information transparency.
We’re a small group of Thorhild County residents (we aren’t politicians or lawyers, and we have farms, families, and day jobs) in Thorhild County who stumbled onto our proposed Land Use Bylaw (LUB). None of us expected that our concern and experience would reach so many people. We are pleased that it has, though! We are not associated with the government at any level, and none of us are lawyers (some of us do have municipal government experience, though not as elected officials).
We have your [editor’s. Ed.] email in our contacts, so we will update you when we have updates – we won’t be spamming, only sending email updates when we have them. We also won’t share your information.
Through social media, our website, and our email, it has become clear that this is not an issue specific to our county, but all municipalities all over Alberta and Canada. This is happening everywhere. Right now. We don’t have specific processes for people outside of Alberta, the framework of what information we do have is below and can be used throughout Alberta.
We have information that we’re sharing with people who have been asking for it – it’s posted to the Facebook page and will be up on the website within the day, though most of the information is available in multiple places. The main message is: get people involved. The more people we have encouraging local councils (emails and phone calls, showing up to Council Meetings) to make the right decisions, the better outcomes we are likely to have. In terms of our challenge, share our story as far and loud as we can get it. Bring attention to the issue in all the counties and municipalities and stop these prohibitive LUBs in their tracks – province and country wide.
There is so much information to share with fellow members of the public, that it’s difficult to condense the information into one or two small paragraphs. Especially since all municipalities are experiencing the LUB reviews in different stages and using slightly altered language. The process is mostly the same though, so we are sending you the information we share with people who contact us asking for direction and help. We hope that you find it helpful! You’re welcome to share this email with your friends, family, neighbours.
At the end of this email, there is a list of some of the options available to you as a community/the general public. Unfortunately, Land Use topics themselves can’t be petitioned, but in communicating with your Council and CAO that the community is willing to mobilize in keeping them accountable, the hope is that they will choose to do the right thing. For example: People in our community were saying that they were wanting Council to be investigated for corruption and put in jail, so a couple of people told their Councillors over the phone that that was some of the conversation occurring in the community and those Councillors took notice really quickly of what the people calling them and emailing them were saying. Now, that’s not a viable option, but it communicates to them how upset people are. We have provided some viable options at the end – ones our community may end up using if necessary. Municipal Affairs is also a very good resource for information (information included below).
Green Space Alliance is an international company based out of India with a small office in Edmonton and a small office in Ashburn, Virginia; their specialty – as written all over their website – is urban planning and development. Big cities, like Mumbai (over 23 million people) and Nagpur (population about 46.5 million people). Clearly not an appropriate choice for an almost entirely agricultural community.
We encourage our fellow residents to call or email their councillors and the CAO (Chief Administrative Officer), as advised by Municipal Affairs advisors. This is the advice for people in all municipalities. Encourage everyone in your county/regional district to contact the CAO AND your councillors to express their concerns – the more people who engage, the more “pressure” there is for councils to be accountable and act in a way responsible to the people who voted for them.
As Albertans, we are always allowed to contact the Government of Alberta Office of Municipal Affairs and speak to their advisors if we have questions or concerns about our municipal bylaws and government. We have spoken with the advisors there multiple times about many questions. They aren’t lawyers, so they advise you on how the Municipal Government Act applies to your concern (they have been great with us so far). If you call the switchboard (phone number 310-0000) and ask to speak to an advisor at Municipal Affairs, they will direct you to the correct people.
You can also contact the Law Society of Alberta. They will connect you with an appropriate lawyer and you get the first half an hour free. 1 (800) 661-1095.
The CAO brings forth documents from the Administration to the councillors to read, debate the merits of, and ultimately pass and enact or defeat. If there are clauses or statements in the documents that councillors don’t agree with or don’t like, it is their responsibility to address those with other Council members and the Administration/CAO.
As residents of our county, the feedback that we have for our Council is that we needed more awareness of the LUB review process before it got to the “Final Draft” stage and before the Public Hearing- engage people on social media, by mail, and in person. Make sure you and the people in your community voice your concerns before or during the Public Hearing – do this by registering to speak, submitting letters to the CAO or Council to be read at the Public Hearing by the Administration (if you can’t attend), attending digitally or by phone (if those are an option), and by attending the meeting and speaking when the floor is open to people who wish to speak (unregistered speakers). We bolded and underlined before or during the Public Hearing, because residents and the Public should also be made aware ahead of time that- by protocol set out in the Municipal Government Act (all municipalities must follow this Government of Alberta document)- once the Public Hearing is closed, Councillors are not permitted to discuss or consider further input or feedback from the public in regards to Bylaw content. Any issue brought to Council before the closing of the Public Hearing is supposed to be considered by Council in their deliberations.
A lot of people have asked us what a Land Use Bylaw (LUB) is and why/how it impacts them. All municipalities in Alberta (and most everywhere else) are required to have one in place. This document governs how different land types can be used and how – for example, it can stop a dump from popping up in your backyard or regulate how your neighbours can use dynamite underground so your well doesn’t collapse in. LUBs are used to govern all land types such as agricultural, residential, commercial, and industrial.
We are encouraging people to check the status of their own municipality’s LUB and get involved if it is in review or rewrite stages. Participate in the surveys and watch the progress – provide input when it’s asked for. A good place to start looking for a Land Use Bylaw document for your county is the County/ Municipality website or simply searching, “Municipality Name” Land Use Bylaw. We had to use a search engine to find the document, since it wasn’t readily available or searchable on our County’s website. Our proposed LUB can be found here: https://www.thorhildcounty.com/Portals/0/2022-10-27%20LUB%20Final%20Draft%20for%20Council.pdf
Our recommendations to members of the public (in any municipality) for this process are below:
1 – Familiarize yourself with the existing Bylaws.
2 – When were they last written/updated? Do they need updating?
3 – Check out your consultant – their company name and logo will be on the front page or within the first two pages of the document. Some consultants are easy to tell if they’re a good match for your County. Some are easy to determine that they aren’t a good fit, too (like having an “Urban Planning” firm draft documents for an agricultural county). Most have a website, browse it.
4 – Read your new proposed Land Use Bylaw (take a glass of wine, tea, or hot chocolate if you need to).
4a – Make a list of all of the changes that concern you, or as many as you can.
4b – Look for “In case of an emergency” clauses (lockdowns, climate lockdowns, and public emergencies).
5 – If you aren’t happy with what you see in the proposed Bylaw, request justification for the specific changes from your Councillor and the CAO/Administration and communicate your concerns with the CAO and your Councillor.
6 – Request amendments and edits to the draft before it passes the First Hearing. Read the document and be prepared before the First Hearing, which is where the Councillors can ask questions about the document and put forth motions to have it adjusted before returning it to Chambers for another attempt at a First Reading.
6a – Tell your neighbours and friends. If the document is still unsatisfactory to you and passes the First Reading, speak at the Public Hearing and get your neighbours and friends to as well. (People can speak if they aren’t registered, but if you are registered to speak, then you will have a designated time to speak). Articulate the issues you/they have with the document. Having people in the community like us who monitor the activity of Council is awesome to keep Council accountable and transparent.
7 – Ask questions and demand answers.
8 – Stick with the process. Watch for when Council brings the LUB to its next reading (second or third) and be there for the meeting.
Approaching the new proposed LUB, we highly recommend reading it through.Every page.
Do not forget to cross-reference the definitions of terms because those definitions can be quite restrictive without you realizing it. Look at the sections on “Enforcement,” “Non-Conforming” structures or “Non-conformity,” and Land Use Districts that are relevant to you (though it’s good to have a sense of what is happening in all of the Land Use Zones; for example, some of our members are on farms and others are on residential properties, so we each looked at the Land Use Zone appropriate to where we live and then kept reading about the other zones). Also, search the document for language like “in the opinion of,” “to the satisfaction of,” and “deemed necessary by” the Development Authority. Every municipality uses slightly different language, so you can key word search for (Find in page): satisfaction, opinion, non-con (to bring up clauses that have non-conforming or non-conformity in them). Some other places to look for excessive restrictions are Signage (freedom of expression and speech), Landscaping (and other General Requirements like Fencing), and Hens (yes, chickens- check if hen enclosures need permits no matter how big or small they are, even if they’re on farms).
If the Bylaw refers you to another County Bylaw, cross-check with that Bylaw and make sure that the document exists AND is what the new proposed LUB suggests it is (for example, our proposed LUB directs the reader to the “Urban Hen Bylaw” though Council voted against Urban Hens in 2021 and there is no such document. Our proposed LUB also directs us to the Animal Control Act for how to keep animals; however, our County’s Animal Control Bylaw is specific to dogs).
We have been encouraging the residents in Thorhild County who contact us to call and/or email our Councillors and the CAO (Chief Administrative Officer). So this also applies to other counties. The key is ALSO to contact the municipality’s office of the CAO, since they also have to record input and engagement. There are no wrong or right questions to ask, but asking questions instead of making statements is a good tactic. Making statements is also necessary.
IF your Councillors decide to move forward with decisions after people from the community have been engaging them, and the community is unhappy, there are a couple of petitions that you can launch as a community:
1- Petition Council to rescind the resolution. This is asking for Council to reverse their decision. Here is the user-friendly handbook on how to petition your council.
2- Recall petitions. For each Councillor that you want replaced, you will need an individual petition. This triggers by-elections in the districts that each Councillor was removed from. If all councillors are removed, then a full election would be called.
3- Petition the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Rebecca Schultz for an investigation into the affairs of the municipality. The Minister may recommend a variety of options from firing/hiring staff, removing Council members and calling a by-election, to appointing an administrator to act in replacement of Council.
Side note: If enough people are dissatisfied with how the County is operating, this is always an option. 20% of the electors in the municipality have to sign the petition for a sufficient petition.
The user-friendly handbook on how to petition the Minister of Municipal Affairs (options 3 and 4)
4- Petition the Minister of Municipal Affairs to Initiate a Viability Review for the County.
If enough people are disgruntled with how the County is being run, instead of Option 3, the Minister of Municipal Affairs can initiate a review of the County’s viability. This is requesting a review to dissolve the county. Effectively, once the examination of the County is complete, the Minister may dissolve the municipality and partition portions of the County out to other surrounding Counties. This petition can be undertaken at any point, and 30% of the County electors must sign the petition for it to be sufficient.
5- Hire a lawyer to represent the interests of the residents in your municipality.
It’s a lot of work to keep councils accountable if they are not conducting business in a way that is best for the residents of their county. We look forward to updates.
We also recognize that this issue isn’t localized to our county! We’re encouraging people across the province and the country to start paying attention to their municipal LUBs, whether they are in a review or rewrite, and what stage of the process they’re in. Hopefully an engaged and watchful public can keep the punitive and overreaching Land Use Bylaws from being enacted all over the country.
The “Feelin’ Lazy” page is an umbrella page with our Cole’s notes points, but “Impact on Everyone” and the other impact pages (Agriculture, Acreages, and In Town) have specific breakdowns of our concerns with references to sections and pages in the proposed Land Use Bylaw.
The patriotism scam and the character of our intent
LAST CHANCE TO RESCUE YOURSELF
By John Kaminski
Now at last we can see what the patriotism scam has brought us. In the grey fuzzy dawn the grim silhouettes of motionless bodies frozen in a field reveal the character of our intent. These are the designated enemy we’ve been trying to kill and finally succeeded. Their blood is spent and hardening on the poisoned Earth.
Is this scene in a foreign country, or here at home? With each passing day it’s getting harder to tell.
These dead foreigners overseas look like earthquake victims of our mindless wrath. They stare back at us with sightless eyes, searching for a sun they cannot see, a whole family motionless — mother, father, daughter, son — frozen in time in the dreams we try to avoid or deny, unsuccessfully. It’s why so many soldiers come home and kill themselves, ever afraid to ask who we really are and what we’ve really done. Terminally afraid to face the facts.
Grizzled gremlins of a world we never fully understood, we share stories of how we tried to avoid the draft but failed and wound up seeing more than we ever wished to see. We mourn those friends who can’t come back to share their pain with us, we see those broken families still alive resembling in the fetid grey dawn those who did not come home, trying to heal their broken dreams with any drug that comes along or with some unscripted act of violence that cannot be explained.
Our teeth reflexively grind together as we listen to those desperadoes in tuxedos explain their rationales for constant slaughter as they sip their expensive nectar and pocket their constant bribes. If we try to be like them we can’t stomach the stench of our own betrayal which we endorse simply by our own survival. So we hide from ourselves in the shadowy corners of our own shame. The real horror is that we take this poison home and infect the world with it. As the public cheers our jaundiced exploits we wonder who they are and what we have become simply by following orders.
Knowing that our leaders have decided to kill us off, we sit silently discussing how bad things are.
It seems to me and only me we’re trying to heal a wound we cannot see by repeating it endlessly, which is but another definition of insanity.
It pains me most that people don’t recognize we set up this phony crimeocracy in Ukraine to secretly insert our poisons into Russia and then voluntarily support this Frankenstein concoction accompanied by leering U.S. politicians collecting bribes when Russia objects to us killing their people, their innocent women and children, with constant mortar fire, surreptitious ambushes and other assorted methods typical of the cowardly scumbag criminals we have voluntarily become.
The people of the United States support this sleazeball murder plan and are willing to wage what is clearly the rape of the world, though they pretend it is something else, something more noble or more reasonable. A more reasonable murder and sabotage plan. So Americans can save face with that, they think.
It pains me to think that people still believe in a COVID test that doesn’t work to fight a contrived disease that has never been legitimately identified, with treatment plans that have been proven to be fatal. Most doctors still believe in masks that stop the spread of germs, and we continue to place our trust in them as they prescribe ever more carcinogenic drugs that not only don’t work but create more diseases than ever before.
So fly that Ukrainian flag. And put that mask back on as well. It was designed to keep your mouth shut. It seems that it’s one thing you are able to do.
It pains me to think that people still believe in a plastic president who may well have been replaced by an actor claiming he has a plan to stop the invasion of well dressed foreign refugees with debit cards when he has allowed this alien onslaught to infiltrate America these past two years, five million strong, and now he’s taking credit for stopping them, while Washington’s finest well dressed simpering wimps wildly applaud his bumbling assurances.
What kind of charade has this life become as we innocent Americans careen toward our doom accompanied by our constantly lying controlled media every step of the way?
So this is life — and very soon to be death — for all Americans trapped in the patriotism scam.
Our desultory democracy demands we obey the programming of our keepers who declare that we are being replaced by a fresh bunch of patsies who know less than we do about the poisonous policies that have ruined our country. Our country, which we were convinced was ours until we read the fine print in our capricious lease on life that showed it really wasn’t ours but instead belonged to a group of private bankers who have now announced they are about to foreclose and evict us from life itself.
All that cheering for the beauty of American democracy, all that hoopla over this candidate and that, all that belief in smarmy canards like ‘no one is above the law’ — all that poppycock has gotten us is a ticket to nowhere and a promise for nothing as the punks with money and guns are about to take everything you thought you owned, including your life.
Got that booster shot yet? It’s the patriotic thing to do.
John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida, constantly trying to figure out why we are destroying ourselves, and pinpointing a corrupt belief system as the engine of our demise. Solely dependent on contributions from readers, please support his work by mail: 6871 Willow Creek Circle #103, North Port FL 34287 USA.