July 5, 2012 show: Professor Michel Seymour on collective rights for peoples

On July 5, 2012, CHUO 89.1 FM (Ottawa) The Train's Denis Rancourt interviewed Professor Michel Seymour (Department of Philosophie, University of Montreal) about his academic research on the collective rights of groups and associations of citizens within a national state, rights beyond the simple rights of individuals.

Duff Conacher on the problem with "democracy"

On September 22, 2011, CHUO 89.1 FM (Ottawa) The Train's Denis Rancourt interviewed Duff Conacher, Founder and Board Member of Democracy Watch, by phone from Toronto.

The interview was a broad-based discussion about the main systemic and structural problems with Canadian "democracy", with some focus on the upcoming Ontario election.

The macro-level and most damaging problem is the lap-dog culture of Members of Parliament (MPs) who are dependent on party leaders for their jobs (and pensions) and who agree to be servile to the leaders rather than independent thinkers who work for their constituents without compromise.

But there are way more problems than that... We need our establishment/government watch dogs to be like Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin...

(Part-1) Victori on free democracy -- (Part-2) Journalism professor Karl Grossman's critique of nuclear power

On May 26, 2011, CHUO 89.1 FM The Train's Denis Rancourt hosted a two-part show.

Part-1: Local activist Victori discussed her efforts coordinating a continuous free democracy event.

Part-2: Long-time investigative journalist and professor of journalism (State University of New York College at Old Westbury) Karl Grossman discusses the one million deaths from Chernobyl and the risks and politics of nuclear power.

Private-public partnership scam exposed: Dr. Pierre J. Hamel, INRS, Montreal

On January 13, 2011, The Train interviewed expert and university researcher Dr. Pierre J. Hamel (INRS, Montreal) on the general question of private-public partnership (PPP) economics.

Dr. Hamel systematically unraveled the covert motives that drive PPP takeovers of public projects and the nature the the finance scam that are PPPs.

Listen and learn! It took us a bit to get warmed up but it all came out...


Some summary points:

• PPPs are always more expensive than public management - all analysts agree
• The long-term leases of PPPs are economically equal to mega-debt burdens
• PPPs produce a loss of both accountability and transparency
• PPP partners often sub-contract in collusion with other firms

And we end with an insightful critique of decentralization, advantages vs. disadvantages.




Pierre J. Hamel, INRS

Je suis professeur-chercheur à l’Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS-Urbanisation, culture et société), depuis 1986.

J’ai une formation de premier cycle en administration (HEC-Montréal), une maîtrise en sociologie (Université de Montréal) et un doctorat en économie et sociologie (LEST-CNRS et Université de la Méditerranée — Aix-Marseille II).

Travaillant pour le compte de syndicats de travailleurs-euses, d’associations, d’entreprises, de municipalités, de ministères ou encore dans le cadre de recherches subventionnées, je m’intéresse de diverses façons aux finances publiques locales, tant à la gestion des services publics locaux (gestion des services d’eaux, entre autres choses) qu’à la fiscalité locale; je travaille notamment sur l’impôt foncier et la tarification (compteurs d’eau, gratuité des services publics), de même que sur différentes formes de partenariats entre les secteurs public et privé, et cela, depuis déjà de nombreuses années.

Page ouèbe personnelle : http://www.ucs.inrs.ca/default.asp?p=hamel

Six candidates for mayor of Ottawa interviewed on Train

On October 7, 2010, The Train interviewed six of the twenty mayoral candidates in the upcoming municipal elections for the City of Ottawa, Canada's capital city, home of "Canada's university" (aka U of O).


The six mayoral candidates interviewed live in studio were (in order of appearance):

• Michael St. Arnaud

• Jane Scharf

• Joseph Furtenbacher

• Idris Ben-Tahir

• Robert G. Gauthier

• Fraser Liscumb

The debates were lively, far-reaching, and informative...

The candidates were brought in by community organizer Sylvain Henry who is hosting an all-candidates debate at the Ottawa Public Library (Metcalf and Laurier branch) on October 10, 2010, at 1pm. See:

stardebate.blogspot.com

Wind justice in Ontario, Canada: Green energy impositions

Expropriation without compensation under the green banner...


On September 23, 2010, The Train interviewed Jane Wilson, Chair of the North Gower Wind Action Group (NGWAG), Christiane Bollinger, member of the Board of the NGWAG, and Dr. John Harrison, physicist and wind power expert.


We discussed the corporate cronyism and lack of democracy in industrial wind power projects being imposed on residents in Canada and the process to date regarding an industrial wind power project slated for the community of North Gower (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada).

We learned that industrial wind comprises many significant health and safety issues that are not being properly addressed by governments, environmental regulations, or the industry. The human and animal health and safety problems are nothing short of unacceptable...

CHECK OUT THIS BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
Video about the shadow flicker hazard and its impacts
Wind Concerns Ontario
North Gower Wind Action Group
Independent Electricity System Operator in Ontario
(has a cool little wind turbine graphic to show how much power wind is producing at the moment---not much!)

ALSO, READING:

• Hydro: the decline and fall of Ontario's electric empire, by Jamie Swift and Ketih Stewart

• The War in the Country, by Thomas F. Pawlick

• Wind Turbine Syndrome, By Nina Pierpont, MD

Kingston prison farm blockade

On August 12, 2010, The Train phone interviewed two Kingston-based organizers of the resistance against the Harper government's closures of all six Canadian prison farms. These farms have been providing food and meaningful work to prisoners for 100 years.


Both our guests, biochemistry technologist Patrick Thompson and RMC university professor Michael Hurley, were arrested on Monday along with dozens of others practicing a weekend blockade to stop the sale of the Kingston (Ontario) prison farm dairy cows. Also arrested were a grandmother in her eighties and a youth in her early teens.

After his arrest, Professor Hurley (aged 60) refused to sign an undertaking that would have removed his constitutional right to protest and was therefore forced to spend a sleepless night in holding conditions that can only be described as inhuman.

Both activists were upbeat and felt empowered by their recent discovery of solidarity via direct action dissent, following a long road of all the usual government subversions of democracy.

Three-part series with Dr. Shiv Chopra - Food safety vs goverment corruption

Dr. Shiv Chopra has been called Canada's most famous whistleblower. In his 35-year career as a government scientist at Health Canada he refused to put corporate interests ahead of public health and safety. He was continuously disciplined and eventually fired for his stance in upholding the Food and Drug Act, in defiance of his bosses and a corrupt government system.

The 5OCTrain interviewed Dr. Chopra in a three-part series on July 16, July 23, and July 30, 2009:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This is a remarkable series of interviews about food safety, the agri-food industry, swine and other flue scams, government corruption, the legal framework, and the insanity of the five chemical substance groups affecting food that are NOT regulated in Canada:

• hormones
• antibiotics
• slaughter house wastes
• genetically modified organisms
• pesticides and herbicides

Get an inside view of just how bad it is; with government-lead civil servant bosses sucking up to corporate interests, putting ass-kissing careerism and profits ahead of professional ethics and public safety.

Find out how the superbugs came to be and how we could easily adopt sane agri-food practices... It's criminal.