BLATANTLY IGNORING THE OBVIOUS VIA LYING AND DECEPTION

Democracy here in Canada and elsewhere is under great threat. It is under threat by those who want their way and have the money to make it so. The idea that millions of citizens individually vote every four years or so and exert the will of the majority, frankly, is laughable at best and pathetic otherwise. Money buys advertising, media attention, and political parties. Money greases the wheels of everything. Only to a small degree are politicians and political parties constrained by elections. They have learned that they can manipulate the masses with relative ease. How else could a Republican Party in the U.S. long dominated by big interest, big money, big business convince so many middle class and lower voters that they the Republicans give a fig about the little people which is 95% of us? And don't think that I am a dyed in the wool Democrat. Just as in Canada where industry/business donate to both the Liberal and Conservative Parties; the same thing occurs in the U.S.. It's called hedging your bets to the point that the very well off know that their core interests will be taken care of regardless of which party wins the election. ....................................................................................... Exactly how bad is it? Well for example yesterday's post here ended with two reasons why smoking gun evidence regarding the contamination on the east side of the Uniroyal Chemical (now Lanxess) property is not public knowledge. I blamed both the media's lack of interest and local politicians and the other guilty parties dishonesty. To elaborate Uniroyal (then Chemtura) whined to Mark and Sandy Shantz in late 2014 that the then Woolwich Council appointed CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee) was picking on them. Poor babies. A multi national, multi billion dollar corporation was allegedly being picked on by a bunch of middle class, mostly professional local citizens of which a number were also senior citizens. Only one Woolwich councillor went on the record publicly to disagree with Sandy, Mark and Chemtura's plans to disband that CPAC. That to his credit was Patrick Merlihan. ........................................................................................................ CPAC was disbanded and primarily new citizens were appointed to the New TAG (Technical Advisory Group) committee. Some had a technical/scientific background and others didn't. As however is normal and usual, all the new folks gave the benefit of honesty and truthfulness to Chemtura (later Lanxess) until proven otherwise. Five years later that time is just about here. What the local politicians did was give Chemtura/Lanxess an additional five years of time by disbanding the 2010 - August 2015 CPAC who had taken Chemtura's and the Ontario MOE/MECP's measure and found them wanting. .............................................................................................................. The issue is the ongoing coverup by Woolwich Township, Lanxess, GHD and the MOE/MECP of the contamination on the Stroh (& likely Martin) farms. These guilty parties are masters of private, behind the scenes, self-serving deals which include exonerating each other from liability for incompetence, collusion and corruption. Unfortunately deals like this which are not hammerred out democratically and publicly, rarely if ever serve the public interest. ................................................................................................................. Elmira citizens as well as downstream residents have sufferred health effects. Government refusal to conduct a health study, again was to protect the guilty. Downstream wildlife both in and around the Canagagigue Creek have also sufferred. The evidence of environmental contamination is being distributed. Some TAG members will embrace the evidence and the truth, others will not. All the mentioned guilty parties will obfuscate, delay, deflect and do their thing. If necessary our local government (Woolwich) will disband either TAG entirely or turf "offending" members who have embraced the truth. What they will avoid at all costs is honest and true public debate with the media present to publish what is said. Covid-19 is helping these guilty parties by ending public meetings and holding virtual meetings. Especially virtual meetings where all attendees do not have equal speaking rights. .......................................................................................................... Chemtua/Lanxess have avoided proper soil sampling of the Stroh Drain, Ditch & Berm (SDDB) repeatedly via various strategies. They have literally skipped areas (the Gap) along their eastern border. They have also skipped the most appropriate area along the border while going further south into a higher elevation area to sample soils. This higher elevation area clearly wasn't the route of overland gravity flowing waste waters. They only sampled 5.9 inches (15 cm.) deep further north along the property line. To date they have completely refused to sample soils around the SDDB. They "justify" this via any lies, half truths or junk science whatsoever. They are blatant bullsh.t artists who only succeed with the support of their partners in pollution and political partners in deception.