THE VIETNAM WAR - CANADA'S "SHADOW WAR"

The CBC "Doc Zone" have an upcoming documentary variously titled "Canada's Shadow War", "The 40th Anniversary of the Fall Of Saigon" and or "Canada's Secret War - Vietnam". This documentary will be shown on the "Doc Zone" program on Thursday March 26, 2015 at 9 pm. It is on the CBC channel #5.

Yours truly was honoured to have been picked by the filmakers to be interviewed and to assist in whatever way possible both prior to and during the filming in Elmira last year. Apparently there are both literary and biblical references to individuals who are treated shabbily at home while appropriately honoured by those at a distance. It is indeed strange to me how good my reputation is outside of Elmira. Apparently decades of local liars, professional and amateur, have done their best work behind the scenes, whispering.

I was chosen after a brief interview to determine my technical competence as well as my historical knowledge. These attributes unfortunately are not in demand by the numerous guilty parties here in Woolwich Township and especially in Elmira. Those guilty parties include all Woolwich Councils from 1989 to the present with one notable exception and that was the 2010-2014 Council. That Council despite the flameout of their Mayor supported the citizen volunteers on the Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) rather than supporting Chemtura Canada (formerly Uniroyal Chemical).

There is a promotional video on-line for this upcoming documentary. I googled last night "CBC Doc Zone Canada's Shadow War". I then picked the one listing mentioning a PROMO. Sure enough there is a 1 1/2 minute promotional video showing interesting parts of the upcoming documentary. Yours truly is seen and heard discussing Uniroyal Chemical, Elmira, Agent Orange that was produced here and its' accompanying birth defects. Therefore as I'm in the promotional video on-line as well as recently already on television promoting this documentary; I am curious as to how much of my interview and later filming will be involved.

From the promotional video there will also be information regarding the Canadian - U.S. political situation at the time including draft dodgers given sanctuary here. Whether other Canadian corporate, financial benefactors of the Vietnam War will also be included I do not know.

HAD ENOUGH TIME TO REFLECT WOOLWICH COUNCIL?

Fair enough it is early Saturday morning however I am already noticing on-line activity from some SWAT and two CPAC members. First off nice Deflection there Patrick. My two page letter last evening to Council was titled "Both the Appearance and Reality of a Conflict of Interest". It gave specific times and incidents in which two past CPAC members were the beneficiaries of food, travel, accomodation and income as a direct result of their so called volunteer activism on behalf of Woolwich Township. I emphasized how appearances were just as important (or more) as the reality when it comes to conflicts of interest. Your one page response was somewhat schizophrenic as you flipped from praising me to condemning and or criticizing me and CPAC. You neatly avoided discussing the years long glaring conflicts of interest that past Woolwich Councils embraced to ensure the status quo (and Chemtura) remained.

I have a little confession here. I have been poking and prodding in order to draw out the attitudes of Woolwich Council. My main hope lay with Patrick Merlihan, Scott Hahn and Larry Shantz. That hope is fading although to date not from any comments by Larry. Fading but not totally gone yet. Therefore I hope that even the three former Councillors all with a history of supporting Chemtura in the crunch will take note that their two former CPAC friends are no longer tenable candidates. Pat and Susan, even in the very best light possible, can be seen by the average person as having comprimised their claims to be solely representing the public interest. Those who have strongly supported or advocated in either Pat or Susan's favour need to step back. The cat is out of the bag and further support either way will be counter productive.

Woolwich Council are hiding behind make me believe consultation with make believe "stakeholders". Tell me Sandy and Mark do you think I have learned nothing from watching the political machinations by Woolwich Councilors over the last twenty-five years? Yes I absolutely was naive back in 1990. I took everyone at face value. I got lied to, bullshitted, lied about and libelled and slandered in both low and high places. Patrick your e-mail late last night is a revelation. Call me paranoid??? Can you possibly as a co-owner of a paper which routinely exposes corruption at the municipal, provincial, federal and international level actually be so naive? That corruption allegedly includes Woolwich's last Mayor and while I have no use for liars in general, Todd Cowan is not the exception in Woolwich politics.

CANADA & THE VIETNAM / WOOLWICH WAR

The above title is perhaps a little weird. Last night while watching the "Doc Zone" on CBC (ch.#5) there was an ad for an upcoming documentary in three weeks. The original title I was told was "The 40th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon". Last night if I heard correctly the title now is "Canada and the Vietnam War". Hmm. That's an interesting difference. I might assume that that means they will be focusing on Canadian industries who contributed to the war effort. I had been previously advised that Elmira (& Uniroyal) would have about five minutes of the one hour documentary but now I'm wondering. Therefore March 26/15 at 9 pm. CBC channel # 5.

Yesterday's Elmira Independent article about CPAC rejecting the invitation to the stakeholders' meeting carried the usual suspect information from Mayor Shantz. Particularily disingenuous were her comments that "I think it's very difficult for them to give good advice, if they don't participate in the process.'. Such absolute trollop. While she was sitting on her ass for four years, CPAC & SWAT were engaging and participating on a weekly and monthly basis. Some of us even on a daily basis. She couldn't even be bothered to attend a single public CPAC meeting in that time frame.

MAYORAL MANIPULATION REVEALED ?

Today's Elmira Independent carrys the following article titled "CPAC rejects invitation to participate in "stakeholders" meeting". To date CPAC & SWAT have been asking and both Councillor Bauman (he of two hats) and Mayor Shantz have been sitting on the answers regarding details around what Mayor Shantz is now calling a "working meeting". Questions have been specific such as what is the agenda, what issues will be discussed, when and where and most importantly who exactly are the participants. To put it bluntly if you were a Christian missionary invited to a dinner and you found out that the rest of the invitees are cannibals, might you reflect a little longer on your decision to accept or not? Pat Mclean, Susan Bryant and other former CPAC members invited a couple of the current CPAC folks to attend a meeting at the Elmira library in the summer of 2011 and then viciously ganged up on them when they attended. Shame on Sandra Bair, Susan and Pat and others who took out their resentment at not being appointed to the new CPAC on those that were appointed and had no knowledge of that resentment or reasons for it.

We are advised in Gail Martin's article that the results of this alleged "stakeholders" meeting will be presented to Council for their final Decision. First off these aren't "stakeholders". I personally am a 25 year "stakeholder" and notice that I'm sure as hell not invited. Meanwhile the GRCA who don't know dick about Elmira's contaminated groundwater or about the contaminated Chemtura site, allegedly are "stakeholders". This meeting is a setup of friends and colleagues of Mayor Shantz and other municipalities who will simply give her the direction that she and Chemtura/M.O.E. ask them for. This direction will be given to Woolwich Council with the aura of "consultation" behind it. It is a typical Woolwich Township sham and exactly why twenty-five plus years later we still are at first base at cleaning up from the Uniroyal disaster.

The final point in Gail Martin's article deals with the cowardice of Chemtura and the M.O.E. as well. They still have not advised CPAC as to what their issues are. They simply send an e-mail, in the case of the M.O.E. literally a few hours prior to the meeting, saying they won't attend. Meanwhile Councillor Bauman and Mayor Shantz have the unmitigated gall and nerve to suggest that CPAC have been disrespectful. Those two are biased and in bed with Chemtura. Shame on them.

THREE WOOLWICH COUNCILLORS TAKE A THUMPING LAST EVENING

The three "Councillors" are Murray Martin, Mark Bauman and Mayor Sandy Shantz whom I presume can also technically be called a Councillor? I took a round out of Councillor Bauman and Mayor Shantz while Lisa MacDonald of Conestogo clearly is unhappy with Councillor Murray Martin. Last evening was the first time that I put a face to the name Lisa Macdonald. She seemed organized and factual and repeatedly indicated that the books of the Conestoga Recreation Association backed her financial claims. She made claims that she clearly feels are substantiated regarding work for hire that Murray Martin has done in the park in Conestogo. That said I don't know Murray that well although I've not been overly enamoured with what I have seen as his pro Chemtura stance as a past Councillor. Therefore at this time I think it is a little premature to go into any allegations about him that were made last evening in Council. Whether either the Woolwich Observer or Elmira Independent will publish the details this Thursday and Friday, I simply have no idea.

Dr. Henry Regier spoke as a Delegate last evening and as typical by the way Councillor Bauman shook his hand immediately after his Delegation and praised him; you could be forgiven for thinking that Henry had praised Woolwich Councils, past and present. He did no such thing but in his typical Henry fashion presented his Delegation titled "The Mire Of Elmira". Henry went into detail about how chemical plants can externalize their costs by simply dumping their toxic wastes into the air, ground and nearby surface water. He did it in such a fashion that as I have seen before his targets cheerfully overlook his major point in their relief that he hasn't explicitly called them liars and deceivers. Hence Mark's over exuberance afterwards. This could also be Mark in his subtle fashion of sending the message that see Alan you can be critical without being personal. Henry did a great job and for the unbiased his meassage clearly was that all levels of governance share the blame including the feds, the province through the M.O.E., the GRCA and most definitely local Woolwich Councils.

I shared the history regarding the last time Chemtura boycotted UPAC (Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee) back in 1999. My two biggest points were that the current three meeting boycott is a manufactured crisis by Mayor Shantz and Mark Bauman that timing wise is exactly concurrent with the new Council. The second point was that Mark and Sandy's "plan" is ridiculous. A private meeting with secret discussions amongst non-involved "stakeholders" is patently a sham. I asked Council at the end of my Delegation whether they agreed with secret discussions on public matters. These matters include more than CPAC such as the 2028 cleanup deadline of which the GRCA and other participants are woefully uninformed.

TONITE'S WOOLWICH COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE 6 PM. PUBLIC MEETING

There are five Delegations at Woolwich Council Chambers this evening. Number three is Dr. Henry Regier and he will be discussing the political history around various Great lakes binational agreements as well as Canada-Ontario agreements dealing with various river basins which empty into Lake Huron, Erie and Ontario. These river basins include the Grand River Basin which runs from Dundalk in the north, southwards towards Dunnville and Lake Erie.

Yours truly is also a Delegate this evening and I will be discussing the lack of clear communication skills by Woolwich Township. They are planning some kind of meeting, packing it with ill informed political appointees as well as Staff persons knowledgable in their narrow fields but uninformed regarding Chemtura contamination issues and Elmira's groundwater remediation. Furthermore I will be putting Chemtura's recent behaviour in perspective as they have abandoned public consultation before when they were under pressure from citizens.

Woolwich Township Councils have a sordid history regarding their willingness to both tolerate grotesque chemical pollution and in fact to come to Uniroyal/Chemtura's defence when called upon. The last Council did not behave in that fashion much to the anguish of both Chemtura and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (M.O.E.). Currently there is a counter revolution underway led by Councillor Mark Bauman and Mayor Sandy Shantz. While Woolwich electors clearly reacted to the excesses of former Mayor Cowan they did not give recently re-elected former Councillors (Sandy Shantz, Bauman and M. Martin) free rein to throw out the best Chemtura Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) they've ever had. Bauman and S. Shantz are doing this through backdoor secret discussions with Chemtura, M.O.E., Grand River Conservation and the Region of Waterloo. The GRCA haven't attended CPAC meetings in close to fifteen years and the Region quit coming maybe eight to ten years ago.

CPAC are a team of six members who have two excellent professionally qualified technical individuals. They combined with their SWAT sub-committee are a technical and historical force to be reckoned with. Precisely because of this they are prohibited from this meeting while CPAC's administrative and organizational Chairman alone is invited to the secret meeting. Chairman Dr. Dan Holt will be outnumbered and intentionally outgunned approximately fourteen to one. Even if he is able to accurately describe this travesty of a meeting, which is set up to let Chemtura and the M.O.E. have their way, his observations can be muted or even blatantly denied by the other fourteen or more individuals.

This folks is precisely how dishonest politicians play the system. They set up the meetings, the location, the time, the agenda and the participants. They abhor both honest debate and transparency. They pervert democracy at every opportunity while always talking motherhood and apple pie. They are professional liars without conscience, in order to get their way.

THERE ARE TWO TRUTH DENIERS ON WOOLWICH COUNCIL

Those two truth deniers are Councillor Mark Bauman and Mayor Sandy Shantz. Thay have been advised numerous times by numerous, if not all CPAC members as to what the facts are. Nevertheless they continue to deflect the issues and ignore the facts. They are coming to the inappropriate aid of Chemtura Canada who have walked away from public consultation with the previously Council appointed body named CPAC (Chemtura Public Advisory Committee). The issue is the environmental ongoing disaster on Chemtura's east side and neighbour; it is not some red herring brought about by Chemtura's premeditated boycott of CPAC. Their boycott is simply a tactic to manufacture a different crisis. This false crisis has been embraced by Mayor Shantz and Councillor Bauman and they are selling it to the other most likely currently overwhelmed new Councillors.

Eight different CPAC and SWAT members know and have verbally and in writing expressed their outrage to Mayor Shantz and Councillor Bauman. These eight have uncovered a previously unknown environmental disaster on the east side and with a professional third party consultant taken their information to the last Council. The last Council paid attention and fully supported CPAC and SWAT. This Council instead are attacking CPAC and SWAT.

Mark and Sandy refuse to solve the environmental crisis. They are intent on solving a political crisis which is how to get rid of the current CPAC while selling the lie also to the public that CPAC are the bad guys. Sandy and Mark are taking both Council and the public for a ride. Hence they are both truth deniers and deceivers. They are shameless.