Canada / US: Back-Door Tar Sands Scheme Blocked by Local Community

Back-Door Tar Sands Scheme Blocked by Local Community | Common Dreams.

June 18, 2013

by Common Dreams

Thousands petition for referendum to block proposed tar sands export terminal in South Portland harbor

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

Victory for environmentalists may be near in one of the more overlooked battles in the war against Canadian tar sands oil.

(Photo via Concerned Citizens of South Portland / Facebook)

A backdoor plan by Canada’s Enbridge and the US-based ExxonMobil to establish an alternate tar sands pipeline has met fierce resistance in the small town of South Portland, Maine where the proposed export terminal would be built.

In a proactive initiative to block the scheme, a local citizens group has collected nearly 4,000 signatures—roughly 4 times the amount necessary—in support of a referendum to place the matter before voters on the November ballot. The question will ask whether the city should enact a zoning change to permanently restrict new development of petroleum-related industry on its waterfront.

“It’s clear the people of South Portland want this initiative in November,” said Carol Masterson, an organizer with the anti-pipeline group Concerned Citizens of South Portland.

According to the group, “any pumping of tar-sands oil through the city’s port would require construction of two smokestacks near [a local park] that would emit an unknown combination of volatile organic compounds and other harmful gases and particles.”

South Portland Mayor, Tom Blake, and his wife were the last to add their signatures to the list Monday, the Portland Press Herald reports.

“No amount of jobs are important (enough) if we can’t drink the water, breathe the air or work the soil we stand on,” he said.

The plan employs an existing pipeline that carries oil from freighters docked in South Portland’s harbor across northern New England to Montreal. The Oil Giants hope to connect this line to crude tar sands oil being mined in western Canada and reverse the direction of flow making the coastal Maine town an alternate export terminal for the heavily polluting bitumen.

In addition to concerns about the toxic byproducts of processing or a potentially devastating spill or leak near vital water sources, those against the pipeline fear that by opening up the vast Canadian reserves we will essentially be spelling “game over”—as former NASA scientist James Hansen has said—for the planet.

Below is a map of the Portland Montreal pipeline route:

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• Rejecting Keystone Means Less Tar Sands Extraction, Less Carbon Pollution (sierraclub.typepad.com)
• Harper met by multiple tar sands protests in London (vancouverobserver.com)
• Tar sands supporters suffer setback as British Columbia rejects pipeline (guardian.co.uk)
• TransCanada Caught Training Police to Treat Nonviolent Keystone XL Protesters as Terrorists (ecowatch.com)
• SoPo Residents Take Steps to Stop Tar Sands Project (bangordailynews.com)

Canada spies on Canadians: Metadata

Canada spies on Canadians – YouTube.

13 Jun 2013

The Canadian government has been spying on its people by monitoring their telephone records and Internet data, Press TV reports.

Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reported on June 10 that Defense Minister Peter MacKay had approved a “metadata” surveillance program in 2011 that tracks online activity and phone calls in search of suspicious activities.

However, in response to a question whether the Ottawa government was monitoring the phone and email records of the Canadian people, MacKay claimed that the “program is specifically prohibited from looking at the information of Canadians.”

“This program is very much directed at activities outside the country, foreign threats in fact,” he added.

The program, introduced by the former Liberal government in 2005, was put on hold on account of concerns that it could lead to warrantless surveillance of Canadians.

But according to the daily, the program was quietly reinstated in 2011, after MacKay signed a ministerial directive, which is not subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Related articles

• Report: Canada conducting its own ‘metadata’ surveillance (ctvnews.ca)
• Should Canadians worry about data snooping? (cbc.ca)
• How Canadian Internet users may be getting caught in U.S. surveillance (ctvnews.ca)
• Canadian Internet Spying in an Interconnected Global Data Economy (rationesdecidendi.com)
• Are we being spied on? Tories deny spy agencies are targeting Canadians (metronews.ca)
• Canada’s Prism: Data-collection program got green light from MacKay in 2011 (talesfromthelou.wordpress.com)

 

Northern Alberta pipeline was only five years old before toxic spill

Northern Alberta pipeline was only five years old before toxic spill – The Globe and Mail.

NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE

The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jun. 13 2013

A pipeline that leaked in northern Alberta was only five years old and designed to last for 30, according to top executives with Apache Canada, the company responsible for a large spill of toxic oil and gas waste.

The massive 9.5-million litre leak in a region that has produced oil and gas since the 1950s immediately drew suspicions that poorly-maintained infrastructure was to blame. But the spill, which was detected June 1, stemmed from relatively new equipment, Apache said in an interview Thursday.

“We’ve tried to work as much as we could to keep it in good shape,” said Tim Wall, the outgoing president of Canadian operations for Houston-based Apache Corp. The company is working to clean up the spill of “produced water,” a by-product of oil and gas wells that is high in salinity and can contain other toxic materials, including hydrocarbon remnants and heavy metals.

The spill has affected 42 hectares near Zama City, Alta., less than 100 kilometres from the Northwest Territories border. The local Dene Tha First Nation has reported extensive damage to vegetation and forest in the spill area; aerial photos show a broad strip of trees that have turned brown.

But Mr. Wall said it is “kind of puzzling” why the pipeline leaked, given its relative youth.

Full story:

Northern Alberta pipeline was only five years old before toxic spill – The Globe and Mail.

Video: A long journey down the controversial Keystone XL pipeline route

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Canada’s Prism: Data-collection program got green light from MacKay in 2011

Data-collection program got green light from MacKay in 2011 – The Globe and Mail.

COLIN FREEZE

The Globe and Mail

 Jun. 10 2013

Defence Minister Peter MacKay approved a secret electronic eavesdropping program that scours global telephone records and Internet data trails – including those of Canadians – for patterns of suspicious activity.

Mr. MacKay signed a ministerial directive formally renewing the government’s “metadata” surveillance program on Nov. 21, 2011, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. The program had been placed on a lengthy hiatus, according to the documents, after a federal watchdog agency raised concerns that it could lead to warrantless surveillance of Canadians.

There is little public information about the program, which is the subject of Access to Information requests that have returned hundreds of pages of records, with many passages blacked out on grounds of national security.

It was first explicitly approved in a secret decree signed in 2005 by Bill Graham, defence minister in Paul Martin’s Liberal government.

It is illegal for most Western espionage agencies to spy on their citizens without judicial authorization. But rising fears about foreign terrorist networks, coupled with the explosion of digital communications, have shifted the mandates of secretive electronic-eavesdropping agencies that were created by military bureaucracies to spy on Soviet states during the Cold War.

Ful story:

Data-collection program got green light from MacKay in 2011 – The Globe and Mail.

Raw documents: Canada’s ‘top secret’ data mining program

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Canada: Why are home prices so high and when will they fall (soon)

Why are home prices so high and when will they fall? – Canada – CBC News.

Loose credit fuelled the boom, analysts say, but a correction is coming

By Mark Gollom, CBC News

 Jun 7, 2013

An OECD report found that based on rents, Canadian real estate is overvalued by as much as 60 per cent and in terms of prices to incomes, real estate is still as much as 30 per cent overvalued. (Darren Calabrese/Canadian Press)

A recent report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that revealed Canada has the third most overvalued real estate in the developed world offered few surprises for analysts who say the market is heading for a price correction.

Many say the signs are already evident — home sales are slumping, demand is down and housing prices will likely follow suit. As for when, how far or how hard prices will fall, that still remains a guess.

“The housing market is an accident waiting to happen. If there is some sort of macro shock, there’s a lot of dead air where house prices are now and where historically they should be,” said Ben Rabidoux, creator of the blog Economic Analyst, which looks into housing and mortgage trends. “And there’s a sort of saying that a market waiting for an accident to happen usually finds its accident. And that’s how I would describe it.”

The OECD report used two housing measures — the price of the average home compared to what it could be rented for and the home costs compared to the average salary.

The report found that based on rents, Canadian real estate is overvalued by as much as 60 per cent and in terms of prices to incomes, real estate is still as much as 30 per cent overvalued.

“There is no denying we’re overshooting, vis-a-vis rent, vis-a-vis income, vis-a-vis demographics. So the OECD is not adding anything here to the debate,” Benjamin Tal, CIBC deputy chief economist, told CBC News. “That’s old news.The interesting question is not that we’re overshooting, it’s what will be the corrective mechanism, namely what kind of mechanism will we see bring it back to normal.”

Availability to credit-fuelled housing market

The reasons for the high-priced market vary. While low interest rates certainly contributed to the housing boom, Rabidoux said much has been fuelled by the availability of credit.

“It’s not like we haven’t seen periods of relatively low interest rates in the past and even in those periods we found that prices weren’t in the extreme like they are today,” Rabidoux said. “I think it’s very clear — it’s not so much the interest rate itself, it’s that really what we’ve seen in the last decade has been an unprecedented credit boom. And that’s what’s really driving these housing prices.”

Land constraints and an influx of immigration may have played some role in housing prices in Toronto and Vancouver, but Rabidoux said you would have then expected prices to have only been affected in those areas but not others.

“When you look at different metros across the country, you will find [almost] every one of them has seen a parabolic rise in house prices starting around 2003 without fail. And in my mind the most logical explanation is that this is credit driven.”

Thirty years ago, credit was much tighter than it has been in the past decade, Rabidoux said. As early as 2008, someone could walk into a bank and apply for a 40-year-mortgage, fully government insured for zero money down.

Today, while cash back mortgages are still available and people with a little creativity can still get 100 per cent financing, the government has tightened up the rules, including, most recently, reducing the maximum amortization period for a government-insured mortgage, lowering it from 30 to 25 years.

“Collectively, we are still a lot looser than we were in the past, but that’s changing,” Rabidoux said.

However Tal of CIBC said government regulations are working to slow down the market.

‘Waiting for prices to go down’

“We are seeing resale and sales and supply and demand all down. So the only thing we’re waiting for is prices to go down. And that will happen.”

He believes any adjustment to the market will be a “soft landing” and that Canada, doesn’t and won’t have the preconditions of a U.S.-style crash, namely a huge increase in interest rates or the same risky subprime mortgage market.

“I believe we will correct, but the correcting mechanism will be a more boring correcting mechanism,” he said.

“Maybe prices will go down 10 per cent a year or two years from now. Then they will stagnate for a while until the fundamentals catch up.”

David Madani, an economist at Capital Markets, said it’s difficult to predict when house prices might come down. In the U.S, for example, prices began falling about a year after sales decreased, he said.

“There’s usually a lag,” he said. “And we’re at a point roughly at about a year, because home sales began to decline … in Canada early last year. So we’re at the one-year mark.”

Two years ago, his firm predicted an eventual market correction of about 25 per cent, but he admits that getting the timing right is tricky.

“It’s a long-term view. Trying to forecast something like this is almost next to impossible. It’s hard enough forecasting other areas of the economy like GDP and interest rates and things like that.”

“It’s something that’s going to play out over a few years. It’s not something like the stock market where you’ll get these sudden violent movements. Housing markets, when they’re booming, they’re booming for several years and then when they slow down and slump, they slump for several years.”

House prices across Canada

Check out our interactive map tracking house prices across Canada

UFO sightings in Canada in 2012 doubled previous record

UFO sightings in Canada in 2012 doubled previous record – Nova Scotia – CBC News.

Nearly 2,000 UFOs reported, with 7.5% unexplained

CBC News

Posted: May 15 ,2013

More Canadians say they are seeing unidentified flying objects than ever before, with 2012 numbers nearly doubling the record number of sightings recorded in previous years.

‘What exactly is driving the UFO phenomenon? Why do people report seeing UFOs? … Maybe there’s some worthwhile information in there that needs rooting out.’—Chris Rutkowski, Canadian UFO survey

In 2012, there were 1,981 sightings, nearly doubling the previous annual record of 1,004 sightings recorded in 2008. There were record numbers of UFOs reported in every province last year except for Saskatchewan and P.E.I.

Chris Rutkowski, a civilian science writer who has produced the Canadian UFO survey since 1989, has just finished compiling all of 2012 reports.

“It’s something across the board,” said Rutkowski. “People in Canada were actually looking up into the sky more than in previous years.”

The objects people witness come in a variety of forms — from triangles and balls of fire, to the more traditionally ovoid-shaped flying saucers, hovering in the sky.

Adam Canning, 10, of Lake Charlotte, N.S., is one of the many hundreds of Canadians who are reporting UFOs.

He said the UFO he witnessed with a friend earlier this year looked like an orb.

“I could see it in the distance for about a minute and then like boom, it went really fast,” said Adam, standing on a hill near his house, pointing at the sky.

“I heard this, beep, beep, beep. I knew something was in the sky. I looked up and there was a big thing. Big, round, like a big hotel or something. I looked at my buddy and I’m like, ‘That has to be a UFO.’ There’s normally helicopters flying over our house but that was way bigger than a helicopter, so I knew it wasn’t a helicopter,” he said.

A drawing of the UFO 10-year-old Adam Canning from Nova Scotia reported seeing in January. (www.uform.blogspot.ca

“There was this one little thing sticking out from the front, it looked like a little gun or something, and there were these two things sticking out of the bottom, it looked like legs or something … There were these little round lights, around the whole thing and at the top, there was one big light.”

The majority of 2012’s sightings were gathered by civilian organizations, after various federal agencies decided to give up tracking and investigating UFO reports, according to documents obtained under the Access to Information Act earlier this year. Those organizations then pass their information on to Rutkowski.

He said that may be part of the reason for the more that double the number of reports in 2012.

“It is very easy to report online, anonymously, without any worry about judgment or retribution, so I think it is very likely people will be reporting things more often to civilian organizations,” he said.

Kathleen Canning, Adam’s mother, said she is convinced her son is telling the truth about what he saw that night last January.

“Even before this sighting, I think for us to think we are the only ones in this vast universe is a bit naive, perhaps,” said Canning.

Adam drew a picture of what he saw that evening. Rutkowski said it is one of the rare times a UFO cannot be explained.

“Only about 7.5 per cent of the cases last year ended up being unexplained. Oddly enough, only about 15 per cent were completely explained, so it’s really a matter of intense investigation. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done before we can put reports like this into bed,” said Rutkowski.

“Since we don’t have the proof or evidence to suggest that aliens are behind the UFO phenomenon, what exactly is driving the UFO phenomenon? Why do people report seeing UFOs? That’s one of the reasons we put together this study is to ask these questions and suggest that maybe there’s some worthwhile information in there that needs rooting out.”

Adam’s sighting will be counted in the 2013 survey, expected to be completed next year.

Some of the most interesting cases from 2012:

• Jan. 1: 9:30 p.m.

Cornwall, P.E.I. — Two witnesses watched a triangular black craft with pink lights on its wingtips pass overhead slowly and silently. When it was directly overhead, the object’s underside looked like a large bright ball of white light. It flew around the town in an arc, reversed course and eventually flew off to the north over the treetops. The sighting lasted about five minutes.

• Feb. 25: 5 p.m.

Elmira, Ont. — Two witnesses saw two dark objects “shaped like guitar picks” moving silently overhead at an estimated 61 metres high, heading east.

• May 11: 12:37 a.m.

Courtenay, B.C. — A large square object with more than 30 multicoloured lights hovered over the ocean, moved from side to side and then in an arc. It was described as a “giant lit up billboard floating in the sky.” It made “rounds” for 10 minutes before vanished from sight.

• July 7: 11:30 p.m.

Saint John, N.B. — An object like a bright “neon green hexagon” suddenly appeared only six metres away from a witness. It remained motionless and silent, appeared to split in two sections then reformed. When the witness went to get someone else to see it, it vanished.

• Aug. 3: 9:30 p.m.

Shoal Harbour, N.L. — Four people saw a disc-shaped, glowing orange object flying west to east across the sky, then stop suddenly in mid-flight. After about 10 seconds, it resumed its flight and went out of sight.

• Nov. 18: 12:15 p.m.

Brossard, Que. — Three witnesses observed an object “twirling” above a field in an industrial area. After watching it for three minutes, one filmed it with his iPhone as it moved away towards the west.

UFO sightings soar across Canada1:58

UFO sightings soar in Manitoba, across Canada

Canadian government no longer investigating UFOs

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Canada: Montreal firm monitoring illegal downloading for court cases

Montreal firm monitoring illegal downloading for court cases – Canada – CBC News.

Providing service to American studio

The Canadian Press

 May 12, 2013

A Montreal-based firm has been monitoring Canadian users’ downloading of pirated content for several months and gathered more than one million different evidence files. (Darren Staples/Reuters)

Massive lawsuits targeting people who illegally download copyrighted content are common in the U.S., where people have been stuck with hefty fines and out-of-court settlement and now, there’s an attempt to bring that to Canada.

At the centre of the effort is Canipre, the only anti-piracy enforcement firm that provides forensic services to copyright-holders in Canada.

The Montreal-based firm has been monitoring Canadian users’ downloading of pirated content for several months. It has now gathered more than one million different evidence files, according to its managing director Barry Logan.

One of its clients is now before Federal Court in Toronto, requesting customer information for over 1,000 IP addresses — a user’s unique internet signature — collected by Canipre.

That client is the American studio Voltage Pictures, maker of hundreds of films including the Academy Award-winning Hurt Locker.

On the other side of the case is Teksavvy, an Ontario-based Internet provider. The IP addresses flagged by Canipre link back to its users.

The case is set to resume next month.

If the court orders Teksavvy to hand over customer info, it could be the beginning of a new chapter in the anti-piracy battle in Canada.

“We have a long list of clients waiting to go to court,” said Canipre’s Logan, who estimates that about 100 different companies are paying close attention to the case.

$5K limit on damages

These lawsuits have been common in the U.S. Between 200,000 and 250,000 people have been sued in the last two years, according to one Internet civil-liberties group.

“They send off threatening letters telling them, ‘If you don’t pay up we’re going to name you in this lawsuit and you could be on the hook for up to $150,000 in damages,”‘ said Corynne McSherry, intellectual property director of that group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Canadians don’t risk such severe damages, because of a bill passed last year that modified the federal Copyright Act.

In Canada, a cap of $5,000 on damages awarded for non-commercial copyright infringement was instituted recently. (Mark Harrison/Associated Press)

Bill C-11 imposed a limit of $5,000 on damages awarded for non-commercial copyright infringement, which applies to the average consumer who downloads films.

“The reason Parliament did that [is] they didn’t want the courts to be used in this way,” said David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

The advocacy group is an intervenor in the Toronto case.

“Copyright is supposed to be a framework legislation. It’s not supposed to be used for building a compensation model.” He says the phenomenon of file-sharing suits is relatively new in Canada.

He said there has only been a single file-sharing lawsuit in Canada, launched by the music industry. The case, BMG Canada Inc. vs. John Doe, was launched in 2004, and it failed.

Fewer said no similar attempts have been made — until now.

“I’m a little bit surprised to see this [new] litigation popping up in Canada. We typically don’t have a culture in Canada for this kind of use of courts,” Fewer said.

For now, Canipre is the only Canadian firm providing this type of service. And it’s proud of the work it does.

“We understand the culture of piracy,” Logan said, adding that he has been involved in numerous IP-related litigation cases across Canada.“We’re bringing that model up here as a means to change social attitudes toward downloading,” said the Canipre executive. “Many people know it is illegal but they continue to do it.”

The company advertises its ability to conduct “aggressive takedown campaigns” for clients.

It monitors websites where pirated content is known to be available, and it searches for its clients’ content. When it finds violations, Canipre asks the hosting website to remove the content — a process known as a takedown request.

Educational message

“By aggressive, what we’re saying is, ‘We don’t do one or two takedown [requests], we do 1,000 to 2,000 at a time,”‘ said Logan, who lives in Ontario.”We’ve managed to put a business process in place with a lot of the top-tier platforms that provide pirated content.”

But his company services don’t just include suing people. He says there’s an educational message, too.

‘Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property.’—Barry Logan, Canipre

“Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property.”

“File Saturation” is one example of an educational message.

The firm uploads a harmless file to sharing websites which closely resembles the content users are seeking. There is one key difference: This particular file is completely useless.

The goal of that effort? Make it harder and more time-consuming to download illegally.

Logan expects Federal Court to order the Internet provider, Teksavvy, to hand over customer information.

Regardless of the outcome of the case, Logan will keep fighting against piracy.

“Litigation is not the only tool that will change piracy — it’s simply a tool.”

Logan wants piracy to become a taboo, much like drinking-and-driving is now.

“That’s [not] the attitude here in Canada: It’s a pervasive sense of entitlement,” he said. “[Illegally] downloading content should also be socially unacceptable.”

For now, piracy remains strong in Canada: there were more than 370,000 Bit Torrent transactions over a month — a transaction being each time a user opens a session to download a film — according to statistics gathered by Canipre for its clients.

Those statistics only include Canipre’s clients, so the actual Canadian number is far higher.

Read 133 comments133

Read about how Canada’s copyright law has changed

How copyright changes affect Canadian users of content

INTERACTIVE: Reforming copyright law

Copyright changes: how they’ll affect users of digital content

TekSavvy movie downloading case adjourned to 2013

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Canada: Mental health issues for soldiers, police up 47% since 2008

Mental health issues for soldiers, police up 47% since 2008 – Politics – CBC News.

Over 16,000 veterans, soldiers and RCMP officers on disability for mental health conditions

By Kathleen Harris, CBC News

 May 1, 2013

The number of soldiers and RCMP officers suffering from mental health injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder has skyrocketed over the last six years, driven in part by the gruelling decade-long combat mission in Afghanistan.

Data provided to CBC News Network’s Power & Politics from Veterans Affairs Canada shows the number of veterans, soldiers and federal police officers receiving disability benefits for mental health conditions has swelled to 16,206 at last count, from just over 11,050 in 2008. That marks an increase of 47 per cent.

Second World War and Korean War vets with mental health problems is the only group that saw their caseload decline, and that is due to an aging population. There are now 1,932 “traditional” veterans of that era with PTSD and other mental disorders, down from 3,036 six years ago.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel – including those still serving and out of uniform – have seen the biggest jump, from 6,587 in 2008 to the current 11,600. The number in this group who have served in Afghanistan has climbed from 697 in 2008 to 3,411.

Veterans Affairs did not have a figure immediately available on the costs of benefits and services to individuals with mental conditions, but the Defence Department spends about $50 million a year on mental health services.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has described the care of ill and injured soldiers as his “number 1 priority.”

A statement from MacKay’s office to CBC News said the Armed Forces has made “tremendous strides” in supporting personnel who suffer from deployment-related mental health conditions like PTSD.

“Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are a priority focus for military health programs because they are the most common operational stress injuries,” he said. “Canada is now recognized as a world leader in fighting stigmatization and raising awareness of mental health illnesses. In fact, we have the greatest ratio of mental health care workers to soldiers in NATO.”

The data also shows the number of Mounties suffering with mental disorder has also spiked to 2,674 cases from 1,427 in the last six years.

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THC (marijuana) Helps Cure Cancer Says Harvard Study – 4 min video

THC (marijuana) Helps Cure Cancer Says Harvard Study – YouTube.

This is not a new story but I feel like it should be spread until everyone knows about it. Lou.

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Letter from Rick Simpson

My name is Rick Simpson. I have been providing people with instructions on how to make Hemp Oil medicines for about 8 years. The results have been nothing short of amazing. Throughout man’s history hemp has always been known as the most medicinal plant in the world. Even with this knowledge hemp has always been used as a political and religious football.

The current restrictions against hemp were put in place and maintained, not because hemp is evil or harmful, but for big money to make more big money, while we suffer and die needlessly. Look at a proposal such as this; if we were allowed to grow hemp in our back yards and cure our own illnesses, what do you think the reaction of the pharmaceutical industry would be to such a plan? Many large pharmaceutical companies that still exist today sold hemp based medicines in the 1800′s and early 1900′s. They knew then what I have recently found out. Hemp oil if produced properly is a cure-all that the pharmaceutical industry can’t patent.

Two years a go I contacted the Liberals, the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party about this situation. I also provided them with evidence to backup what I was saying. No one lifted a finger, in most cases I was lucky to get a reply. I contacted the R.C.M.P. along with many other organizations and Public Interest TV shows, with little or no response.

Why are all these people trying to avoid such a simple truth? If I am in some way wrong in what I have been saying then I invite the system to come and prove it. I would be happy to put on a public demonstration of what this oil can do. That would answer this question for the Canadian public once and for all. It seems unbelievable that we have a law in Canada that will not allow us to cure our own diseases with a natural herbal remedy.

Rick Simpson

Read full text—>>>

Phoenix Tears.

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Canada: 8000 suspected pot cookies found in White Rock home

8000 suspected pot cookies found in White Rock home – British Columbia – CBC News.

CBC News

Apr 19, 2013

An armed home invasion in White Rock on Thursday led to the discovery of thousands of cookies believed to be laced with marijuana.

Just before noon, RCMP were called to a house near Earl Marriot Secondary School on North Bluff Road after reports two males were trying to break into a home. Police say the intruders fled by foot, forcing the school into a brief lockdown.

While officers were at the home, they discovered 8000 cookies believed to contain marijuana.

White Rock RCMP Const. Janelle Shoihet said it was a shocking discovery.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s an unprecedented number of cookies,” she said. “It was a bit like a bakery in there. So it was surprising to me.”

A male and two females were arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.

The two male intruders have not yet been found.

On Saturday, thousands are expected to gather in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery for the annual marijuana smoking event known as “4/20.”

via 8000 suspected pot cookies found in White Rock home – British Columbia – CBC News.

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