Citizen complacency and The Government of Canada

The daily importance for each and everyone of us to work on the development of ethics, value , and compassion can never be blindly and entirely delegated to a third party, even if it is the government you elected. Here is an example of where we end up as a society when we limit our involvement to a vote every 4 years.

Former diplomats speak out the Conservative government's treatment of Richard Colvin, who spoke out on the treatment of Canadian detainees in Afghanistan

The Letter

The issues raised by the Richard Colvin affair are profound. Colvin, a Foreign Service Officer dedicated to discharging his responsibilities to the best of his ability under difficult circumstances, was unfairly subjected to personal attacks as a result of his testimony provided in response to a summons from a parliamentary committee.

While criticism of his testimony was perfectly legitimate, aspersions cast on his personal integrity were not. A fundamental requirement of a Foreign Service Officer is that he or she report on a given situation as observed or understood. It is only in this way that any government can draw conclusions knowledgeably and make its considered decisions, even if at variance with the reports received. The Colvin affair risks creating a climate in which Officers may be more inclined to report what they believe headquarters wants to hear, rather than facts and perceptions deemed unpalatable.

Serge April, Marc Baudouin, Michael D. Bell, Rod Bell, Eric Bergbusch, Fred Bild, Marius Bujold, Robert Collette, Jacques Crête, Brian Davis, Anne Marie Doyle, Paul Durand, James Elliott, Nick Etheridge, Marc Faguy, Robert Fowler, John M Fraser, James George, Donald Gilchrist, Stan Gooch, John Graham, Nick Hare, Jean-Paul Hubert, David Hutchings, Jeremy Kinsman, Rick Kholer, Gabriel Lessard, Daniel Marchand, Patricia Marsden-Dole, Émile Martel, François Mathys, Carolyn McAskie, John Mundy, John Noble, Gar Pardy, Gordon Riddell, Jacques Roy, Michael Shenstone, Joseph Stanford, Howard Strauss, William Warden, Peter Walker, Christopher Westdal, Jack Whittleton, Tim Williams, Ron Willson

Former Canadian ambassadors

The three highest value/cost ratio of all human enterprises at this point in time are according to the annual expert conference "BRAIN" (in decreasing order):

1- Provide vitamin to children populations of the world that have deficiencies

2- Allow true free trade which means stop support to own national sectors and allow developing countries for their export goods to follow the price establishing process enjoyed by the developed OECD countries

3- Girls and women education

To take care of global warming comes at rank 14.

When are we starting?

Note: well aware of this the gene engineering fashion well aware of this number 1 easy target tried to justify itself to the world, especially to the Europeans, by pretending gene engineering would solve the world vitamins deficiencies. They did not succeed. 

Into humanity

As we grow from embryo to old age we move from the ME to the mother to the parents, the close family, to the extended family, the road, the school to the town progressively acquiring knowledge and abilities that extend toward our fellow humans. This natural flow to include all humans and our environment is met for most of us by many walls as we grow into adulthood.

Some of these "bumps on the road" are of an individual nature, some are more structural. Among these it is structural hurdles particularly such as re

ligion, gender, races, social niveau, nationalism, corporate appartenance that can build unhealthy dependances as they feed on our strong need to "belong". 

Unfortunately we rarely do a full cost/value of this 

"appartenance deal" and one day comes the time to pay to feed the power of the few.

It is somehow reassuring that nowadays most of these structural institutions of appartenance have been striped of some of their coercive powers although they remain as thirsty. We condemn openly sexism, racism, and some type of favoritism although the way to the final goal is still far away in all countries. 

This leaves religion, nationalism and corporate appartenance.

 These three still need to be addressed because they are the only tool of abuse that we continue to tolerate in spite of the historical facts demonstrating they can lead to the open and absolute abuse that is war.

Let's start with religion. Let me take you through a table that will list the various aspect touched by religion and for which there is a positive

 (the value) and a negative (the cost). Let's throw time into the equation after which we will attempt to wrap-up this religion thing.