In this series, Canadian environmentalist Tim Murray speaks to the pro-growth people with a sense of urgency as Canada floods itself with millions of people that flee their already overpopulated countries.  Their flood creates a new flood within Canada as well as most first world countries.  In the end, Murray asserts that it is not sustainable as to environment, water, energy and resources.

 

Murray said, “Ignorance flows both up and down in the NDP.”

"We are going to have...a continued wave of immigration here in Canada. We don't replace our own population sufficiently rapidly for us to grow our economy and so we're going to be attracting people" NDP leader Jack Layton, TV debate April 11, 2011

"...the benefits of economic growth (sic) are not being shared equally among all Canadians.” Jack Layton, May 22, 2008, speech at Shepherds of Good Hope.

"We have seen how fragile our growth-based economic system is,” said Australian Dick Smith. “A collapse of the financial markets, followed by ghastly natural disasters have shown that we are just one unexpected shock away from crisis. It is foolish to expect that Australia will not be affected by these dangers, and we must prepare now for an uncertain future. The pursuit of endless growth is the least intelligent response we can make. We need a sensible discussion about the options and that means dispensing with the old myths that continue to cloud our thinking.”

 

“Could not the same thing be said about our Canadian predicament?” said Murray. “There is a reason that NDP members are ecologically illiterate. They take their cue from NDP leaders. And there is a reason that Jack Layton is ecologically illiterate. He takes his cue from NDP members.

“Case in point. On a late Tuesday afternoon, I am mowing grass on the boulevard for the first time this year. My neighbor, "John", one of a herd of NDP supporters in my neighborhood, looks up at me while he is seeding his lawn, and then walks toward me.

 

"Do you mind if we remove that broom that is growing on your lawn? The seeds will spread over here and we're allergic to them." 

 

"Sure," I replied, "no problem". Then, with a contrived smile, he said something that may have betrayed the true purpose of his intervention. "I guess you didn't help the Sierra Club with their beach clean-up, did you?"

 

He had obviously read my article in the local rag about Earth Day hero David Brower, who resigned from the Sierra Club because of its stand on immigration, which was influenced by a $100 million donation from a billionaire made conditional on its keeping immigration out of their policy book.

"No, I didn't", I responded,”Just as I didn't help the Hells Angels on their Christmas toy collection for kids."

 

“Mocking my characterization, John then made reference to the beach cleanup as a capitalist ploy, as if to say that it was ridiculous to interpret such a community effort as anything but a public service,” said Murray.  “ Then the conversation moved to the meeting at the Community Hall the previous night, where pro-development forces once again attempted to convince blue collar islanders that their plan to convert a vast tract of forest to a housing development was a philanthropic endeavor to employ under-employed island tradesmen and supply half-million dollar housing to those in need. John certainly bought their line. 

 

"We need growth because if people can't work, they'll leave, and if they do that, the school will close down, and more people will leave, and soon the businesses will follow. Without jobs, we can't have services." His spiel sounded like a commercial for a Chamber of Commerce in rural Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, with their "Population Commissions".  It is the kind of message heard across the country, and explains why right and left, developers and unions, make common cause against Mother Nature to keep the economy moving.  Coincidentally, another NDP supporter, "Brian", said more or less the same thing to me some hours earlier.

 

“He lamented that his own son, a painter, failed to clear $20,000 this past year, and that "people are  hurting". Housing construction would be a welcome tonic. Another NDP voter---a ferry worker--- argued along similar lines last winter, beginning with the statement, "we have to have growth", and proceeding with his argument on that assumption.  An NDP activist is even shopping a madcap investment opportunity that would have islanders buy into a hotel-golf-tourism scam. Build the facilities and the tourists will come.  Funny thing about tourists though. When oil prices hit the roof, they lose their interest in travelling. But then, if you're a New Democrat, you wouldn't know about Peak Oil and its implications. If they haven't heard on the CBC--or read it in a party newsletter---it doesn't exist.

“As Jack Layton has said on many occasions, the only thing wrong with growth is that it is not evenly shared. Like a Chicago mob boss in the 20s, he has no problem with racketeering and the numbers game; he just wants his boys to have "a piece of the action".  Neither Layton, nor his grassroots supporters, has a damn clue about Peak Oil and the increasing scarcity of other non-renewable natural resources critical to our industrial economy. The idea that we are going to face a century of economic contraction is simply beyond his understanding or knowledge. After all, he can't afford to understand this, can he?

 

“If he did, he couldn't go on the hustings to promote his endless shopping list of government entitlements, and public sector unions wouldn't like him.   Funding these entitlements apparently is only a matter of raising corporate taxes. The idea that resource shortages might kill the goose that lays these golden eggs is simply not on his radar. I wonder if there was a socialist leader on Easter Island whose remedy for deforestation and famine was "tax the rich."

“One day the NDP will learn that growth is not sustainable. The hard way.”
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