Commentary

All hands on deck!

July 17, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Picture this: A tremendous gathering of wealthy men meeting in an undisclosed place, a place splendid enough to attend to their prestige and position in life as CEO’s of huge businesses, conglomerates even – so many companies into one really big company. So much safety in numbers, one might say, as one has never said before.

Delicious. Fabulous. They had so much in common that could never be shared with anyone who was not one of them. No one without private air transportation received an invitation to this party, that was for sure.

They had much to celebrate: prices were up, and no one could believe the audacity of the grocery guys – they have no conscience at all – it was amazing to read the statistics of their profits – who would believe a jump on something as simple as pain killers would bring such great results? Customers declaring that the likes of “? G” did not need to benefit from the pain of sufferers went right past without a single twinge.

The lesson? So-called compassion equals less profits! That one goes down in stone, and it took the conversation amongst the men to larger issues and more specific concerns. There are contentious elements of society, not new, maybe, but noisier than they have ever been. Even the young people were restless, the very children of their own world in this perfect, protected place where they are meeting and relaxing at the moment.

“You should have heard my son moaning about the heat the other day,” said one of them. “He and his pals couldn’t face going canoeing. They were all complaining about how it was so hot, they couldn’t do anything they wanted to – hike or go on their boats; it was so hot outside.”

Another mentioned he had just been in the city where the traffic was so thick as was the air, that it was designated the seventh most polluted city in the world! (Ed- Toronto, according to CBC Radio One).

All that was put to one side as they made themselves comfortable around a large table.

There were fundamental issues: protestors and the basically grass roots movements against development in specific fragile natural spaces – the pushback against some really new laws taking power away from voters and giving it to government cabinet members, allowing them to pretty-well write their own laws. Pretty innovative, they all thought, considering those politicians were kept mostly in the pockets of the very company sitting at the table.

It was just them. There was no one from the press. There were definitely no recording devices in the room. Conversations were halted when staff came in with coffee or anything else.

No, they were just themselves, and they began to talk about more pipelines, shipping more oil and gas, provided by any means, including the deadly and extremely destructive fracking – how that was still allowed was a mystery even in this room.

They talked about the country’s politicians – how to coerce the new members and continue to direct those already malleable in how they would govern.

It was reassuring to see news of a new pipeline in this country – that old lock and key to the future of their wealth in fossil fuels. Not like those guys overseas giving in to the “green teams” by slowing and stopping licenses for deep sea drilling, supplying massive energy with solar panels, and pushing other initiatives to replace fossil gas and oil. Nonsense, all of it – they would see that in the long run.

Economic suicide, all that was to the minds of this company….

“They’ll need us for decades,” they reassured themselves.

This is only a little imagining of mine, but there is honesty in it, for here we are, consenting to another pipeline and listening to voices on the radio talking to a journalist, complaining and complaining about how hot it is so that they cannot go canoeing, cannot bear the heat to do anything outside!

Scientists have been warning and gnashing their teeth with warnings about the many ways we have acquiesced to it all – bad farming practices, all of it, and now the future is fraught with plans to put aside all the cautions we have in place to destroy fragile land and the nests and safe places for our wildlife.

Forest fires are ravaging the land in all this heat, so seriously that their smoke is choking the throats of city dwellers right across the country and to the south.

It will take every one of us to stop as much damage as is possible within the established wreckage – every one of us to protest and call on our governments to stop!

Join all the organizations that fill the inboxes of the politicians who are willing and active in ruining what is left.

Here is a list: Environmental Defence, ecoCaledon, HeadwatersStopsThe413, the Green Party, the David Suzuki Foundation, The Narwhal, Ontario Greens and Seniors for Climate. Get in touch with them and sign their petitions and letters to MPPs and MPs. Support them as you can by joining in person, on the ground, protests about Bills 5 and 17 here in Ontario. Stop Highway 413 – stop it all.

It will take every one of us.

Readers Comments (0)