Man's inhumanity towards nature and a Muskrat sighting

Recycling company fined for Fisheries Act violation in Edmonton

November 7, 2014 – Edmonton, Alberta – Environment Canada

This week, General Recycling Industries Ltd. (GRI) pleaded guilty in Alberta Provincial Court to one count of an offence under the Fisheries Act, related to the release of a deleterious substance into fish-bearing waters. The company was sentenced to a $75,000 penalty.

On April 28, 2012, Environment Canada received notification that “oily water” was being pumped from GRI property into a storm sewer. An Enforcement Officer attended the site and observed a four inch hose discharging industrial wastewater into the sewer, which flows into Mill Creek and subsequently the North Saskatchewan River. Both bodies of water are fish-bearing.

Sample analysis confirmed that the wastewater was deleterious to fish. An investigation into the incident was opened and the company was charged in 2013.

$73,000 of the penalty will be allocated to the Environmental Damages Fund.

Quick Facts

• GRI is a scrap metal recycling company in Edmonton.
• Mill Creek is home to various types of small minnows, while the North Saskatchewan River is home to a number of fish species, including lake sturgeon and walleye.
• The Environmental Damages Fund is administered by Environment Canada to direct funds received as a result of fines, court orders, and voluntary payments to projects that will benefit the health of our natural environment.

Associated Links

Environment Canada has created a subscription service to help the Canadians stay current with what the Government of Canada is doing to protect our natural environment. Subscribing to Environment Canada’s Enforcement Notifications is easy, and free. Sign up today.

Daisy and I took a walk. We spotted the muskrat. We bought the neighbouring property to ensure that nothing would be built on that 9 acres of land. It was a good investment.



Muskrat from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
It's difficult watching Muskrats when my friends insist on moving along, shuffling the dead leaves up, and/or meowing! They are so impatient!

Respect for the Environment; bullies, bullied, bystanders

Garbage dumped

Sometimes I wonder. But I'm not surprised. The Tea Party libertarians in this region want the right to treat the land any way they choose. Liberty from taxes and laws.

I follow the issues related to the environment. We drink well water. We love watching nature on our land.

I cannot believe man's inhumanity towards nature.

And the solution? We all must watch out and speak out for such conflict. It is the same solution to bullying. I truly believe this. I read a book: The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander, and realized was was right. It is the bystander who is often the guilty party.
The bully won't stop, the bullied cannot stand up, and the bystander...

Education, give victims the tools and the language to fight them. Give the bullies the idea that we are watching them. And bystanders must stand up for what they believe in. Not in terms of getting into harms way, but in speaking truth to power.

I heard Mr. Obama say, found it in print,
"When thinking about the work we must do - rebuilding an economy that can compete on a global stage, fixing our schools so that every child gets a world-class education, making sure that our health care system is affordable and accessible to all - let us not be trapped by what is. We've got to keep pushing for what ought to be," he said.

Bullies how no respect for victims. Seems to me that they get less attention than those who snow no respect for our world.
Shame on those who show no respect for the land, but blame it on what? Greed? Ignorance? Stupidity?

Township Of Drummond/North Elmsley Fined $4,000 For Failing To Comply With Certificate Of Approval - MOE

PERTH – On May 10, 2011, the Township of Drummond/North Elmsley was convicted on one violation under the Environmental Protection Act for failing to comply with a condition of their Provisional Certificate of Approval for a Waste Disposal Site.

United States Poacher Fined for Violations of Canadian Laws While Hunting Waterfowl

EDMONTON, Alta. -- October 19, 2011 -- Jeffrey Foiles, of Pleasant Hill, Illinois, was fined a total of $14,500 today in Edmonton Provincial Court on five counts of violations against Canadian law protecting migratory birds, and one count under the Criminal Code of Canada. Foiles had pleaded guilty on September 14, 2011, to committing the violations between 2004 and 2007 while hunting waterfowl and filming a series of commercial hunting videos in Canada.

Foiles was also fined $1500 for causing unnecessary pain and suffering to a bird contrary to the Criminal Code.

Alberta Man Found Guilty for Illegally Importing Snakes and Scorpions

EDMONTON, Alb. -- October 18, 2011 -- Terrell John Gruse, a resident of Edmonton, Alberta, was convicted on October 13, 2011, for illegally importing rattlesnakes and scorpions into Canada. His violations include two counts under the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act (WAPPRIITA) and one count under the Species at Risk Act (SARA).

An individual has been fined $40,000 for engaging in the illegal trade of an endangered species

MONTRÉAL, Que. -- September 28, 2011 -- The Quebec component of an investigation into the illegal trade of Queen Conches, initiated in October 2006 by Environment Canada, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and fisheries officers from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ended in a guilty verdict and a fine totalling $40,000 for Michael Angelakis.

Vancouver Poacher Found Guilty of Illegally Hunting Dunlin and Great Blue Heron

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- September 22, 2011 -- Hang Jian Guo, of Vancouver, was convicted in British Columbia Provincial Court for illegal hunting under the Migratory Birds Convention Act 1994.

Close race in Ontarios Conservative Carleton-Mississippi Mills

Locally, there is some fooferaw around the provincial Conservative nomination run in Carleton-Mississippi Mills riding. This is nearby-by, my Federal and Provincial riding is  Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington.

UPDATE: Jack MacLaren won the nomination. 
Candidate who toppled Norm Sterling is a ‘bully,’ PC riding president says.

Sterling won the 2007 election with an 8,350-vote margin over his Liberal opponent. MacLaren’s Landowners endorsed the Green candidate in that race.
The race itself was interesting...


Sterling candidacy given boost by Harris

Jack MacLaren & Norm Sterling

Veteran Ontario Conservative MPP Norm Sterling has gained a celebrity endorsement in...written to party faithful supporting Sterling, who served as a cabinet minister and...Norm's experience and dedication." Sterling, a 34-year legislator, is facing...

Dear old former Conservative leader Mike Harris has written to party faithful, recommending Norm Sterling to the nomination. 

Not to be outdone, MacLaren's homies did the same!

 MacLaren's web page says they are in a dead heat (1200 - 1200!)

He tweets:

jackmaclaren1 Jack MacLaren 

Two Days Away From a Day of Change: There are only a couple of days left before the big day, and our meeting at ... http://bit.ly/eVG0tr

Sterling, is facing a nomination challenge from a former leader of a libertarian rural rights group, Jack MacLaren.

MacLaren is being supported by our Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington very right wing MPP Randy Hillier (AKA "Nanny Randy" "The Nanny State and You" - Randy Hillier speaks at Queen's!), as well as his buddy MP Scott Reid. Reid wrote a letter to a national newspaper following accusations that Hillier and Reid have a 'very narrow and right wing agenda.' (How'd they vote?) Ya think?

Maclaren, "Small government, lower taxes, fewer regulations."

Both want to embed property rights in the Charter:

Constitutional First for Ontario: Scott Reid and Randy Hillier Seek to Amend Charter of Rights and Freedoms

concrete, bricks dumped

 THis is the place where landowners decry MNR laws, complain about the government that they want to back off. The signage is almost frightening. I have written previously about how Muskoka's Georgian Bay was decimated by loggers who clear cut, destroyed fishing and spawning habitat. Canada has a long history of exploiting the land. Rather than fewer oversights, land protection laws, we need more to watch what is going on now. 

You only have to read the terrible stories of hunters violating the migratory birds act in this part of Ontario. 

Ghosts from the Day - Part 2

Jan 10, 2010

A royal commission in 1898 found that Georgian Bay fishermen were using undersized nets, and exceeding the number of permitted nets. They estimated that more than 2000 nest were strung in the Bay. This combined with effluent pollution by lumber barons created ghost towns...

I firmly believe we need laws to protect the land. Financial penalties, some complain, are ravaging some landowners, and they may or may not be justified, but clear cutting, pollution, and other environmental issues must take precedence over the right of a landowner to do anything s/he want to the land.

Hillier writes:

The Rural Economy, Caught in the Line of Fire

The hypocrisy is clear; unnecessary legislation intended to protect society and the environment remove good stewards from the land, and shatters the cornerstones of democracy. Freedom and democracy, once cultivated in the countryside, are being culled from society in the nets of red tape; and independence, prosperity, and self-reliance suffocate as the rural economy and lifestyle becomes extinct for the “public good.”

Hillier also proposes that the government supports for-profit long-term care centres:

Long term care facilities need government support to meet new requirements

It is fearful for me, since this group of men oppose controls of land, land use, how and where producers sell goods, yet these policies protect us. Not only this, but it is in our taxes that we find the resources to ensure that food has high standards, that services are available to us, our garbage collected, water use controlled, land use is protected.

As well as Reid and Hillier oppose same-sex marriage. Hillier's post says, 

Dangerous Precedent Set with Same-Sex Marriage RulingThe separation of church and state is crucial, to my mind. I fear what Harper's rise to power has done to this country. Harper, a former Alliance mover and shaker from out west, has brought his policies to Ontario. They are gaining momentum, as they would wish to return to an old-style Canada of a previous era. In the past people in same sex marriages must move to the cities for the respect, and anonymity, a big city accords them. Issues such as homelessness, poverty, are growing as society changes. Small town Ontario is becoming an increasingly difficult place to live as modern life bears down on us. With transportation becoming easier, many citiots can make visits here, as well. Hunting violations are scary. The speed of traffic, wild animals dying and bleeding on the road, as monuments to humanity's intrusion into nature break one's heart. Sterling's spat with Hillier reignites A fight within Ontario Conservative party ranks flared up again this week after an e-mail revealed links between a renegade candidate and a sitting MPP. Environment Canada Reports Violations Ontario Northland Transportation Commission Fined $60,000 for Violation of Fisheries Act NORTH BAY, Ont. -- March 2, 2011 -- Ontario Northland Transportation Commission pleaded guilty yesterday to one charge of depositing a deleterious substance into fish‑bearing waters in contravention of the Fisheries Act. Stratford Area Man Convicted of Killing Swan and Destroying Eggs STRATFORD, Ont. -- January 11, 2011 -- Luke Van Nes of Perth South, Ontario, was sentenced on January 10, 2011, in the Ontario Court of Justice in Stratford, to a fine of $1,000 to be made payable to the Environmental Damages Fund. U.S. Hunter Charged With Violations While Hunting Waterfowl EDMONTON, Alb. -- January 31, 2011 -- On January 27, 2011, Environment Canada laid 10 charges against Jeffrey Foiles, of Pleasant Hill, Illinois, under the Migratory Birds Convention Act,1994, and two charges under the Criminal Code.