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The Citizen, 2019-01-24, Page 5As of Monday morning when this was written, some 85 people had died horrible deaths when a gas pipeline in Central Mexico, from which they were stealing gasoline Friday night, exploded, engulfing them in flames. The death toll may have swelled by the time you read this column because dozens of people remain missing and 58 others were in hospital. It’s a terrible tragedy, although one of the victims’ own making because they were committing a crime when they died. Apparently, locals said, this section of pipeline had been punctured by thieves many times before with the thieves so unconcerned with being caught that they stole gas in broad daylight. The pipeline had just come back online after being shut down for four weeks following an earlier rupture. Within a short period more than 600 showed up with plastic jugs to fill up, bandanas over their faces to hide their identity. Some brought their kids with them. A few, throwing rocks and swinging sticks, drove off soldiers who tried to prevent the thefts. Some of the crowd became impatient with the slow pace and tried to enlarge the leak, which is when the explosion occurred. Ironically, the situation was probably made worse by attempts by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrado to crack down on fuel thefts which saw gas pipelines punctured 12,581 times in the first 10 months of 2018 – often by criminal gangs associated with drug lords. The thefts cost the government-owned Pemex petroleum company an estimated $3 billion a year. President López Obrado’s efforts led to a fuel scarcity at gas stations, making free fuel even more attractive. If you asked many in the crowd if they felt guilty about stealing the fuel they’d probably have argued that they were just doing in a small way what corrupt Mexican leaders and government officials had been doing in a big way for decades. Meanwhile an inquiry in South Africa has been hearing testimony and seeing evidence of the astounding amount of corruption that took place during the recently-ended nine-year presidency of Jacob Zuma. Video secretly recorded by a former executive of one large South African corporation that earned huge profits from contracts with the South African government shows company executives counting stacks of cash to be distributed to government officials in order to keep those lucrative contracts coming. The whistle-blower who shot the video and testified at the inquiry has received death threats and has been accompanied by armed guards. Other companies will be put under the inquiry’s spotlight, including Bombardier Inc., which sold locomotives to the government railway, although the Canadian company has denied any wrongdoing. You can almost feel sorry for a company like Bombardier that tries to sell into corrupt countries where giving bribes is an expected part of winning business. Looking at these two examples of rampant corruption – two among dozens of countries suffering this plague – it’s tempting to ask how things got so bad there. Perhaps, given the human tendency to look out for Number One, the better question is how do countries like our own manage to avoid this disease for the most part. No doubt there are Canadian officials who would be glad to supplement their salaries with a little “encouragement” on the side in return for turning a blind eye to some disreputable action or to help win a contract, but it seldom happens. For sure we have built in safeguards. Most government contracts, even at our local municipal level, are awarded after a public tendering process in which companies bid to get the work, with the least expensive proposal winning the contract except in rare cases. To further reduce possible skulduggery, tenders are usually either opened in public, or at least the amounts of the bids are released to the public. A general belief in the honesty of the system is just as important. We’re more surprised when we hear of a case of bribery than we are that most things are above board. Protecting that faith in the honesty of the system is essential to creating a law-abiding society. If people suspect that the system is rigged to favour the rich and powerful, an increasing number are likely to ask themselves why they should behave honestly when others are rewarded for cheating. We are extremely blessed in Canada to feel assured that the vast majority of government officials are dedicated and honest. It’s easy to see, as in the Mexican gas-line thefts, how an entire society can be poisoned if people come to feel that everybody else is cheating, so they might as well too. Other Views How much milk is too much milk? Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk Our society depends on trust Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense No sooner do I start feeling good about my healthy food choices, Health Canada throws everything into doubt with a new, incredibly-controversial food guide that says that I’m taking in way too many milk products during the day. It’s a frustrating situation because, and mark the calendar as this doesn’t happen very often, I’m admitting a definite hole in my general knowledge. This isn’t like my admitted lack of knowledge about baseball, because I can play the game, I’m just not up on the professional end of it. This is a complete lack of knowledge behind the process behind creating the food guide. The new guide will be unveiled in the coming weeks and, much to the chagrin of many agricultural production groups, several sections have been severely reduced, including dairy products. After doing some base research, I discovered that past food guides, which I always thought to be a fairly scientific document, were anything but. The creation of a food guide is based as much on politics as it is sound nutritional diets. Changing food guides made sense in my mind. The more we discover, the better we can point to what a body really needs, but in reality, special interest groups have pressured Health Canada over the years to include suggestions in the guide that were less focused on health and more focused on appeasing special interest groups and even other government bodies. Reports indicate that other agencies, like the Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food, are lobbying Health Canada to include dairy to help the dairy sector. Before my inbox and PO box are filled with letters explaining the importance of our agricultural producers, know that I’m on your side. Regardless of what the food guide says, cheese, yogurt and milk are likely going to be among the five most-consumed items in our household (joined by bread and coffee, both decaf and regular). I never put much thought into it, but if I had to guess at the creation process of the food guide, I would have assumed that it included nutritional scientists sitting around the table reviewing the hard facts about food and science. Apparently, it’s never been anything like that. Since the early stages of the guide, food industry lobbyists have made it more difficult for Health Canada (and its predecessors) to remove unnecessary additions to the food guide. Health Canada has even done research indicating that the presence of these lobbyists and their impact on the final product has hurt the food guide’s credibility. See, I think they’ve got that backwards. I think Health Canada, by bowing to these lobbyists, have hurt its brand. Fishes swim, birds fly and lobbyists lobby. That’s the way the world works. It’s on politicians and bureaucrats to stand up to those lobbyists, not blame them when an organization doesn’t have the backbone to stand by its convictions. More than that, Health Canada shouldn’t be wasting time with consultants, it should have a panel of nutritionists creating the food guide in a vacuum. There should be no lobbying, no consulting and the final product should not be focused on flash, but on substance. Reports indicate that Health Canada has consulted more than 25,000 people for the newest iteration of the food guide, asking about everything from what the dominant colour of the document should be to whether illustrations are better than photos of food. That’s your taxes at work: should we take a (likely staged and doctored) photo of a piece of whole wheat bread, paying the photographer and the stager to do it, or should we pay an artist to render a piece of bread? Early drafts that were made public included blue, light blue and white colour schemes, and three food groups as opposed to the original four. The meat and dairy group has instead been absorbed into a protein category, which is joined by the “whole grain foods” and “plenty of vegetables and fruits” categories. If this is what we should’ve been eating all this time, how can we trust Health Canada? According to the federal government’s website, “Health Canada is the federal department responsible for helping the people of Canada maintain and improve their health,” but how can we trust the organization if, in the past, it has put more of an emphasis on meeting lobbyist’s demands and, now, it’s more interested in branding than providing a simple, scientifically-proven document? I’d say it’s time for a change. Whether that means moving Health Canada or the creation of the food guide to an arm’s length, third- party organization or whether it just means a more transparent process isn’t for me to say, but something clearly needs to change. Meanwhile, the Scott family will keep eating salads, cereal, cheese, sandwiches and the occasional hamburger while drinking milk, apple juice, orange juice and coffee (make mine a decaf). Why? I’m not saying we can’t trust the government, but I’ll tell you, I know a few nonagenarians, and their diet isn’t that different. That proof is in the pudding. Denny Scott Denny’s Den THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2019. PAGE 5. Classic misdirection Right now in the world of politics, voters are being manipulated and used by politicians in high places to advance agendas (political or otherwise) masquerading as crucial issues. Not new, always frustrating. Example number one is Donald Trump and his beloved border wall. Why the Democrats are so reluctant to bend on the construction of the wall has nothing to do with the state of border security or the cost. It has everything to do with what the wall means to Americans. The wall isn’t about drugs or human trafficking (statistics show those things are happening at legal points of entry almost exclusively), it’s about racism. Many of Trump’s supporters have proven themselves to be racist – emboldened by their Racist-in- Chief – whether they admit it or not (some are rather proud of it – remember the tiki torch guys at the Unite the Right rally?) and there’s no better monument to racism than a wall. No further proof of this is needed than when Trump supporters find themselves together, whether it be at one of Trump’s famous rallies where he’s whipping the crowd into a frenzy or at one of their own demonstrations. Chants of “Build the Wall” have become about much more than border security or even of entitled Republicans holding their breath until they get what they want. It’s a thinly-veiled excuse to let their racist flag fly as they’re supported by others who think the same way they do. These words have become this era’s racist chant and, like actor Alyssa Milano has said, the red “Make America Great Again” hat has become the new Ku Klux Klan hood in an era that allows for it to be worn in broad daylight. Doug Ford and his travelling echo chamber of MPPs are also utilizing misdirection in its sweeping changes. Billed as the “Government for the People”, Ford is making changes no one asked for, insisting that what he’s doing is what people want, all with partisan subtext. Ford’s government has proven that it is certainly for some people. His people, specifically. So far he’s hired an unqualified (according to the job qualifications, which, call me crazy, should be the only thing that matters) buddy of his to run the Ontario Provincial Police and he’s handed a $150,000- per-year retirement fund to Hazel McCallion to be an advisor. (Remember when McCallion endorsed Ford in last year’s election after a consistent record of endorsing the Liberals?) Ford is systematically dismantling anything that had been instituted by the Liberals. If the Liberals installed it, you can bet Ford will rip it out and throw it on the scrap heap. And, as feedback from Ford’s beloved consultations has shown, the people he claims to care so dearly about are not supporting his moves. The Canadian Press found that 1.5 per cent of early respondents supported his plan to roll back sexual education by 20 years. Ford then could be excused for wishing back to the good old days of 1.5 per cent support when it comes to his decision to scrap cap and trade in Ontario. Dr. Dianne Saxe, environmental commissioner for Ontario, says that fewer than one per cent of the 11,000 comments received on the issue supported Ford on this one. But, if it’s Liberal, it’s garbage, according to Ford. Whether it’s a wall, the environment or education, don’t be fooled by the flashy suits and loud talking, what’s going on here has very little to do with what’s in front of you. It’s classic misdirection from the sleeve of a magician. Watch the wand in the right hand as the left hand does all the work and pay no attention to the fact that you’re being fooled – perhaps willingly in many cases.