A N A L Y S I S

Conservatives begin Courting Quebec
From Bernard Nunan in Ottawa

PRIME Minister Stephen Harper has made it clear that he wants to "get the federal government's relationship back on the right foot" with Quebec.  "Making sure that we get a renewed federalism that is positive and productive in the province of Quebec is obviously a priority for this government," Harper said at a recent press conference in Quebec City. "I think it's a priority for all Canadians," he emphasised. "We all know the difficult period we're coming out of in terms of the sponsorship scandal and related problems," the Prime Minister said.

In a recent article, Canadian newspaper columnist Paul Wells points out Prime Minister Stephen Harper has recognized that Quebecers are tired of high taxes and want to get ahead just like everybody else.   In the January 23 federal election, Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party won 10 Quebec seats and finished second in half the Quebec seats they lost. And, every poll held since the election has seen the Conservatives’ graph rising steadily and inexorably in popularity.

The new era in co-operation between Quebec and Ottawa is also vital to the re-election of Quebec Premier Jean Charest's provincial Liberals. A provincial election in Quebec could be held in 2007.

Charest said making the Canadian federation work more effectively together is a priority for his government, as well.   "We believe in Canada," Charest said. "My government believes, as a federalist government, that we want to work with our partners within the federation." "I do place a high priority in, not just good relations with the provinces, but getting the federal relationship with Quebec back on the right foot," Harper has said.

Just over an year ago, Stephen Harper came to Montreal's Palais des congres on what seemed a noble but doomed mission to sell his new Conservative party to Quebecers. The antagonism was palpable during the party's inaugural policy convention here in March, 2005, and that was coming from the party's own Quebec delegates. "Quite clearly, the Conservative party has a lot of catching up to do before it will be presentable in Quebec," Chantal Hebert concluded in Le Devoir.

Harper was back in the same building, and not only was he presentable, leading Quebecers were tripping over themselves to sing his praises. Benoit Pelletier, Quebec's Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, was overjoyed by  Harper's proposal of an "open federalism" that would keep Ottawa's nose out of the province's jurisdiction. "What is new and what is fresh is that there is a real will to accommodate Quebec's specificity within Canada," Mr. Pelletier told reporters after the speech.

Mario Dumont, the leader of the Action Democratique du Quebec, who was given a seat at the head table , welcomed  Harper's call for a stronger Quebec in a better Canada. "With his strength of character, his desire to do things differently, Mr. Harper is opening the door wide for Quebecers," he said.

Getting elected prime minister tends to increase public interest in one's pronouncements, but  this  speech before the Montreal Board of Trade drew far more than the curious. A Board of Trade official said the 1,900 tickets sold were the most for a Board event since Pierre Trudeau visited in 1980.

The size of the crowd and the ovation they gave him suggests  Harper is onto something when he says Quebecers thirst for a new age in politics. "They want to turn the page and leave the era of political polarization," he said.

As he did during the recent election campaign, he positioned his Conservatives as the party that can break the impasse between the separatist Bloc Quebecois and the "centralizing" federal Liberals, who until recently had a stranglehold on federalist votes in the province.

Quebec complains of a fiscal imbalance that gives Ottawa too much spending power at the provinces' expense? The Conservatives feel its pain and will tackle the problem. "Fiscal imbalance impacts almost all Canadian provinces and municipalities, and it is a threat to the proper functioning of the Canadian federation," Mr. Harper has said. "I want to find a long-term solution not just to solve the problem but also to end the annual pilgrimage of premiers and mayors to Ottawa for financing, because I don't think that's a way to run a federation," Harper has said.

During a general election which the Conservatives see coming in an year’s time the support from this French speaking province that narrowly escaped becoming a separate country by a wafer thin vote during referendum , is vital. It makes the Liberals sit up and worry.

BACK

Sunita Narain is a well-known crusader for a healthy environment and known for her courageous fights to cleanse the rotten political atmosphere. Here we take pleasure in publishing her recent editorial in Down To Earth [May 31, 2006]

Want to be fried?

I first learnt about slapp when we released a study about pesticides in colas. PepsiCo had filed a defamation case against us in the Delhi High Court and our lawyer, fresh out of law school in Banglore, jumped as he read through the company's petition saying this was a classic slapp case. We were bemused, knowing nothing about such legal intricacies. Slapp, he explained, was an acronym in the US for 'strategic lawsuits against public participation'.

These are libel or defamation cases filed by corporations against individuals and institutions, supposedly to defend their honour and business. The intention was to use the legal system to threaten, intimidate and silence.

But how, we asked. The companies who file slapp cases rarely win in court, but achieve their real objective to discourage others from speaking out. The defendants, who are invariably individuals, spend huge amount of time and money running to courts fighting the case. This harassment discourages others from petitioning government on public issues. An environmental activist in West Virginia was sued for us $200,000 for criticising a coal-mining company for polluting the local river. Cattle-ranchers filed a million dollar case against television celebrity Oprah Winfrey for hosting a show on mad cow disease and discussing dangers of eating contaminated beef. The list runs in thousands.

The most (in) famous of these cases was filed by junk food giant McDonald against two activists in Britain, who had in 1990 distributed a six-page leaflet on 'what was wrong with McDonald's'. The company accused them of defaming it because they had said that it contributes to cardiac diseases, cancer and diabetes. The company won the case in 1997 and it has become a precedent for corporate libel cases, commonly known as McLibel. Such cases particularly target individuals and media organisations so that the messenger is shot, along with the message.

But why should we be interested? The fact is that we are catching up with the world. Just in case you have missed this buzz, let me bring you to date.

Y S Mohana Kumar is a doctor practicing in a nondescript village called Padre in Kerala. Unknown, till he noticed that people in his village were more diseased and deformed than most and started asking questions. One thing led to another and researchers — from different institutions — confirmed and reconfirmed the presence of residues of Endosulfan, a pesticide, in blood, soil and water samples from the village. In 2003, Mohana Kumar received a legal notice from the lawyers of the Pesticide Association of India threatening legal action if he did not apologise and withdraw his statements immediately. His crime? Writing a letter in this magazine on the findings against the government-appointed O P Dubey committee, which had absolved the pesticide of the deadly ailments of people in Padre.

For the record, Down To Earth followed up investigations against the Dubey committee and found to its horror evidence of how data was fudged; how scientists were coerced and how industry influenced the findings of the committee. The committee's proceedings were challenged and investigations reopened by the government. Mohana Kumar was right but that clearly was not the point.

Madhumita Dutta is not a doctor, but an environmental activist who recently received legal summons to appear before a court in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh. Her crime is that she researched and published, with others, an investigation on acute pesticide poisoning in the district. The case filed by the pesticide industry association Crop Care Federation even implicates the designer of the publication and is aimed at harassing and warning others to desist or be destroyed.

Umendra Dutt runs an NGO in Punjab called Kheti Virasat Mission, which works on various farmer-related issues, including pesticide use. He has been sued for Rs 5 crore by United Phosphorous Limited, a leading pesticide manufacturer. His crime: discussing in public, health studies on pesticide exposure and how it could act as a trigger to diseases, and even lead to congenital malformations and genetic disorders. All clearly well established in scientific studies across the world.

But it does not stop there. The company has also filed a case against the media giant, Bennett and Coleman, the publishers of the Times of India. Their crime is similar: publishing a report quoting Dutt in their daily newspaper, Mumbai Mirror. The defamation case has been filed by the company alleging that the statements in the article will 'disparage our client's reputation' in the trade across the world. This is particularly intriguing, because the article does not mention the company at all, only pesticides and their health impacts.

But how do I know this? Because two weeks ago, my colleague Chandra Bhushan, received a letter from an NGO called the Centre for Environment and Agrochemicals, which enclosed a copy of this legal notice. The letter told him that if he was to attend a forthcoming meeting being organised by Kheti Virasat Mission he "will be made a party (to the case against Kheti Virasat) and unnecessarily dragged into litigation". In simple language a simple threat: we will sue you if you dare to attend.

It does not stop there. We called to check more about the NGO and received another letter. The letterhead was the same, but the signatory had changed.

Now Rajju Shroff, the owner of United Phosphorous Limited wrote, saying, "The industry has decided to take legal actions and expose all your activities." I am sure we will hear from them again.

In these modern David-and-Goliath tales, I can only hope (and pray) that there are many, many more Davids.

[Sunita Narain is Director Centre for Science and Environment, 41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area, New Delhi 110 062- Tel: 91-11-29955778, 29955779- Fax: 91-11-29955879]

BACK

An open letter from Umendra Dutt, Executive Director, KHETI VIRASAT MISSION, Punjab to the Pesticide Industry and its Associations challenging their threats. He ridicules  Agro-Chemical Promotion Group [APG], Crop Care Federation of India, Centre for Environment & Agro-Chemicals and others which are attempting to throttle criticism.

IT is a well-known fact that the indiscriminate use of pesticides has taken a heavy toll on the environment and human health in the country. Pesticide poisoning in farm workers is endemic. Even government records, which are gross underestimation at best, show that every year thousands of farm workers are poisoned with pesticides, out of which hundreds die. The contamination of food commodities and water with pesticides is also widespread, which is clearly reflected in the high body burden of pesticides in the Indians. It is a well-established fact that direct and indirect exposure of pesticides leads to many illnesses and other negative health impacts.

It is not just the people’s organizations, movements and NGOs that recognise this reality; farmers and other affected communities, academia including agricultural scientists and medical scientists, and national and international agencies working on the issue [including UN bodies] too recognise this fact. This has lead to a widespread realisation within international and national governmental agencies of the need to minimise pesticide use through integrated pest management and even give up pesticides by adopting non-chemical alternatives.

Organic farming is not new to India and even today; millions of farmers are doing farming without pesticides across all crops. Even the Government of India has started promoting organic agriculture, which is reflected in the higher allocation it has made towards organic farming in the Tenth Five Year Plan. There are many different efforts being taken up across the country for promoting non-chemical alternatives.

Sales of pesticides are reportedly decreasing and the markets shrinking for the industry. There is also a review process underway in the Ministry of Agriculture of looking at the possible ban of at least 37 pesticides in India, which have been banned elsewhere on various grounds. The pesticides industry seems to be driven into a very desperate position to revive and expand its markets and to paint a good picture of itself. That desperation reflects itself in the many unacceptable tactics employed by the industry and its associations against civil society groups discussing the issue of pesticides and environmental health.

In the past three-four years, the pesticides industry and its associations have sent many legal notices to organizations in India such as Community Health Cell, Banglore; Toxics Link, New Delhi; Greenpeace India, Banglore; Centre for Science & Environment, New Delhi; Kheti Virasat Mission, Bathinda district etc. These legal notices have received due responses from the various organizations. Despite that, the industry is persisting with its tactic of holding press conferences and threatening NGOs of legal action through the media. It is ridiculous that the pesticide industry should choose to stifle, through what could only be termed as undemocratic, strong-arm and threatening tactics, a healthy, independent and comprehensive discussion on the need for pesticides, the risks associated compared to any benefits, their relation with the current situation in agriculture and health being witnessed in many locations, the issue of liability and redressal and so on.

Another strategy that the industry has adopted is that of sending an outright threatening letter. These “publicly apology, or else… withdraw, or else…” letters are being sent directly by the industry’s associations such as Agrochemical Promotion Group (APG) to certain grassroots organizations. The Pesticide industry has even floated an NGO, the Centre for Environment & Agro-Chemicals (CEAC), which has now taken up the task of sending threatening letters to civil society organisations.

What is particularly offensive is the recent spate of letters received by organizations like Kheti Virasat Mission, and all the speakers who have been invited to a meeting on Pesticides, Cancer and Reproductive Health on March 6, 2006 in Chandigarh. Each expert, eminent speaker to the meeting has been sent a legal notice by the industry’s associations (APG and CEAC). Worse, one of the speakers of an international agency even received an anonymous threatening phone call warning the speaker against participating in the meeting. All these letters to the speakers warn them that they will be ‘dragged into litigation’ if they take part in the meeting. This is an unacceptable interference in the basic fundamental right of expression that these speakers/organizations have. It is worth noting that the meeting will be held as per plan and the organizers and speakers refuse to be cowed down by such threats.

It should also be noted that the industry never had a problem with its own aggressive, incentive-based propaganda for marketing its products. The pesticide companies were happy when the distribution and dealer network that actively encouraged farmers to resort to indiscriminate use and often gave wrong and dangerous information was increasing their sales. However, when it is time for an informed debate with the best scientists, sociologists and friends of farmers on the issue of pesticides and their need, the industry has suddenly decided that everyone should be “objective”.

Through this open letter, we would like the pesticides industry to clearly recognize the following facts:

By sending legal notice and threatening letters to people’s organizations, movements and NGOs, the industry cannot stifle democratic debate, discussions and advocacy.

Science is not the prerogative of industry and their supporters only. For every one scientific paper in support of pesticide use, there are multiple scientific papers linking pesticides with adverse health and environmental impacts. 

Integrated pest management and use of non-chemical alternatives is being promoted by international and national governmental agencies across the world precisely because there is no scientific uncertainty about the adverse health and environmental impact of pesticides.

We are working to raise awareness in the farming community and the public about the hazards of pesticides and their indiscriminate use. We are working to enact and institutionalise a safe and sound pesticide use policy in India. We are doing so because we believe that agriculture is possible without the indiscriminate use of synthetic pesticides. More importantly, we are driven by the fact that farmers themselves are innovating and are showing the world that pesticides are not inevitable in agriculture.

We demand through this letter that the pesticides industry stop using such tactics, especially when a healthy, informed debate is being created for the first time on the issue of pesticide use in states like Punjab. Otherwise, they will be forced to sue hundreds of us.

BACK