THE RECORD
May 29, 2002

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

Many people will still remember Phil Gaglardi, the flamboyant Minister of Highways of the Bennett days. My wife and I crossed Canada on a motorcycle, from Montreal to Vancouver in four weeks, during the month of May in 1955. The roads were still in pretty poor shape right across the country in those days, especially so early in the year, but we enjoyed every minute of our great adventure. Although I've crossed the country five more times in rally cars in the '60s, that first trip will always stay in our memory as one of the great experiences of our lives.

Canada was a different country then. A land full of hope, waiting to burst into life everywhere we went and with all the people we talked to. Nothing seemed impossible, the future was a rosy apple and one just had to reach out to pick it from the tree of life. Look at us now, in our business friendly, wealth creating, globalized free trader days.

We crossed into BC from Alberta at Vermilion Canyon in a snowstorm on Victoria day and stayed in a small cabin court, the usual tourist accommodation in those days, for $5 a night. It was still snowing the next morning, but the roads were slushy and so we took the chance to ride down to Radium Hot Springs, terribly disappointed that we couldn't see the mountains we had been dreaming about for years when we were planning the trip.

Soon after we left Radium we came across a sign beside the road, "Sorry for the inconvenience.....road construction ahead" Signed by "Phil Gaglardi, Minister of Highways." Those signs were everywhere, as the BC of Wacky Bennett was getting ready for the future development of the province and Flying Phil was all over the place, picking up speeding tickets cutting ribbons and thumping his Bible.

That was also about the time when the question of pollution started raising it's ugly head. Until then people and businesses were just going around pumping the vilest poisons into the waters and the air, without a second thought. The days of the ultimate throw away, consumer society.

I never forget my first and last swim in English Bay that summer. It was a great experience, until I saw some long strings of toilet paper floating by and was told by a Vancouverite that the outlet of raw sewage was just down the Bay. Well, that was enough for me and after that I stayed in swimming pools for the 24 years we lived in the city.

Like his boss Wacky, Phil was a good conservative, who rejected any notion of conservation, the idea of pollution and anything that may have interfered with the making of profits. Wacky claimed to have a pipeline to God and came out with pearls of wisdom like: "Nothing can take away the God given right of a corporation to make a profit!." The sayings of Flying Phil have been reported in the press, long before the system of corporate censorship became the fashion, almost every day: "Pollution is the sweet smell of money!." " God has put the coal just under the surface so we can open pit mine it!" and so on and on. Somebody even collected these sayings and put them into a book.
Well, Phil was right about pollution being the sweet smell of money, because it is one of the most profitable ways to run a business, then take off when the resources are gone, or the land becomes too unhealthy even for the management. It has been and is going on all over the world since the beginning of time, especially since the Industrial Revolution.

Britannia Beach is a very good example of mindless profit taking and then leaving the mess behind for people who can not move and for future generations. Also, I'll never forget the London peasouper fogs, when we had to wash our faces several times a day and not even the buses could find their way. The dreary, filthy industrial and mining towns of England with their rows of soot covered council houses. The dead landscapes around the Ontario towns of Cobalt, and Sudbury and the squalor of the BC coalmining town of Michel.

The last time I flew in an airliner was in 1969 in a turbo prop Britannia from Calgary to Vancouver. Even then The Lower Mainland was under a virtual tent of smog, now probably ten times worse. Yes, pollution is the sweet smell of money, but also the bitter smell of dead mentality, moral corruption and insane economic theories, now pushed on us once again under the aegis of "business friendly government."

Our cancer statistics are going through the roof, where there were no cancers before. Just last week I watched a Vancouver doctor on BCTV stating that we're also experiencing an virtual epidemic of allergies, when allergies were almost unknown in the past, rising from 2 percent of the population to almost 50 percent today.

But, where the sweet smell of money really comes in is with supermarket foods loaded with preservatives, artificial colourings, flavourings and so on. The vegetables and fruits so much recommended by doctors now reek of chemical fertilizers and sprays. The human body can take an incredible amount of beating, but then comes a time when it just gives up

I've known my wife for 57 years and we have been married for 51. She's a very strong and healthy woman, who works all day out in the garden under the scorching sun, around the farm, in the shop and her studio. If I wouldn't stop her after 9 o'clock in the evening to watch a movie and relax, she'd be working on something until our usual bedtime of 11:30.

After our son was born in 1964 she started having allergy symptoms. All of a sudden she couldn't wear anything made of metal that touched her skin, except gold. Gradually she became allergic to fish and even a few bites make her sick for weeks. She can not drink anything coming out of an aluminum can, or teas containing aloe and so on and on. Some years ago she found that monosodium glutamate, used in many foods, especially in restaurants, made her violently ill, even when the owners of the places didn't know about what chemicals are contained in their pre- prepared foodstuffs they buy at suppliers. So, now we can no longer eat in restaurants, neither can millions of other people we hear about developing the same allergies all over the world..

Just a couple of weeks ago the remaining few of my high school graduating class, the Class of 45, had their 57th reunion and I talked to several of them on the phone. Perhaps 2 or 3 can be called somewhat healthy, the rest are walking wrecks at 75. My friends started dropping dead in their 60's and now most of them survive on long strings of medications. My day's work would kill them and they can't imagine how I do it?

The life expectancy in Hungary is 10 years below the rest of Europe, because the pollution of the Western European industries lands on their heads. My local Swiss friends tell the same stories, although their country is in much better location and shape. The family of one of them spent a month in the Old Country in the Fall and could hardly wait to come back. The people were sick and the beautiful Swiss countryside is saturated with wealth creating poisons. Another one just came back from the funeral of his father, who had a house here, but went back and all of a sudden died at 71 from some cancer four weeks after it was diagnosed.

Just today I received a story from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in California about a group of Taiwanese workers in the former RCA plant in the county of Taoyuan. The plant used to make TVs and semi conductors. Soon after it opened in 1970 female employees started delivering stillborn babies and people started to get sick. This went on for 20 years, until the plant was closed down. When RCA was bought up by General Electric they spent millions to remove some 10,000 cubic yards of soil and install municipal water treatment facilities, because the water table was poisoned by the plant.

RCA is now owned by Thomson Multimedia of France and although over 1000 of the former employees are suffering from cancer and over 200 have died, nobody accepts responsibility and the business friendly Taiwanese government denies any connection between the well proven pollution and the illnesses. A worker delegation has now arrived in the USA, trying to lobby for some kind of a compensation for their sufferings and shortened lives.

Well, my friends, you are very likely going to receive the same amount Union Carbide paid out in India after thousands were killed and crippled for life in the Bhopal chemical disaster some 17 years ago: A big fat, business friendly zilch, but it sure has the good smell of money for the artificial entities of company shares.

Copyright (c) 2002, West's International