The poster-woman for the anti-bullying campaign -- former Deputy Premier, former CKNW talk show host, and now Premier wannabe Christy Clark -- isn't quite as anti-bullying as she would have everyone believe.

The ads for the local anti-bullying campaign's biggest event, Pink Shirt Day (Wed, Feb. 23), state "Bullying takes many forms." A few examples are schoolyard bullying, workplace bullying, and cyber- bullying. There are countless invalid excuses for it – age, gender, race, religion, colour, creed, politics, sexual orientation, etc.

The ugliest and deadliest form of bullying by far is the corporate kind. And the ugliest of the ugly is the tobacco industry. Big Tobacco is directly responsible for more disease, disability, premature death, preventable fires, and litter than anything else. It is also a significant cause of major environmental degradation. Twelve to thirteen percent of trees cut down worldwide are used for tobacco production. Many of these are clear-cut for farming and used to make packaging, but mostly they're just burned to cure tobacco.

Article by Carlito Pablo in the Georgia Straight: Decision on human-rights complaint regarding smoking in nonprofit housing stalled

Rose Marie Borutski's site: Canadian PUSH for Smoke-free Housing

Federal Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq told reporters last week that the Federal government is "not in bed with big tobacco."

Now, why would anyone think such a thing?

Probably because Ms. Aglukkaq's ministry spent $3.6 million over the past six years on an effort to put larger (75% of the package area instead of 50%) and more graphic warnings on cigarette packages. Then, in late Spetember, 2010, Health Canada abruptly announced at a closed-door meeting that it was suspending the project.

No explanation was given at the time. There wasn't really any need for one. Health Canada had 53 meetings with lobbyists for Imperial Tobacco Canada, JTI-Macdonald Corp. and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges. They also met with lobbyists for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce 27times on this issue.

The tobacco industry's lobbyists included:

• Duncan Rayner, former director of operations for the Conservative Party of Canada
• Ezra Levant, former Conservative insider and professional liar
• Eric Duhaime, a former adviser to Stockwell Day
• Mark Spiro, Conservative insider

Perrin Beatty, a health minister in the Mulroney government, is President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a lobbyist for that organization.

Ms. Aglukkaq said that Health Canada would concentrate their resources on contraband cigarettes, a move that the tobacco industry and one of their long-term proxies, convenience store owners, have lobbied for.

Story from CBC News: Tobacco lobbying preceded label retreat

Airspace President Errol Povah successfully travelled on foot all the way from Victoria to New York City via Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Read his story about the completion of the Journey here: I stepped into the Atlantic Ocean.

Blogger and former President of Airspace Smoking and Health met up with Errol on the Coquihalla Highway, 15 km. east of Hope. Here’s his story: Errol Povah’s Journey for a Tobacco-Free World.

It says that Errol will be in Merritt on June 11, and Kamloops on June 13.

There are a couple of other updates on the JTFW site, tobaccofreeworld.ca.

The JOURNEY for a TOBACCO-FREE WORLD

On May 31, 2010 - the World Health Organization's 23^rd annual World No Tobacco Day - 30-year anti-tobacco activist Errol E. Povah and his Support Crew will embark on the world's first JOURNEY for a TOBACCO-FREE WORLD, a 6,300 kilometre "run, walk or crawl, from Victoria to Montreal." Time, energy and resources permitting, the Journey will then head south to New York City; those two destination cities being chosen specifically because they are home to the head offices of Canadian and American tobacco companies, where large anti-tobacco protests will be held to coincide with the JTFW's arrival. At the rate of 42 km per day, 6 days a week, the Journey is expected to take about 6 months.

The purpose of the JTFW: To raise awareness about largely-forgotten, replaced-by-obesity-etc. tobacco, the tobacco industry and the anti-tobacco movement, as well as to raise funds to 'ramp up' the War on Tobacco. Note: A total of 30% of the funds raised will be divided equally among BC Children's Hospital Foundation, Variety the Children's Charity and Toronto's SickKids Hospital Foundation.

"Globally, society is losing the war on tobacco, big time. Forty-six years after the first U.S. Surgeon-General's Report on the hazards of smoking, one would expect the death toll to be dropping, fast...and nearing zero. But tobacco continues to be the leading - and most easily and cheaply preventable -- cause of disease, disability and premature death in Western society," Povah said.

A video about Errol Povah's Journey for a Tobacco-Free World:

Here's an expose by Jon Wiener in The Nation about how the tobacco industry uses the judicial system to prevent historians from publishing material that reveals how the tobacco industry deceived the public about their product. Big Tobacco and the Historians.

Excerpt: On the stand [historian Robert] Proctor began to explain racism in tobacco marketing. He started to say that the companies had marketed products called Nigger-Head Tobacco and Nigger-Hair Tobacco--brands that existed as late as the 1960s. But a Philip Morris attorney, objecting that Proctor had injected racial slurs into the courtroom, demanded a mistrial--and got it.

... and Barbara McDougall's bloody hand is on the flush handle!

Canadian PM can either stand by and do nothing OR he can throw us some life-jackets! So far, he's doing a great job of the former.

For the last 5 weeks, an ongoing drama has been unfolding around the world, with a focus on Africa...specifically, Senegal.

A 3-day meeting is scheduled to take place in the West African nation's capital, Dakar, starting on April 20, 2010. The two main participants:

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), an international aid organization which describes itself, at www.idrc.ca , as "...a Canadian Crown corporation that works in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build HEALTHIER (emphasis ours), more equitable, and more prosperous societies"; and

The African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), a network of 40 anti-tobacco groups from 26 African nations.

Trips were being planned, flight tickets were purchased, hotel reservations were made; anti-tobacco activists from all over Africa and elsewhere were looking forward to fruitful, productive meetings, as well as a chance to 'see the sights' in and around Dakar.

Everything was fine, until a bombshell was revealed: On March 5, it was discovered that the Chairman of the Board of the IDRC is...wait for it, A TOBACCO EXECUTIVE!