Author: Laurel L. Russwurm

is a self publishing novelist and photographer.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day

In recent years we’ve gone straight from winter into summer. Although we’ve been having record shattering temperatures in the last few months, we’ve had spring, winter and summer, and then back again. I captured this bee (in photographic form only, thanks🙂 ) on April 19th whilst walking the dogs a few blocks from home. So it looks like it is really spring now.

The natural world is wonderful, and I sincerely hope we humans can stop our race to destruction. The first step in weaning ourselves from our profligate fossil fuel consumption is certainly to #keepitintheground. I hope our governments are clever enough to actually do this.

Comment on Citizen Journalism and Misinformation by How Citizen Journalism is Changing the Landscape in Media | Our World Our Voice

[…] In a blog posted by Laurel L Russwurm, she talks of the growing power of citizen journalism and this contrast between this and main stream media. She mentioned that she gets the majority of her news online, and this represents the growing trend. People are getting their news from all different sources, and looking towards the community to inform them. […]

Comment on Canada is about to lose Free Speech and Civil Rights by Laurel L. Russwurm

Sorry for only approving it now, I only just saw your comment.

Laws are written in legal language in an attempt to reduce ambiguity, but this makes it more difficult for non-lawyers to read and comprehend.

Parliamentarians are not all lawyers (the MP representing my riding was a Dentist), but even if they were, the scope of law is vast in an attempt to cover with the whole of Canada, so lawyers specialize. Because of this, our Parliamentary procedure includes expert testimony, presented in parliamentary committees in both the House of Commons and the Senate, in order to assist our parliamentaians in comprehend the laws they are asked to vote on. Unfortunately when parties “whip” their members, I expect many individual MPs don’t bother even reading such legislation because they won’t be allowed to decide how to cast their vote for themselves anyway.

In the case of Bill C-51, the Harper Government both limited and ignored testimony to such an extent that frustrated experts felt compelled to make their cases online. As a result, more Canadians are more informed both about the content and potential ramifications of this law than any other in the history of Canada.

In spite of unprecedented levels of Cross Canada opposition, the Harper Government used the weight of its majority power (power based on a mere 39.6% of votes cast) to pass the thing anyway. This is, of course, an excellent argument for Proportional Representation.

Regardless, there is no reason for me to reproduce this enormous legal document here. Discerning readers may indeed judge for themselves if the language is vague when reading this law for themselves, because it can be found in its its final form online at the Government of Canada website as STATUTES OF CANADA 2015 ~ CHAPTER 20 (Feel free to compare it with the First Reading version of C-51, which can also be found also online.) Of course, such discerning readers will also be sure to read the website created by Canada’s pre-eminent security law experts, Mssrs. Forcese and Roach.