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Kumi Naidoo: Assume you and I were the last two people on the planet. If we continue on the trajectory that we are and continue to warm up the planet to the point that humanity cannot exist—which, to be blunt, we're on at the moment—and you said to me, "Let's write up the history of the world just in case human life emerges again in the future so people can learn from the mistakes of us as a species," we would probably conclude that the "uncivilized" who the "civilized" felt they had an obligation to "civilize" were actually the more "civilized" people on the planet.
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It was in late January that Al Jazeera English came to our offices and presented us with what information they had: they said they had evidence to suggest that in 2010, just before G20, the South Korean intelligence had asked South African intelligence for information on myself and two other people, saying that they considered me a dangerous person and wanted to get a specific security assessment.
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The absolute lack of analytical intelligence in it is really disappointing. It's not just us saying that Greenpeace and other organizations want to get off fossil fuels and curb the development of the tar sands: Canadian climate scientists, together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are saying quite clearly that we need to leave 80 percent of known fossil fuels in the ground. To do a whole report about what we're saying and forgetting that in fact we are taking the lead from the scientific community is disappointing.
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I've heard of all of the debates of C-51. Quite categorically: C-51 is soft on terrorism and hard on democracy. It will do absolutely nothing to keep Canadians safe. If anything, it will weaken the approach to dealing with violent extremists. The way extremism is used in the RCMP documents is particularly troubling, because democracy guarantees the right to have any views, however contentious those views are. The diversity of views is what allows government to make good policy decisions because they look at all the different thinking and pros and cons, then arriving at a decision.
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It's clear Harper wants to make Canada into a petrostate. Already we're seeing the way the drop in oil prices is impacting the economy. I have a PhD in political science from Oxford University and am looking at the political messaging from the Harper government as a political scientist: it's very interesting, as they're not selling the economy. They know about the vulnerability in the short-term. I can see that this whole C-51 and security thing is mainly an election strategy to frighten people into submission and to try to get people to go for the devil they know.But, on a more long-term basis, the only thing that matters in terms of which countries and companies will be competitive in the future will be those that get as far ahead with green technology now. Canada has potential for geothermal, wave energy and wind energy, so it's crazy that the government wouldn't move in that direction when it's so clear that it makes economic sense. It's because the economic model has to be different.
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Mahatma Gandhi once said that, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." The current state of activism today shows that they're not ignoring us, they're not laughing us: they're fighting us and fighting us very hard. The only reason is because the arguments that we've been putting against the mainstream media and mainstream control of messaging from government is breaking through. The fact is more and more people are beginning to say that this just doesn't add up.The second thing is that these surveillance efforts have the intention of having a chain effect. That it would intimidate people. I would urge people to build a strong sense of community to be able to have the courage and strength to withstand that. People need to understand that what's at stake here is not only the environment, but the very quality of our democracy and the very key question of what kind of what economy will give us more peace, more justice, more sustainability and more fairness. The current economic model is not helping address that at all and therefore must be challenged. I would say to people that you're being taken seriously. Ultimately, I believe that climate justice, social justice, economic justice and political justice will prevail if people stay on the course and not be intimidated.I want to believe that there are people within the RCMP and state security structures who have a discomfort with this approach. I even want to believe that there are people within Stephen Harper's own party with a broad sense of Canadian values who feel uncomfortable with the moves that are being made in terms of C-51.Follow James Wilt on Twitter.