At Home: P.E.I. pop can bust
A man in Prince Edward Island lost close to 10,000 cans of pop to a seizure by the provincial environmental agency in charge of upholding the pop can laws there. To date, this is the largest pop can bust in the history of P.E.I.
In 1984 Prince Edward Island outlawed the sale of flavoured canned beverages that were carbonated. The ban had a dual purpose. Firstly, it was meant to save the province from litter, and secondly, it was meant to protect jobs at two bottling plants in P.E.I.
Don Jardine is the director of pollution prevention in the province and he has stated that pressure from other Maritime provinces to adopt a recycling system like theirs has been one of the reasons for a proposed elimination of the canned pop law.
Errol Waugh decided to take a trip off P.E.I. to stock up on canned pop for his business when he heard that others were already selling it at a festival in Charlottetown. He brought 800 cases of Pepsi products back to the Island to sell from his business there. Unfortunately for Waugh, the ban is still in effect and one of his customers was actually an undercover agent for the P.E.I. Environment Department.
Waugh does admit that he has previously sold canned pop whenever he could bring small amounts back from the mainland for resale to interested customers and that he made a small profit from the activity.
Those retailers that Waugh heard about in Charlottetown who prompted his early foray into the large-scale sale of canned pop were also dealt with by the Environment Department. They were issued warnings that they had until March 6 to remove all canned pop from their stores. However, the Charlottetown retailers did not have any pop confiscated and were not fined even though Waugh has been fined $1,000 as well as losing his canned pop.
In Foreign News: Fitna inspires heightened Dutch terrorism fears
A film to be released in the Netherlands this month is being blamed for the country’s increased terrorism alert. The Netherlands raised their national terror risk alert to its second highest level and officials admit it is completely due to the possibility of fallout from this film.
The film Fitna, a 15-minute piece, was put out by Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of parliament, and is generally thought to be from an anti-Koran standpoint. Mr. Wilders is considered to be a right-wing politician and is currently the leader of the Freedom Party.
While the Dutch government warned that the release of Mr. Wilders’s film could damage the nation’s interests elsewhere in the world, the MP insisted that he was determined to release the film anyway. The government has released a statement that the film and Mr. Wilders’s opinions in no way speak for that of the nation. Dutch television stations are saying they will not be airing the film but Wilders says he will present it via a news conference at a press centre if necessary. Mr. Wilders’s film will also be available over the Internet.
The filmmaker and legislator believes that the Koran should be banned because it incites violence and is ?an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror.?
Wilders further believes that the culture of the Netherlands is far ?superior? to Islamic cultures. He stands firm that immigrants to the Netherlands should become assimilated into Dutch culture and should eliminate what he refers to as the ?intolerant and fascist parts of the Koran.?
Police in the Netherlands have been protecting Mr. Wilders ever since 2004, when Theo Van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam in response to his controversial 10-minute film Submission, which dealt with violence against women in the Islamic culture.
