DAVID SUZUKI: CHARLATAN OR COWARD?

Here's a shocker from the November 2007 Newsletter of the Population Institute of Canada:

"PIC received a handwritten response from David Suzuki to the letter described in the September minutes, which was signed jointly by Madeline, Tony, Jon and Whitman. Dr. Suzuki thanked us for our "informative letter". He said he would not be able to attend our symposium but was "grateful for your existence". He called Canada's pursuit of steady economic growth as the way to progress a "suicidal notion". He said that by the ecological footprint, we were already overpopulated. Given his views, it seems most likely that the avoidance of the population issue by the Suzuki Foundation is due to its sensitivity."

Forgive me for my lack of charity, but since Dr. Suzuki spent many years in the tiny community in which I live, I know his off-camera reputation well and am not so willing to cut him much slack. This is what I wrote to Jon Legg:

Firstly I am shocked that this charlatan acknowledges that we are over-populated. Should my estimation of him be amended? No. He has such a fund of celebrity and wealth to draw down from, surely he could sacrifice some of it by reading the riot act to his own Foundation or to the media and announcing this insight of his. Secondly, it is as Paul Watson said, these environmental NGOs are more concerned about protecting their donor base and feeding their cushy salaries than saving the environment. If they cared about the latter they would strike out and make noise about overpopulation (and immigration) as Watson does. They wouldn't worry about "sensitivity". Screw them.

I think you have clued on to the fact by now that I haven't got the mentality of a diplomat. Here's my point. We're living on a planet of 6.7 billion people that adds another 80 million each year. And in a nation of 33 million people that grows by 1.08% annually devouring Class 1 farmland, wetlands, threatening 350 species with extinction and dumping 20 metric tons of GHG into the atmosphere for each of the quarter million new citizens it imports each year. In the face of this kind of growth, do you think the David Suzuki Foundation or anybody else has the right to be "sensitive" to anybody's goddam sensibilities? These environmental NGOs are taking in big bucks, why are they walking on eggshells when it comes to THE most critical factor in the environmental degradation of this country and the planet? TOO MANY PEOPLE CONSUMING TOO MUCH!

What is Suzuki waiting for? Has not had his time in the sun? Enough fame? Enough public acclaim? Putting false modesty aside, I have sacrificed far more of my personal life and put far more on the line for the cause than he. I am a pariah on Quadra for my Malthusian anti-Sierran views. Suzuki was an outcast here because he was a conceited, arrogant, pompous, condescending jerk. But as a public figure nationally, he could move mountains, if he wanted to. He is squandering his fame by beating around the bush and not publicly addressing root causes.

It is so ironic. How could someone put such a premium on celebrity and impersonal popularity, and yet have cared so little about how he was perceived by the ordinary people he interacted with? If you are going to piss people off, as I do, why not do it for a good cause and on a national stage? Two-faced, hypocrite, coward. Certainly not my nominee for the CBC's "Greatest Canadian". Tommy Douglas had more guts in his index finger.

Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
Suzuki's long-time lair