“Then they came for me”

Conservative MP Mark Warawa is a "rogue member" and has to suffer the consequences of holding views contrary to his caucus, one of his caucus colleagues said Wednesday morning after Warawa complained he wasn't allowed to talk about abortion in the House of Commons.

We can – and should – defend Warawa’s right to speak in the House of Commons on behalf of his constituents.  It is not the content of his statements we need to defend, but his right to present them.

For many of us, we may feel like spitting out the foul taste as we do this, but failing to defend him on this point hardly helps us when we fight for the rights of scientists, public servants, whistleblowers, activists, and others to speak out.

That very thing, that very point - that even the rights of those we disagree with must be defended is what too many on the far right fail to grasp. Equal rights for all, no matter what our personal views are.

I hope (but seriously doubt this will happen) that Warawa, Benoit, and the other CPC MPs who are so upset by this latest in harper muzzling will learn from this and stand up in public, stand up in the House, and demand with as much passion and sense of right that harper stop muzzling and intimidating Canadians who have the courage to disagree with their elected government.

Because guys, that’s how it starts –

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-- Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian

****Go here to Doc Dawg for an excellent ass-kicking on why we need to do the right thing.

"It’s like burning books, burning the names, (or pretending) it never happened."

"It’s Orwellian … It’s like burning books, burning the names, (or pretending) it never happened. And that’s just ridiculous.” - David McGuinty.


This killing off the National Round Table on the Environment has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with cutting costs, and now we have the proof.  When the University of Ottawa set up a think tank and website to preserve and make available the government funded research already done by the National Round Table,  Kent ordered them to stop posting information and to hand over all online files to "his" department.

(The) the order also prevents the panel from posting a farewell message that includes praise from its former leaders, including Gov. Gen. David Johnston, who was its founding chairman.

Can't have people knowing that what was once an independent, arms-length agency produced valuable research and reports for Canadians.  Hell, they probably don't even have nice glossy photos of Spiteful Steve  taking credit for everything.

It wasn't enough to do a hostile take-over of the agency through legislation shoved into an attack on science, among other things, an attack disguised as an omnibus budget bill.   That only allowed Kent to control current messages.  No, Harper has to wipe out the history of the Round Table, wipe out its achievements, wipe out its name, and bury all past records.

Does anyone still think "Harper Canada" was a typo?  More like a test run.  From The Government of Canada to The Harper Government, to Harper Government to, well, lets just do it, shall we?  Harper Canada.

If there's anyone left to complain, harper can just take them over too, wipe out their name, history, and words.

Are you scared yet?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet is planning to renew its government's online image by significantly reducing the number of federal websites and creating tools and instructions to monitor social media and engage with the public, says a leaked internal document...Clement had in fact told a technology conference in November that his plan was to consolidate the government's web presence from about 1,500 to six or fewer websites.

Wow.  Clement claims that this will make it easier for the public to find information.  Really?  Six or fewer sites covering what 1,500 currently do?  Integrated services?  This is not like sharing IT services.  Each department has a specific mandate, a specific set of goals.  How do you consolidate their messages and who will do this?

Communications teams in departments work with specialists within the department who are very familiar with current events affecting departmental issues, public issues as relate to the department, how the department best serves the public, what resources it offers, and what reports it generates – among many other things.  That is why each department has its own website and its own communications team.

So how can the thousands of public issues now addressed by departmental websites possibly be presented in an open, user-friendly fashion for the public?  And who will decide for all the departments what information will be included?  Who will decide what issues should take priority in presentation?  Who signs off on the final draft of such communications? 

(British Columbia Freedom of Information and Privacy Association’s) executive director, Vincent Gogolek, said he has nothing against improving web pages and making them more efficient but suggested that, based on recent cases of some political speeches and inconvenient information disappearing from federal websites, Harper's main goal was to control access to information and messaging. For example, he noted that Transport Canada had removed references to the environment from a webpage explaining the Navigable Waters Protection Act after it tabled legislation last fall to limit the law's scope to a fraction of bodies of water across the country.

A valid concern, one we should all share.  And we should be pretty angry.  The public service is paid by us and is supposed to work for us.  If it is further muzzled through such an abominable move to control messaging, how can it inform us of how our money is being spent, what reports and research tell us about our safety issues, our economy, our country’s finances, our demographics, our rights?  How can it tell us how departments are performing and how public servants are performing?  

(Clement's director of communications, Andrea Mandel-Campbell) dismissed the association's concerns about disappearing information as a misunderstanding of the plan. She said the entire strategy was still being finalized, following discussions with the private sector and other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and British Columbia…

Discussions with the private sector?  Why the private sector?  Maybe it’s for consultation on web design, but considering how the private sector has been repeatedly invited to advise on shaping legislation that massively affects the public while serving a few private interests, I doubt it’s because harper and clement just can’t find trained public servants with tech knowledge.

(Gogolek) also expressed concerns about social media monitoring or profiling, that he suggested could be used to identify critics.

Does anyone even have to explain why this is a very real concern?

So, the two-in-one plan: control the message (all messages) and identify and punish any who try to speak truth.

“I can imagine these people hiking up their sweaters and showing the scars." – Rodger Cuzner

I asked, in an earlier post, what information the EI inspectors are told to gather.  Thanks to the CBC, we have a partial answer - 

Investigatorswith the Integrity Services Branch were provided with a 23-page manual, dated October 2012, outlining investigative techniques intended to be used in a pilot project starting in November and winding up at the end of March.

…In some cases, the investigative techniques seem to delve into the far corners EI claimants' lives.
For claimants who are collecting maternity benefits that are part of the EI system, investigators are told to verify:

• The child's identity and parentage.
• In some cases, "the maternal relationship to the claimant."
• Proof of the child's birth, a date that can be compared to the "maternity window."

…Asked about the questions suggested for those collecting maternity benefits, Cuzner said, "It's playing out like a bad episode of Jerry Springer. I can imagine these people hiking up their sweaters and showing the scars."

(makes me wonder if Vellacott is involved, considering his obsession with vaginas)

Besides finding this approach as obtrusive and offensive as Cuzner does, this latest still leaves me with a lot of questions.  How do investigators verify these things?  What security clearance do they have to access such personal information?  How, and to who is this information distributed?  The pamphlets seems to direct the inspectors to delve into many areas of a person’s private life, even if there is no reason to suspect fraud –

The document makes it clear the Service Canada employees are to leave no stone unturned in their inquiries, even in the absence of evidence that selected EI recipients had done anything wrong. The document suggests investigators check addresses, bank accounts, medical documents and even the physical appearance of claimants. (emphasis mine)

Nothing to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong?  Really?

Meanwhile, the queen of ice tries, but fails to justify the new procedures -

However, in a statement, Finley said, "Service Canada was able to stop almost a half billion dollars in ineligible payments last year, but the employment insurance program still lost hundreds of millions due to fraud."

First of all, Ms. Ice has not provided proof of that ½ billion.

Secondly, how  can she know that hundreds of millions were lost due to fraud?  If fraud was detected, why not go after the fraudsters and recover the money?

Oh…wait…those must be cases of that unreported crime Toews was going on about.

Conservatives need a new name.

If you use a word often enough and long enough in a context for which it was not intended, the meaning of that word changes.

The Conservative Party of Canada likes to be known as the law and order party, the fiscally responsible party, the family values party.

Considering the mess the party has made with the deficit and how it fails to project economic trends with freakish regularity, considering the latest scandals related to Senators abusing public funds, and considering that there have been several scandals on the family values front as well with Dechert,  Toews,   and Brazeau, linking “conservative” with respect for law, family, and prudent use of public funds can scarcely be done with a straight face.

And now, we have another Harper appointee to the Senate to add to the growing list of unaccountable conservatives who preach law and order, prudent use of public funds, and family values to Canadians while feeling and acting as though those principles do not apply to themselves.

According to La Presse, harper appointed Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu – Nicholson’s sidekick on law and order announcements – has claimed thousands of dollars on housing allowance for a home where he has not lived since his separation with his wife in February 2012.  She still resides at that location.

Boisvenu states that since his divorce has not gone through, the home where his soon to be ex-wife lives is still his primary residence.

However, it is difficult to believe that when, according to what La Presse said it discovered, Boisvenu is in an amorous relationship with his Hill assistant.  So much for family values, so much for claiming primary residency with his current wife, and oh yeah – so much for law and order.  Senators are not allowed to have intimate relationships with their staff.  Or take publicly funded trips with them.

Boisvenu stated that his private life should be respected as it concerns only him.

No.  Not when it involves the abuse of public funds and when it violates senatorial rules.

Sure Flanagan has the right to say stupid, offensive things –

- And people have the right to fire him, shut him out, and criticize him for saying stupid, offensive things.

A few people are coming out in defense of Flanagan (while always carefully stating that they, themselves, do not support his views on child pornography) acting as though he has been treated unjustly for simply stating his opinion and trying to engage debate.

Flanagan is not being charged with hate speech or anything else, so his defenders can quit trying to go on about how he is being denied the right to free speech.

However, if you say really stupid, offensive, disgusting things, then your employers probably won’t want you spouting your bile under their banner.  And that is the employers’ right.

Let’s look at some of the feeble, misguided defenses Flanagan’s few supporters are offering:

Jonathan Kay:

At the very least, Mr. Flanagan’s many years as a respected public intellectual have earned him the right to be given the benefit of the doubt about the meaning of his remarks. But no one seems willing to give him that benefit.

Nonsense.  He has no more right than anyone else to be given extra portions of benefit of doubt.  Respect for what a person says, respect for the quality of their opinions needs to be maintained.  No one gets a free pass on stupidity and being offensive, or even wrong.  It is up to them to continue showing that their points are valid.  Flanagan failed miserably and continues to fail.  No one is stopping him from clarifying the meaning of his comments concerning child porn.  In fact, the comments resurfaced because he was asked for clarification and said the same thing.

In such situations, people express themselves in all sorts of clumsy, and sometimes bizarre ways.

Sure, and their bosses, realizing this, often end up firing them because they don’t want to pay public figures who will say bizarre, clumsy things.

Is this what Flanagan was getting at with his clumsy remarks? I don’t know. But I do know that it is one very possible interpretation of what he intended to say. And just as we insist on a presumed-innocent standard in criminal trials, a similar presumption of innocence should exist before we kill someone’s career and reputation.

Wrong.  The public and Flanagan’s former employers did not kill his career.  He did it himself through arrogantly believing he could say whatever vile, incorrect thing came to mind.  He is wrong.

That’s the very least that every single one of us would ask for in similar circumstances, as we watched our whole life’s work hang in the balance.

We should first ask ourselves if we caused our own downfall.  No one owes Flanagan protection from career crash and burn.

Mark Mercer:

In Canada,people who are convicted of viewing child pornography often go to jail. It is entirely in the public interest, then, to ask whether they should go to jail.

That has been asked and answered.  They go to jail because they encourage, through their demand, the production of child porn, the exploitation of children, the treatment of children as sexual objects.  They also violate a child’s rights over their own body as they view images of children who cannot and have not given consent.

Now, instead of defending Flanagan’s prerogative to raise questions and offer opinions, as it should, the U of C is giving Flanagan the cold shoulder. Even worse, it is, through its president, expressing an opinion on the matter Flanagan raised. That’s bad, because the university is not expressing that opinion as a move in a debate. Quite the contrary. It is expressing an opinion in order to close debate.

What debate?  The one Flanagan seems to think exists, that viewing and owning child porn harms no one?  There is no debate on this, nor should anyone be invited to open one.  A child’s rights are seriously violated through the viewing of child porn.  That is a fact, and to attempt to open a debate on such a thing is to disavow the rights of children by implying that those rights are up for debate.

We should be invite debate into laws where environments change, demanding we examine laws, but the fundamental rights of children must never change, so any debate that would risk those rights should not take place.

Heather Mallick puts it very well:

Flanagan wasdumped from the CBC, condemned by Harper and rightly so. But that obscures a more important point, which is that Flanagan is sincere.  For he is an ideologue, and ideologues are always sincere. It’s what makes them dangerous. Concepts like untrammelled liberty are clear spring water to them, and real life, as it is lived by small soft-limbed splayed children weeping with pain and terror on camera, is irrelevant.

...Flanagan is saying that watching child porn is a passive crime. Police worldwide say with all the passion they can muster that it’s not. Online porn exists because there is a market for it…Those who make it are bestial. Those who watch it are feeding the beast.

...In 1998, when the FBI began tracking online child porn, Bazelon reported, they found one particular case, photos of a little girl with emails like this: “do me a favor . . . take a pic of her in nothing but stockings pulled down below her (genitals.) The photographer obliged.

...If Flanagan thinks child porn is victimless, he should know that Amy (a victim of child porn) will spend the rest of her life knowing that men worldwide are looking at ghostly images of her as a child, naked, trussed up, penetrated, bleeding. It will continue after she dies.

Flanagan likes personal liberty. There will be none for Amy.

Any debate that risks the fundamental rights of children should not occur.  Obviously, people like Flanagan, Kay, and Mercer do not agree.