Raitt Award goes to: MP Brent Rathgeber!!!

Outstanding!!!!!  Lisa must be sooooo proud!

Winner of the prestigious Raitt Award is: CPC MP Brent Rathgeber for his unscripted response to questions concerning the current prorogation:  "Democracy and Parliament are not being sidestepped — they are only being suspended."

                                                           

Rathgeber unleashed also takes time to explain how it is a bad idea to be discussing all that torture nonsense because we don't want such issues plastered on the from pages of our national papers during the Olympics - visitors from other countrie may get a bad impression of Canada!

I guess his mom never explained to him that if you hide the dirt under a carpet, the dirt is still there.

This is the song that never ends...

The CONs have repeatedly stated - with no little indignation - that they never, ever received direct warnings about the torture of detainees.

It seems they...lied. Yes, folks, and we have names. MacKay, O’Connor, and Day.

Three federal cabinet ministers and a senior government official met the head of the International Red Cross in the fall of 2006 as the humanitarian organization tried to focus Canada's attention on alleged abuses in Afghan prisons, The Canadian Press has learned.

...While the details of the meeting are secret, enough was said about Afghanistan to generate a report from MacKay's office a month later which flagged the Red Cross president's concerns.

The contents of the report, one of thousands of documents filed in the Military Police Complaints Commission investigation of torture allegations, are censored. The email was titled: Re: meeting with ICRC president re detention issues.

Harper and Co., you can prorogue but you cannot hide.

Colvin's letter: public service

Several people have covered Colvin’s letter, Further Evidence of Richard Colvin to the Special Committee on Afghanistan.  Off the top of my head, here are a couple of good posts, dealing with specific points that support Colvin’s credibility - here  and here.   

I want to comment on his closing statements:

I am not a whistleblower. Rather, I am a loyal servant of the Crown who did his job in Afghanistan to he best of his abilities, working through internal and authorized channels.
...Contrary to Minister Cannon’s suggestion, I testified in Parliament because I was summoned by the Committee and legally compelled to speak the truth. I feel it is my duty as a public servant, when commanded to appear before the Parliamentary Committee, to give evidence that is full, frank and fair. I feel duty bound to be frank and thorough in responding to the Committee’s inquiries.

Colvin is a public servant of the highest quality and he clearly defines what it means to act in that capacity.

It is not always an easy job.  Many public servants face what Colvin did: serving the public with honesty and integrity, not backing off despite the knowledge that doing your job properly can bring you major grief from some of your supervisors, or from the government, or both.

They also know they will likely be harassed and attacked by members of the public should their actions negatively affect the political party those members worship.  And I do mean worship, because there is little effort at understanding that the public servant was doing their best for Canada and Canadians.

You don”t need to carry a gun to serve your country, and you don’t need to be on a battlefield to be subject to attacks.

We are familiar by now with the on-going attacks from the government and even other public servants.  Here is a sample of some of the public’s attacks (complete with spelling errors), via the comment section in this article -  

The old must be a Liberal assumption:

 FearlessCrusade - It appears likely that this man is a Liberal mole trying to cause problems for the Conservatives. My suggestion to him is to "Let it Go".

Threats and death wishes:

 Austrian - Colvin will be rewarded by the same way like other thoughtless trators.

 ruthanddave  - colvin should be tried for treason! If he had been captured by the taliban how would he be treated? Must be a liberal for sure.

 Gerrypolitical  - Colvin should join the witness protection program (in the States) and disappear

There was one that said: We used to hang people like Colvin.  Maybe we should start to again.  It appears to have been removed, though.

The ridiculous distortion of information and mind boggling stretch in a bid to assassinate character:

koconnor100  - In 2002, he moved to Ramallah in the Palestinian territories, where he served as head of a new political mission in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death. His marriage failed, and he returned to Canada in 2005, moving to Calgary. During a vacation in Whistler he was offered a job in Afghanistan [5]. --- --- ---- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Colvin_%28diplomat%29 ---

Oh this guy is hardly a disinterested observer. He lived in Palestine for 3 years ? And the palistinians love him , they offered him a job.

Bull shit, of course.  The Crown offered him a position, just like the CONs did.

We can’t afford to have public servants like Keene and Colvin be bullied into silence.  This is why I harp on and on about the public service and the importance of keeping it independent from the elected government.  We can’t afford to have serious issues hidden.  How can we take charge of our own lives if being denied information, we cannot act on our own behalf or vote in an informed fashion?

The vast majority of comments (despite the obvious cut and paste jobs by neanders - compare the comment section in Kady O’s post to the CBC one) were very supportive of Colvin.  Here is my favourite positive comment:

 socialjusticequest  - Until now I disliked government civil servants. With your courage and professionalism, Mr. Colvin, I have changed my view now and acknowledge my own bias. You are a professional with integrity and I salute your efforts for revealing the truth. To know that someone like you serves as a civil servant, makes me a proud Canadian.

We need to give more of this support and encouragement to our public servants.  It not only helps to affirm they are performing a valuable service, it also lets our politicians know that we aren’t going to sit back and allow them to be undermined.

We have a responsibility as citizens to make our democracy work.  Applying pressure on our politicians forcing them to follow legislation, to be open and transparent, to respect the actions of agents working on our behalf - that’s showing love for your country.

Our Chickenshit PM

Others have already written about this so I really only want to add my voice.
    
More at The Galloping Beaver and Canadian Cynic

Rumours swirling around Ottawa suggest the Conservative government is thinking of shutting down Parliament until after the Olympics, killing some of its own bills but also ending the discussion of Afghan detainees that is nibbling away at Tory popularity.  The rumours suggest that Parliament would return in March, when the Games are over, with a new budget that could be used to provoke an election.

Here we go again.  Parliament shut down to save Steve’s ass until he can get together enough fuzzy, shiny, happy photo ops to climb up in the polls then deliberately spark another election.  What the fuck happened to “Stay the course,” Stevo?  Oh yeah, caught with your dick hanging out happened.     Caught with it hanging out on your precious international stage happened. 

So, Cut-and-Run cowardly Steve, that proponent of transparency, wants to shut down government while we are still reeling from a recession.  Does he think we will all just forget about the torture allegations until March?  No, this was what he considered his Titanic, remember?

But opposition members of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan have asked to hold special meetings before the session resumes. Among other high-profile witnesses, they want Defence Minister Peter MacKay and his predecessor, Gordon O'Connor, to return for more interrogation about what they knew of the torture allegations. The committee could not sit during prorogation.

With memos like this coming out -

"The Canadian provost marshal in Kandahar has told ISAF that he would be pleased to provide the information but that he has received explicit instructions from National Defence Headquarters ... not to do so," Mr. Colvin's memo says.  
   (h/t Impolitical )

- Steve will not want MacKay or O’Connor going before the committee.

There is no justification for Harper to prorogue Parliament.  To do so does not serve the country.  It serves only him and his flunkeys.  It costs all of us as we pay our MPs regradless of whether they sit or not.  It costs us since any Bills now on the table are dead and the whole expensive process has to be repeated.

The most critical piece of legislation before the Senate is the bill that enriches the employment insurance program.

Sure.  Because Harper really, really cares about ordinary Canadians, right?

It also costs us because these undemocratic tactics become easier and easier to pull off each time since the commonplace becomes more acceptable.  That costs us the integrity of our democratic system.

Maybe Harper will be able to pull this off again.  But if we sit back without raising our voices, without writing letters and e-mails, then we might just as well buy him a lovely dictator’s uniform for Christmas and be prepared to thank him as we kiss his boots.

"absurd."

A few other words come to mind, but that's a fitting one.

Hey! Fellow Canadians!

This concerns all of you.

Federal officials assured the Red Cross in 2006 that Canada would take an active role in monitoring the fate of Afghan prisoners - but for critical months behind the scenes did little more than manage the political spin, secret memos show.

The records, examined on a confidential basis by The Canadian Press, show the Harper government placed a greater emphasis on drafting "key messages" to the public and preparing "approaches" for embarrassing disclosures than on dealing with the human rights of prisoners.

(...)No. 1 on the eight-point plan for officials was to "Prepare standard key messages (ie. importance of adhering to obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law regarding the treatment of detainees.)"

Point No. 8 in the plan was to "consider supplementing the existing arrangement" in such a way to include the "guarantee of access for Canadian authorities to individuals transferred by the (Canadian Forces)."
h/t to Impolitical for that story.

This speaks of a broad problem with this government, so even if you somehow convince yourself that sure, torture is bad, hmm-kay...but the detainee issue is different because it’s just anout them thar terr’ists who throw acid in the faces of little girl, drafting key messages to avoid embarrassment or accountability is always the priority of Steve & Co.

What if there was, say, a dangerous, deadly bacteria in a common food source?  Do you want to take the chance that this government might place spin above the health and safety of Canadians?  Could Harper go that far?...Oh...right -

The news agency reported that Ritz fretted about the political dangers of the crisis, and then quipped: "This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts." 

The handling of something as serious as torture and Canada violating the Geneva conventions shows what lengths this government will go to in order to protect the false image it constantly promotes.

A respected former diplomat was aghast that "developing the spin" would take priority over dealing with an issue as urgent as possible torture.  "This is one of those situations where - once again - presentation has taken the place of substance," said Louis Delvoie, Canada's former high commissioner to Pakistan.

And this applies to any situation, even those affecting those Canadians who don’t give a damn about what happens beyond our borders -

"It's a rather sad commentary on what is taking place. You (should) deal with the substance of an issue and then you develop the communications plan as a separate and subsequent item to explain how you're doing it and what you're doing."

A bonus bit on those precious troops Harper and Baird are so concerned about -

Errol Mendes, a human-rights law expert, said the paper trail demonstrates that the Harper government viewed the war as a political exercise, where image-branding trumped policy.  "Throughout all of this the military has been used as a political prop and that is dangerous," he said.  "Governments come and go but the military as an institution remains and the damage this kind of approach can leave is severe."

We are likely to see more of this message massaging and crafting, paid for by...us.

Taxpayers are being asked to pay an extra $1.7-million this fiscal year to help bolster Stephen Harper's communications support services – just as the Prime Minister's Office begins distributing government videos of Harper to the news media.  Supplementary estimates tabled last month by the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's bureaucratic back office, boosted internal operational spending by almost $7.3-million for 2009-10. That's on top of existing budgets.

Oh great!  More of this nonsense, but costlier.

In the last two weeks, the PCO started sending news organizations links to new videos in the same way the PMO has routinely distributed photos shot by Mr. Harper's official photographer.

Besides being a ridiculous expense to taxpayers (just so Steve can pretend to be a real PM), this push to produce his own media outlet over which he has complete control threatens impartial journalism:

The photos, and now the videos, have sparked a debate over media access and when the use of government-produced and approved images may be appropriate in an independent news media.

“It's not access,” said Chris Waddell, who holds the Carty chair in business and financial journalism at Ottawa's Carleton University.  “Access is an opportunity to ask questions and an opportunity to engage in independent work according to journalistic principles. What they're giving you is public relations.”

To which Mr. Message himself answers:

“The media can't have it both ways,” Mr. Soudas recently told CBC.  “They can't criticize us for not providing enough information, and then criticize us for providing too much information.”

Well, yes we can, Dimitri.  Yes we can.  The info you provide through PMO releases is stilted, incomplete, and allows no avenue for challenge or questioning. 

It gives the illusion that Canadians are being kept up-to-date on what the government is doing, what studies have uncovered, what goals and plans are, how our money is spent.  But it is only the illusion that Harper wants us to buy into.

It’s like relying solely on the testimony of a pathological liar when that same liar is the one on trial.

update:  The Imp tells us to just say no.