So if a child is married to an adult in another country where such things are legal, is her husband allowed to keep raping the child if they move to Canada?

Because according to the CONs, she is still the old fuck's wife.

And if a woman moves to Canada from a country where women aren’t allowed to vote or run for office, does that mean she can’t vote in Canada when she becomes a citizen?

What a bull-shit line of reasoning to impose narrow, twisted, vile beliefs on others.

Harper keeps saying he won’t re-open same sex marriage debates, but he is changing our laws through the back door, getting Canadians used to the ideas, altering our very identity as he clearly has been stating he intends.

No one in steve’s party publicly expresses intent to change legislation without clearing it through him first.  Enough retired MPs, senators, and insiders have told us so and we have seen what happens to those who oppose him – Bill Casey, Garth Turner, Chong…

So when his CONsorts keep gunning for women’s wombs across the country, there is no doubt fatso wants the abortion issue to come out.  He can claim he didn’t open debate,  he can claim Canadians want it.  He can let his atavistic crew push through some law that opens the door to abortion (giving fetuses same status as Canadians when a woman miscarries due to an attack) then say it’s really a legal argument and he can hardly stop debate.  Or hell, just do away with debate at that point.

Death penalty?  Oh, no…he won’t go there, he says.  But once again, he is trying to change our mindset by picking and choosing which Canadians on death row in another country will be defended by our government.  You know, while all people are equal, some just plain don’t deserve equal treatment.

It’s a gut knowledge thing, ya know?  Tim Horton type wisdom if you get my meaning. 

The CONs play on that gut thing, play on divisiveness, point fingers at “other” until too many fail to look to reason when our laws are modified.

Because by then, too many just think it’s right because it kind of feels right.  And for those who in frustration try to protect our rights and freedoms as well as fair and equal systems for all, the systems that had been in place to defend those rights are so eroded and murky that there is less and less hope for sanity to prevail.

Our crime minister has no hidden agenda.  It has always been obvious – through his early speeches, his early affiliations, his ongoing actions in politics.

The almighty Economy seems to trump everything here in Canada.  Canadians buy into the bullshit that CONs are more fiscally responsible and that The Economy takes precedence over human rights, health care, the environment, the future of our children, decent public services, housing…

But too many Canadians forget that money – especially in a system where wealth resides in the hands of a privileged few – cannot guarantee a safe, healthy environment, equality, care for those in need, separation of church and state, health care for all regardless of wealth, protection of the innocent: things Canadians have long valued above all else.

harper is a liar

Really.  He didn’t miss-speak, he didn’t make a mistake.  He lied.  (emphasis mine)

November 11, 2010: "I think if we can continue a smaller mission that involves just training, I think frankly that presents minimal risks to Canada, but it helps us to ensure that the gains that we've made," Harper said.

But then, Master Corporal Byron Greff and 16 others working with the NATO training mission were killed on Saturday in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul.  Byron Greff was young, well-liked, and recently became a father.  Steve had to bull-shit his way around last year’s fluffing off of risks.   Can't really go on about "minimal risks" when grieving family and friends don't consider their personal loss minimal.

So...Ministry of Truth time... 

October 30, 2011: “Any mission in Afghanistan involves significant risk. … Any presence in Afghanistan, as I know from my own travel there, is fraught with risk, so there will remain risk to our defence personnel.” – harper

Did he realize he was wrong?  Had he been unaware of how dangerous training missions can be?  Not according to what he now says - 

Harper insisted Sunday his position on the mission's risks hasn't changed. "I think, actually to the contrary, I've always been clear: There are still risks involved in this mission," he said.

Last year, he tried to downplay the dangers real live human beings – our troops - would be exposed to with the training mission so that the extension would not have to be put to a vote.

“As the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and others have said, we are looking at a non-combat mission that will occur. It will be a training mission that will occur in classrooms behind the wire in bases. – harper, nov. 2010

Sounds pretty safe, doesn’t it?  Classroom, behind the wire...students probably bring them apples.

Ina briefing to a recent parliamentary committee, Brigadier-General Craig King said Kabul is “extremely violent” and a “high-risk” location for the Canadian trainers. His testimony came on the heels of an attack on the U.S. embassy and nearby NATO base that lasted 20 hours and in which seven people were killed and 19 wounded by insurgents.

Greff was stationed around operations in Kabul and two other cities.

harper lied.  He can't be trusted.  He'll say whatever he thinks will keep him up in the polls.  And sad to see, 30% of Canadians  buy his bull-shit.

Asked to judge the leaders on trust, competence and vision for the country, 30.4 per cent of respondents said Mr. Harper was the most trustworthy leader, compared to 16.3 per cent for Mr. Rae and 11.2 per cent for Ms. Turmel.

The master strategist is loosing ground in one area, though:

Although, Mr. Harper is well ahead of his opponents on this front, the Nanos numbers show his score has dropped significantly since last month when 36.8 per cent said he had the best vision for Canada.  He is now at 28.9%.

Gee.  Could it be his lack of environmental policies, or his failure to forward human rights issues, or his stay the course drone, or his focus on things like the long gun registry and long form census rather than on poverty, jobs, health and safety?

Maybe it's just that people are tired of his helmet hair.  Not many seem to be reading past headlines.

Shame

Really?...

Really?...


When we carry sacred items, we carry them with the recognition that everything in Creation has spirit, including the animals and plants, the rocks, the water, moonand the stars. Even one feather of a bird has spirit. When we carry a feather in our bundle and use it for our personal prayers and in ceremony, we are calling on the spirit of that bird for help and guidance...The eagle is one of the ones who are closest to the Creator because he can fly so high and he spoke for the people...You earn an eagle feather and you have to live by it. 

This is wrong.  Very, very wrong.  Worse than giving Conrad Black the Order of Canada.  It makes a mockery of a great honour.

This guy recognizes the value of all of nature?  This guy speaks for the people?

Brothers and sisters, wake up.

Harper begs for money for his War on Truth, Free Speech and Free Thought

I can barely keep up with the ever growing harper lexicon of what is baaaaad.

Latest addition to the baaaad elitists are people with opinions.  

I’m wondering how people like Ezra Levant, KKKKate McMillan, Stephen Taylor, and Charles McVety feel about harper declaring war on them.

In a letter sent out in the past few days, Conservative Party President John Walsh is urging supporters to help the party counter a “hailstorm” of negative attacks from the media, pundits and the “opinion elite.”

Where does that leave the wisdom of the Tim Horton’s crowd?  Maybe Timmy’s should put up signs: “no opining.”

Harper knows the power of Sleight of Mouth  and has been linking perfectly good characteristics, professions, and groups of people to negative terms, probably since he realized that the world didn’t automatically buy into his conviction that he’s wonderful and anyone who disagrees is the enemy.  Lacking any actual proof that he is the embodiment of perfection, he probably decided to change words and their definitions to suit his deluded beliefs and convince others of them.  But I digress.

Neuro-linguistic programming  used among other things to change patterns of mental and emotional behaviour in others is a key weapon in the CPC arsenal even if most of the CONs are too stump-dumb ignorant to understand how it works.  You don’t need to understand how a sexually transmitted disease functions on a cellular level in order to spread it, for instance.

What harper and the neanders are doing is attempting to define what a good Canadian is and what a bad Canadian is, what a good group of people is and what a bad group of people is.  By linking these people and groups to favourable/unfavourable terms over and over, he can eventually get the stupider segment of the public to support or attack at his prompting.

Steve had defined so very many people and groups as baaaaad during his four year election campaign claiming that if only he had a majority, he could get things done despite the opposition of these baaaad elements.  Now that he has a majority, he can’t raise funds by going on about the long gun registry, the opposition stalling Bills, the unelected liberal Senate, senate reform...

He no longer has any effective opposition in Parliament so naturally looks to who else he feels he needs to silence.  No big surprise he wants to shut up the media and social networks.  But how will donations to CPC help him do that?  Massive negative ad campaigns  against the media and people with opinions?  Silencing those few independent thinking journalist with the integrity not to kiss his ass by getting them fired?

The letter does not say how the party plans to counter the groups it identifies as a threat.

Perhaps Stevie intends to use the funds to establish re-education camps.  

Facts published by the media or through social media would be threatening to the survival of a party and leader who have been found in contempt of Parliament, who have mislead the public on spending, who have violates spending rules, who have violated election rules, who continuously refuse to tell the public how their tax dollars are being spent, who falsify documents by altering them…

Even dumb ass, thick as concrete, atavistic neandercon fanatics with no opinions or original thoughts must realize that the electorate needs to be told these facts if they are to vote in an informed fashion.  Maybe even those dullards realize that harper can't possibly represent every single preference and ideal they embrace and that they may want the chance to express their own opinion in a democratic, effective fashion, just once in their life.

Maybe not.  To recognize those things requires at least a modicum of original thought.

Name harper's newest photo prop

So stevie wanker wants to pretend he's soft and fuzzy and asks you to help name his latest prop.

I'm thinking...Squealer.

harper's irrational reality

Excellent article by Murray Dobbin in The Tyee.  Should read the whole piece. 

Real insight as to what harper is, why he does what he does -

Dismissive to the point of contempt, Harper gives the impression that the facts are little more than an irrelevant annoyance -- just another opposition tactic aimed at interfering with his agenda.  

...Creating the new irrational reality is Stephen Harper's great re-engineering project. Social engineering was the right's favourite epithet for all the years it was in the political wilderness. Libertarians like Harper really believe that the so-called welfare state was the result of a virtual conspiracy of Liberal (and liberal) politicians and humanist bureaucrats. As such, turning back the clock on the activist state is legitimate even if the vast majority now support it.

Dobbin's article is especially good because he moves on the solutions for Canadians and the opposition who do not want our country and lives re-shaped according to harper's messed up psyche.

The appeal to the irrational will not work if the economy begins to tank. This is one area where Opposition forces need to focus and not get distracted by Harper's efforts to keep his base happy.

Hey media - about that “spouse who stays in a dysfunctional relationship under the misguided notion” he can change...

I was such a spouse, so you can fuck right off when you whine and use that as an excuse for having backed harper.  Sure, now that his atrocities are so in everyone’s face that you can’t hide his bestiality or your own black eyes, you seek to gather your shredded slef-esteem by pointing out how utterly vile his actions are since being elected, but your garments are so threadbare from years and years of defending him it’s ludicrous.

And you dare blame us for adding to your beatings.  Us, the ones who have been trying to shake some sense of responsibility into you for years.

   T hose who are now beating up the media, including the media themselves, for their supposedly off-base and out-of-touch coverage of the federal election campaign are missing a key element.  It's how good Stephen Harper truly is at ruthless, calculating politics.

   If the media made any mistake, it wasn't to focus on Harper's cynical calculations leading up to and during the campaign.   But if media made a mistake, it's the same one made by the spouse who stays in a dysfunctional relationship under the misguided notion that "Everyone else thinks he's a great guy," and "Somehow I can change him."

We never missed that key element, fuckwads.  How dare you?  How often have we written about that very thing.  Warned, pleaded, sought whatever means we could to expose what was never really concealed?  Wrote lengthy pieces supported with a great deal of research and careful links to information going back years?  How often did we on the Net challenges harper’s claims and bring out his ruthlessness when you failed to do so?

You made the monster.  And you can’t claim the abuse spouse excuse.  With knowledge comes responsibility, for one thing.  You had greater access to information than we had, and we figured it out and acted accordingly.  You are an industry that is supposed to look at and report things objectively, not get all involved like a wife struggling to hold together the fantasy of a marriage.

And “everyone else thinks he’s a great guy?”  Excuse me?  Hello?  Hell-fucking-o?  How many years has steve been barely holding 33% in the polls?  How many articles did your soret write about people just not trusting him or warming to him?  How many of us - you know, the ones who make up the rest of “everybody” shouted how utterly dangerous the man was then and how much worse he’d be with a majority?

And finally, you claim you thought that “somehow you can change him?”  Are you really so unprofessional?  Of course you are, and you prove it again with this whiny piece where you claim it isn’t your fault you sucked up to the tyrant, endorsed him, played not into his hands but right along with him, willingly.

How can a spineless bunch like you change your master?  You bowed and crawled and bobbed in his dust for a few crumbs, grumbling now and then but still parroting the lines he fed you.

You were his creatures, and from this article and other recent ones, it appears many of you still are.

One could bemoan the promotion of the thuggish John Baird to Foreign Affairs or Tony Clement as Treasury Board chair, but it should be noted that these two are at least among Harper's most politically talented ministers.

Really?  Talented? 

Ministers of modest competence -say a Gerry Ritz in Agriculture -can remain in cabinet as long as they are willing to be partisan pit bulls who savagely defend Harper's policy that bump up against the interests even of stakeholders in their portfolio.        

Modest competence?  Ritz? 

Excuse me for not linking to the proof of the absurdities of your statements, but really, what’s the point?  You have no respect for truth anyway.

Back to that abused spouse who is far, far better than you guys can ever be.  Once she realizes the douchebag was playing her as he abused her, she pulls it together, if not for herself, then for those she’s responsible for.  She gets informed, gets help, gets the hell out of there.  And having done that, she assesses the past relationship and looks at her role in it, determined never to make the same mistakes.  She doesn’t whine and blame others for her part in the bad marriage or in propping up the douchebag.

She doesn’t claim all men women are as dysfunctional as she was around the douchebag.  Rather, she looks to them to understand how they could see through the prick while she failed to in order that she learn a better approach in sizing up people in her life.

As someone who lived through a dysfunctional, abusive relationship, I learned many things.  One of them is that the douchebag is not the only tyrant out there.  You learn to watch for signs.  You may think I’m talking about the master strategist whose butt you have your noses up, but I’m talking about you, the media.  You are useless, opportunistic sycophants, lazy on top of all the rest, pompous, self-righteous, and far to quick to blame others while doing little to reform your own behaviour.

So don’t expect me, or the many like me who are so very angry in the role you played and continue to play in propping up and excusing harper to have any belief in what you write, to think you play a role of any value to the building of our nation, that you have any respect for truth, and that you are likely to change.

We have dealt with the abuse and know that types like harper, and types like you don’t change.  You don’t have the emotional or psychological equipment for that.

About that media speculation over steve relaxing, spontaneously turning into something akin to human

I’d say giving every single Canadian an unabashed fuck you before the House even sits, and not having the courtesy of announcing it personally should pretty much slap all of you incredibly stupid people upside the head.

(photo)


In the party where liars and criminals are elevated, why not losers?  Even two-time losers?

Stephen Harper wasted no time in bringing back three defeated candidates, appointing former Quebec cabinet minister Josée Verner to the Senate and reappointing Larry Smith and Fabian Manning.

Smith and Fabian - you remember?  Those two harper appointed senators who used their time as senators to prep for their MP campaigns, quit the senate to run, then were rejected by voters?

Can you think of a more unapologetic screw you to all of us?

Can anyone seriously still doubt that steve has absolutely no sense of ethics?

This is what we face for the next four years.  Longer, much longer if the press in particular keeps treating him like a mildly disobedient golden child, gently chiding him while bragging to all who will listen just how terrific and oh so special he is. 

Oh...and you journalists who want to make amends by keeping tabs?  Kind of need access to the guy you all endorsed for that.

Minutes after he finished answering questions from reporters about his cabinet shuffle, the Prime Minister’s Office sent out a release announcing the three appointments. So Mr. Harper did not have to address the issue in public.

I am anxiously waiting to hear about steve’s plans for senate reform.  Really.  Just so excited.

The new Canada

Now Canada can be hated for war-mongering as well.

As the Libyan war enters its third month the Defence Department has quietly ordered more than 1,300 laser-guided smart bombs.

These are for the Libyan campaign.  The one where Canada’s involvement was supposed to be limited to securing air space.

Of course, king steve isn’t telling his precious citizens what we are paying for those bombs.  So let’s go to the U.S., as usual, to see what we will be paying through some fucking tax or other to kill a bunch of brown people -

John Pike, director of the Washington-based defence think-tank GlobalSecurity.org said the smart bomb cost about $100,000 each.

That’s 130 million, over and above what we have already spent on what we have dropped so far.  And that isn’t likely to be the end of the dollar cost in kicking Libya’s ass.  Being all tough on the world stage.  Trying to show big, tough US of A that we can fight, too.

"What kind of war did Canada think it was going to fight? Did they think this war was going to be over quickly or that the Americans would drop all the bombs?" (Said Pike)

Well, Mr. Pike, yes.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said shortly after the bombing campaign started in mid-March that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's days were numbered. "He simply will not last very long," Harper predicted.

Harper is, after all, a master strategist.  He said we would not have a recession and...ok...he said the Chalk River nuclear plant would not fail and...oh...

Anyway, forget all that.  Winning a majority clears the slate.  Tabula rasa.

So harper can start fresh with a bunch of new wrong calls.

But Gadhafi's forces are holding their own against the largely untrained rebel forces and the ongoing NATO bombing campaign.

As for that promise to engage Canada only in securing air space -

Britain's top military official, Gen. Sir David Richards, recently called for an increase in the bombing campaign, suggesting NATO should start hitting Libyan infrastructure. Shortly after he made that comment, NATO jets bombed a key oil terminal in the country.

Nice.  Maybe all the people working at the terminal were rabid, murdering Gadhafi supporters.

Be afraid.

The party that thrives on spreading false fears is engineering a true reason to be afraid.  But of course, they won’t open this piece of legislation for debate, nor will they be honest to Canadians as to how it will affect us.

The package is benignly nicknamed “lawful access,” but isn’t benign.  If the Conservatives move forward with it, it would feature a three-pronged approach focused on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers.   

(Emphasis mine)

The first prong mandates the disclosure of Internet provider customer information without court oversight...The new system would require the disclosure of customer name, address, phone number, e-mail address, Internet protocol address, and a series of device identification numbers.

The second prong requires Internet providers to re-work their networks to allow for real-time surveillance...These include the power to intercept communications, to isolate the communications to a particular individual, and to engage in multiple simultaneous interceptions.

Having obtained customer information without court oversight and mandated Internet surveillance capabilities, the third prong creates a several new police powers designed to obtain access to the surveillance data.

Lawful access raises genuine privacy and free speech concerns, particularly given the fact the government has never provided adequate evidence on the need for it, it has never been subject to committee review, and it would cost millions to implement yet there has been no disclosure on who would actually pay for it. Given this, it is not surprising that every  privacy commissioner in Canada has signed a joint letter expressing their concerns.

Not only is the substance problematic, but the attempt to fast track lawful access virtually guarantees that it will not be fully vetted. For example, over the past few weeks there has been mounting concern that the legislation would also create new criminal liability for hyperlinking to content that incites hatred and for using anonymous or false names online.

As we cheered on countries who used social media to spread the desire for change and allowed people to organize, our own government plans to control freedom of speech here, on the Net in particular.

This is no big surprise since it has been one of the few areas where harper could not control dissent.  Social media has not been kind to him, and with good reason.  With nearly every newspaper supporting the harper regime, it has been left to the Net users to expose the serious abuses of his government and the obvious direction in which he is taking our country against the will of most Canadians.

Youtube has been especially unfriendly to the master strategist.  It is a powerful social engine due to brief messaging tightly scripted, presented with visuals.

A few months ago, several articles came out about limitations public servants are subject to during elections.  While the purpose of the legislation is to assure that public servants remain non-partisan and take a moment to assess their involvement with politics before over-stepping bounds, such limitations were deemed undemocratic, stifling public servants’ rights to be actively engaged in politics.

This access act would stifle every Canadian and do so without justification, without providing those silenced with recourse, without oversight agencies protecting individual privacy or freedom of speech rights.

Meanwhile, the harper government has just made sure it can deny access to its own doings.

In a major decision, the court decided that Canada’s Access to Information Act does not apply to the records controlled by the people at the top of the government’s power pyramid: the prime minister, cabinet ministers, and their staffs.  And though the current Conservative government promised in the 2006 election campaign to ensure that ministers’ offices would be subject to the access law, it fought that principle in court.

We can see where this is going.  The harper regime can operate in secrecy as it plans major changes that affect us all, while any person who questions or criticizes - as is not only our right, but our responsibility in a democracy - will be silenced, perhaps even charged.

With a majority, harper will slide the lawful access legislation through easily since there is no longer an opposition that can vote him down.  He owns the Senate majority as well, so forget sober second thought or in-depth review working out the legalities or fairness of the act.  Harper will bury this in another omnibus crime Bill that will allow even the little bit of debate in the House to turn to the usual harper dishonesty of criticizing opposition to parts of the Bill as criticism to the more benign parts he puts in for window dressing.


And silencing dissent, stopping the sharing of information, making criticism criminal...that's just the beginning.  There are reasons why leaders like harper want to control information and discussion at all levels.  They want to make sure we don't have any chance of opposing what he knows will be highly unpopular changes to our country, our way of life, our very rights in order to pursue his own very narrow, backwards, extremist view of what Canada should be and how Canadians should live, even at very personal levels of religion, marriage, rights, and how we spend our money.

Smoke ‘em while you got ‘em, because our days of free speech and activism on the Net are numbered.  The very people who have been resisting this type of tyranny will be the first to be silenced.

So you voted conservative because you hate taxes...

You believe your hard earned money should not go into government coffers.  You are outraged at being gouged by governments through taxes.  Harper is supposed to fix all of that because harper believes there is no sch thing as a good tax, and you believe him.  Harper keeps his promises, right?

May 2004:  Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper said he wouldn't apply the GST to the portion of gas prices that exceeds 85 cents a litre.  The move wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime, he explained, because there's no way budgets were calculated with such high prices in mind.

"These are revenues that no one foresaw even a few months ago. We are only depriving Ottawa of a massive windfall it didn't count on and that it doesn't need," Harper said in Winnipeg on Monday.

A Conservative government would also eliminate the tax-on-tax that drives many motorists crazy, he said. The federal excise tax currently rolled into pre-GST fuel prices would be made GST-exempt.  "I think the main thing is that Canadians know that their government isn't trying to gouge them at the same time they're having trouble affording the cost of filling their tank."

Sounds good.  Problem is, we passed the 85 cent marker a long time ago.  I know steve has been busy undermining democracy and all, but now that he has a majority and doesn’t have to spend so much time creating attack ads and finding ways to circumvent legitimate Parliamentary opposition or legislation, he’ll get right on that 7 year old promise, right?  The 2% GST cut doesn't come close to relief on gas prices that have nearly doubled since his promise was made.

If the Conservatives keep their promise to balance the federal government's books by 2014, they'll have to give partial credit to drivers paying plenty to fill their gas tanks.

"It's not just the oil companies that are doing well out of this thing," says economist Andrew Graham of Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.  "It's the government (too) because its tax revenues are going to increase because of what we're paying (to fill) the gas tank."  Graham suggests that shot of revenue is part of the solution to the $40 billion federal deficit.

Oh...

So remember every time you gas up and are outraged at what you have to pay, you voted conservative.

At least call him on it.

And of course, there’s no point in asking the press why they aren’t reminding harper of this promise.  After all, they endorsed the prick.

gee, stevie, I thought you said you weren't going to make any big changes

That didn't take long, did it?


The day after a historic election, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz stirred up a group of farmers by saying that he is pushing to get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. In a statement to Global News, he said: “It’s time for Parliament to support Western Canadian farmers’ freedom to market their grain and pass legislation to end the Canadian Wheat Board’s monopoly.”

And the CONs' idea of giving the farmers freedom is to remove their right to vote on the single-desk mandate of the Wheat Board. 

But (wheat farmer Bill) Toews said that means farmers won’t get fair prices, and jobs will likely be lost.  “Winnipeg has a fair amount to lose, that’s for sure,” Toews said.

Toews said the ultimate decision should not be made in Ottawa.  “It should be farmers that make the decision, not government; we've stressed that over the years,” Toews said.

Sure,  but Big Daddy knows best, and now Big Daddy has a majority and will do as he damn well pleases.

“Hard News and Straight Talk for the Tories”

Right.  Sure.

Stunned Media is backing...hang on...here it comes...harper!

Trying to appear unbiased but blowing it completely with ultra-partisan outright lies - poorly written - they offer a stern warning to pevie-stevie:

(I)t's the taxpayers who foot every bill, and Harper must respect this undeniable fact unequivocally.  Otherwise, we will go for his political throat like no dog on a bone ever seen.

don't sweat the debate

Despite most journalist not understanding how to score debaters, people aren't likely to decide their vote on those.

There were many articles going on about how harper won simply because he didn't totally lose his shit during the debate last night and because he managed to squeeze some words out in response to critical questions. That he lied and lied, that he responded without actually answering the questions or giving any kind of supporting arguments seemed to mean nothing to most journalists.

Dan Gardner has an excellent piece, though.

Harper's preferred word was "bickering." That's how he described Parliamentary debate. It's all just bickering. (It wasn't only him, to be fair. Jack Layton used every clash between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff as a chance to smile wryly and pose as the only adult in the playground.)  But what exactly is Parliament, and more specifically the House of Commons? It's the place where people chosen in ridings across the country gather to talk about the nation's business. Our representatives often disagree. Is this bickering?

Gardner says that less than half of Canadians are so clueless about Canadian governance that they actually think the people elect the prime minister. Rather than sweep away that ignorance, Harper makes use of it. Indeed, he fosters it in order to advance his immediate political interests.

Those of us who do understand the dangers harper poses to our democracy as he not only undermines it but attempts to set false beliefs in people concerning it can't possibly educate 50% of the population in three weeks.  That will have to wait until we have a Prime Minister who favours education and doesn't refer to educated people as elitists or imply that intellectual is a bad word.

However, people do respond to day after scandal ridden day, seeing the party that rode in on outrage and promises of accountability and transparency lie to us, steal from us, hide information from us, line their friends pockets with our money, and show appalling insensitivity to voters.

These new stories came up in the last two hours:

Conservatives quit over Vaughan health-care money - Two Conservatives have quit their own riding association in Vaughan north of Toronto, accusing incumbent candidate Julian Fantino and the Conservative government of handing $10 million in public dollars to a private non-profit group involved in a major health-care development.

Conservative candidate asks for ‘ethnic costumes’ for Harper photo op
A Conservative candidate in the GTA is at the centre of a growing controversy after his office asked multicultural groups in the riding if they would like to wear “ethnic costumes” to a photo op with Stephen Harper.

G8 legacy fund: boon or boondoggle?

As controversy continues to swirl around a $50-million "G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund" that beautified a Conservative-held riding last year, the debate has centered on a key question: Was this spending typical of cases when Canada hosts international events, or was it a ploy to help Tory MP Tony Clement get re-elected?

Ignatieff has been taking some flack for spending too much time in the debate on the contempt issue and not enough on the Liberal platform.  I thought he did what was right , effective, and necessary.  The government was brought down over being in contempt.  We are in an election because the government was voted to be in contempt.  That is what this election should be about first of all.  Yes, each party must state what it will do with whatever power it gains, but let's not forget why harper and his party got the boot.  And they did get the boot.

Two thirds of Canadians through their elected reps fired him.  Said they don't trust him.  Said he has no respect for the very institutions established over many, many years of government to give a fair and accountable Parliament.  Accountable to us, the people.

Ignatieff drove that home over and over.  It's something that most Canadians could be made to understand even if it's on a simple level.  The two thirds of elected reps representing Canadians said they don't have confidence in harper and his party.  Ignatieff made this clear, and added the very good keeper lines:

“A majority? ... Majorities are things you earn when you earn the trust of Canadian people and you haven’t earned the trust of the Canadian people because you don’t trust the Canadian people.” 


Go to Far and Wide to see how people are shifting their support.  Steve V gives a terrific analysis of the recent polls, and while the shifts are rather cautious and a little slow, they are steady, show a definite trend, take place in areas of the country that make a difference in an election, and show that people are reacting to the repeated examples of contempt the harper government has been displaying daily.

Oh look! Harper lied!

Months before the Conservative government dismissed talk of a perimeter security accord with the United States as hearsay, senior officials were quietly discussing a draft of the border agreement...Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama signed an agreement in February that could lead to a formal North American security perimeter.

(image)
The CONs lie.  All the time.  As I said before, that contempt for Parliament and for Canadians is the main issue during this election because nothing else that comes out of any CPC MP's mouth can be trusted.

Wow. Just wow.

h/t Galloping Beaver

Can we please, please, please vote these guys out?  Seriously, Canada, we are at risk of suffering such a blow to our self-esteem we may never recover.  This is what passes for leadership?

Canada's auditor general has rebuked the Conservatives for recycling an unrelated quote by her about a previous Liberal government's security spending in a parliamentary report on the costs of the G8/G20 summits in Ontario last summer, CBC News has learned.

...The report quoted the auditor general as saying: “We found that the processes and controls around that were very good, and that the monies were spent as they were intended to be spent.”

Fraser said the Conservatives inserted an 2010 comment she made during a CBC News interview on security spending by a previous Liberal government after the Sept. 11 attacks a decade ago.

Forget self-esteem.  We are in the realm of Orwell.   "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." - 1984

What don't 1/3rd of Canadians get?

The new Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests Stephen Harper's party stands at 40 per cent, 12 points ahead of the Liberals, heading into the first of two televised leaders' debates.

Well, at least that doesn't include the leak from the AG's report on the G8, and it shows that the Liberals are still gaining in Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.  Those gains could easily translate to seats whereas gains CPC makes in the prairies won't really add to more for them. 

Still, with the pick-your-scandal-of-the-day hitting harper & co. day after day, it's disturbing that 1/3rd of Canadian voters still think that the CONs are the way to go.

Will this latest sign of contempt for Canadians and process make a difference?  (emphasis mine)

The Conservative election campaign is scrambling to deal with the fallout of a bombshell draft report from the Auditor-General rife with concern about pork-barrel largesse, dubious spending and misinforming Parliament...And it suggests the process by which the funding was approved may have been illegal.

That sentence alone should make anyone  not directly on the pork-barrel con-express want to go out and vote for any party that can get rid of harper.  


Pork-barrel largesse: don't care about Canada or average Canadians, want only to stuff themselves and theirs on taxpayers' dollars - all of our dollars


Dubious spending:  not good value for money; waste; not well invested on behalf of Canadians; possibly shady dealings


Misinforming Parliament:  Lying, guys.  That's lying.  If they lie to Parliament, they are lying to us.  And that is at the heart of why the harper government fell, and that should be the big issue in this election.


If the government lies and hides its financial dealings, its justifications for its spending, cuts, and policies, if it lies about its actions, if it hides reports and lies about them, then it doesn't matter what they promise in an election.  It doesn't matter what they tell you when they are in power.  Nice promises and pleasant verbal reports are easy to come up with if you don't intend to back them up with proof.

Harper's bunch fell because they refused to produce figures relating to what their crime projects would cost.  They have lied and lied about the cost of the F-35.  Now we find out they lied about the G-8 expenses.


May have been illegal:  does anyone really have to say why it would be very bad to elect a group that uses our tax dollars to engage in illegal activity?


This election, whether Canadians realize it or not, is very  much about contempt and all it embraces. 

Conservatives: in it for themselves

Impolitical writes about the poor optics of giving political aides in ministerial offices  nice bonuses, pay increases to match public servants (whose wages they constantly deride), and generous severance pay if they find themselves out of work.

 

This at a time when harper is constantly going on about cutting the fat in the federal government and TBD holds meetings with Catherine Swift of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business on how to cut public servants’ pay and benefits.

Of at least equal concern is something else the article brings up:

But ministers will have a little more money to play with since the government has decreed that their offices should no longer have to foot the bill for international travel by ministers, their staff and parliamentary secretaries. Those costs will now be absorbed by government departments instead.

Harper has cut departmental budgets, plans to make more cuts to them, but is shoving that horrendous cost onto them. 

Now the Ministers can make it look like they are spending little on travel and lay the blame onto departments, claiming this was all something the department required.  We know Ministers like to hide such costs. 

   

It is naive to believe that Ministers will not abuse this new policy.  Many trips made by MPs are used for partisan reasons with only the weakest of justification linking it to their role as Minister.

So once again, as expenses are transferred to federal departments, how does harper propose to make cuts to them?