Corruption speaks to the masses

and tells us to look the other way.

Strange and pathetic statement from harper on Wright's resignation (emphasis mine):

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today issued the following statement on the resignation of Nigel Wright:

“It is with great regret that I have accepted the resignation of Nigel Wright as my Chief of Staff.  I accept that Nigel believed he was acting in the public interest, but I understand the decision he has taken to resign.  I want to thank Nigel for his tremendous contribution to our Government over the past two and a half years.

“Our Government’s top priority is, and will continue to be, securing jobs and economic growth for Canada.  This is the focus of all our efforts and attention. “

No explanation, no apology, just bracketed by a pathetic attempt to tell us that the scandal that has held front page news for over a weak and exploded over the weekend is not important, because, you know, the economy and jobs.  "This is the focus of all our efforts and attention. “

Not rampant corruption , not job rigging, not the PMO involved in white-washing reports,  not the foreign worker program taking jobs from  Canadians on EI, not deceptive ads promoting programs that don't exist.

No, jobs and the economy.  Oh, yeah, please do forget that most of the harper rhetoric on those two issues is massive bull-shit as well.

The face of corruption and abuse of power

 “I think I make the rules.” – Harper, August, 2010.

He may have said it that time as a tactless joke, but his actions as PM indicate he feels he can, in fact, make his own set of rules while demanding everyone else abide by laws and legislation.

There are many examples over the past few years of harper engaging in anti-democratic activities that violate laws and legislation, but I’ll only give two examples here.

The Harper government withheld tens of thousands of documents that it was obligated to disclose as part of a human-rights case in which it is accused of discriminating against indigenous children. Now, it is using its failure to hand over the files to try to get the proceedings put on hold.

 

“Obligated” means harper did not have the right to withhold them.  Pretty clear.

And we have the monster of the month, the Duffy/Wallin scandals.

The Senate’s internal economy committee sanitized the original audit of Sen. Mike Duffy’s expenses to remove damning findings, documents obtained by CTV News show…Sources say the whitewash was part of a backroom deal with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright.

This bit of news takes it beyond a Senate scandals involving a few porkers.  This shows deliberate, direct interference from the PMO.  PMO: that’s “Office of the Prime Minister.”  Even if harper managed to keep his name off all e-mails and correspondence concerning the white-wash, involvement by his Chief-of-staff makes him responsible.  That’s not an opinion, it is fact.

I’m not going to commit (much) sociology here by getting into what may have led harper and his group to become so audacious in their interference and cover-ups.  The fact is obvious that he and his entourage feel entitled to do as they please regardless of laws.

Do I need to say how dangerous this is?  It delivers the ruling power control over all public servants, departments, communications products, legislation, laws to some degree (as they apply to their own people), public appointments, many elected officials, and as we have seen, the Senate.  Next up – the Supreme Court, which is already being sabotaged. 

Fortunately, Duffy has been too big of a bad taste for Canadians – and thankfully, many journalists – to swallow, and we are getting some good reporting as a result both from traditional outlets and social media.  Since Nigel Wright’s involvement came out, implicating the PMO, the story isn’t likely to fade away as yet another instance of a couple of porkish Senators.  Wallin and Duffy getting the boot (as we find out they were not given a choice) will not resolve this issue.

Sanitizing reports?  The PMO?  This is huge.  Not entertainment-huge, but implication-huge.

The harper government has done some damnable things, some outrageous things, but this is the case (while not necessarily the worst thing it’s done) that shows the depth of corruption and the relentless abuse of power at the core of harper and the PMO.

They eat their own - even the behemoths

In over his head

In over his head

In way over his head

Harper & co., feeding off a tragedy

Not ones to let a tragedy pass without profiting from it and finding some angle to either elevate themselves or attack their opponents, the harpercons and their sycophants have jumped on Trudeau’s comments concerning the bombings, deliberately misrepresenting them and showing, to any with a brain, not only their callous opportunistic natures, but their lack of understanding on how to prevent such future attacks.

“Two days ago, there was a horrific tragedy and I expressed clearly both today and yesterday the shock that I can only imagine that father feels that his son was killed for wanting to give him a hug,” Trudeau said on Parliament Hill.  “I really hope that Mr. Harper rethinks the extents and the lengths he’s willing to go to personally attack people and to politicize tragedies like that.”

Trudeau was right in saying what he did –

“We have to look at the root causes,” Trudeau said in the interview done just hours after Monday’s bombing. “Now, we don’t know now if it was terrorism or a single crazy or a domestic issue or a foreign issue.

“But there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded. Completely at war with innocents. At war with a society. And our approach has to be, okay, where do those tensions come from?”

He’s not suggesting we hug-a-thug, or get all “touchy-feely” like Jonathan Kay tries to say Trudeau is angling at. 
And we don’t even have to guess what Trudeau meant.  He explains - 


“Yes, there’s a need for security and response.  But we also need to make sure that as we go forward, that we don’t emphasize a culture of fear and mistrust.  Because that ends up marginalizing even further those who already are feeling like they are enemies of society.”

Any intelligent, well-balanced person understands that looking at the root causes of violent actions and those who perpetrate them is not “an interesting exercise to try to understand how sick minds become radicalized.”  It is critical in stopping such violence before it occurs by solving the problems that lead to it in the first place.
Not all of the tough on crime measures, the terrorist acts, the enhanced security that harperites scream to put in will make us safe from attacks like those in Boston.  That this latest act of mass violence occurred on a crowded street where people were engaging in what they expected – and had every reason to expect – was a safe event should tell us that it is impossible to prevent such attacks.  We can’t make everyone safe, everywhere, at all times, and attackers will look for openings.


Ignoring what drives the attackers only makes them more frustrated, more desperate, and I’m very sure Trudeau and those who agree with him aren’t saying we compromise and give the murderers what they want.  They are saying something is dysfunctional and needs to be addressed or these killings will continue regardless of how much we punish or how much security we put in place.

The other thing Trudeau mentions is how we don’t want to create a culture of fear, and we most certainly will if we only address security and punishment.  That implies that terrorists and mass murderers are just a part of society, a fact we need to accept and deal with, and they could spring out at us from any shadow, in any human shape.

This type of society plays well to the conservatives and republicans since a lot of tax dollars can go to security firms, weapons manufacturers, private prisons…Also, a population in fear of that shadowy enemy is easier to control, and the government can more easily justify stomping all over our rights – in the name of security.
Feeding off the Boston tragedy to suck up to harper, the brown-nosed Jonathan Kay goes on to say “For a variety of reasons, ranging from abortion to shark-fin soup, a lot of wavering Conservative supporters are trying to like Justin Trudeau, and to brush off the Tory charge that “he’s in way over his head.” That task just got harder. And Trudeau has only himself to blame.”

Well, no.  In fact, that Trudeau can see more than the immediate need to round up and punish the Boston killers shows that in fact, his waters run pretty damn deep compared to the cons.  You might say he’s showing he has…what’s that word?  Substance.

And if you have any doubt that cons can obscenely finger-point while engaging in some bizarre form of blindness to their own atrocious, callous behavior to the point of cashing in politically on a tragedy, read Barbara Kay’s words: “The Conservative Party should have held off on their attack ads against Justin Trudeau until they had something of substance to attack him with. Now they do.”   Yeah, harper sure got lucky, eh, Barbara?

Sick.  J&B Kay.  You can almost feel the glee seeping off their words.

Well what did you think would happen?

Seriously.  All those people shocked at RBC for using the harper temporary foreign worker program to replace their Canadian employees with cheap, foreign labour – what did they think stevie put the program in place for?

Bad enough that HD Mining abused the program to hire 200 Chinese workers, because, you know, you really need to know Mandarin to work in a mine.  But Royal Bank of Canada, wanting to play on our Canadian pride and keep investing with them, expecting public funds when they get into trouble, demanding tax breaks based on the promise that this will help the economy, create more jobs...that’s too much for even wingnuts to ignore.  If there’s one thing they hate more than the long gun registry, it’s foreigners.  Especially foreigners taking Canadian jobs.

And it seems that this practice of hiring temp foreign workers is rampant, thanks to harper & co opening the way.

Can you be any more pathetic, Stevie?

Don’t answer that.  It’s a rhetorical question.  I know you have yet to change our flag.

But stevie did manage to leave his territorial dog markings on Ontario’s commuter trains by electronically transforming a photo of a couple from green to CPC blue in yet another promo ad of the federal budget.

I guess the folks at Parks Canada aren’t surprised since fat boy stole the show (and took the credit) for "Fifty years of conservation efforts culminat(ing) with the signing of this agreement ..."- an agreement to transform Sable Island into a national park reserve - making it "Fifty years of conservation efforts culminate today with the Harper Government's signing of this agreement ..." 

Not content with that, every mention of Parks Canada was removed from communications products and presentations relating to the event.  Parks Canada staff were replaced by steve's people.

"I note the only change was that Parks Canada was 'disappeared,"' an agency official noted. "I have never seen our name completely eliminated in this manner before." 

“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.