The Stop Stephen Harper Blog

greenpolitics.ca: letter to Governor General

2008-10-15T09:39:00.002-07:00

Here is a letter to the Governor General from Stuart Hertzog of greenpolitics.ca, calling for the Governor General to wait before asking Harper to form a government, and wait for the possibility that the opposition might form a coalition. Please feel free to write your own letter, or or use this one.

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean
Governor General of Canada
Rideau Hall, 1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A1

Telephone: (613) 993-8200
Toll-free: 1 (800) 465-6890
Fax: (613) 998-8760
Email: info@gg.ca

A Coalition Government for Canada

Canadians have voted not to give the Conservative Party an overall majority in this election. The result clearly shows that an overwhelming majority of the voting public do not support the Conservative Party, and therefore do not wish to see Stephen Harper continue as prime minister of Canada.

Mr. Harper may petition you to be allowed to continue as prime minister with a parliamentary minority. I beg you not to grant his request immediately. Instead, I respectfully request that you stay your official permission until the four opposition parties, or at least those whose candidates have been elected to sit as members of the 40th parliament of Canada, are given time to try to form a coalition government.

I believe that a coalition government holding a majority in parliament would be in the best interests of Canada at this time. To allow Mr. Harper to continue as prime minister would have many damaging consequences that could undermine the peaceful order and good government of this country.

Canadian sovereignty

A minority Conservative government would expose Canada to policies that the majority of Canadians clearly do not want. They could diminish Canadian sovereignity by integration into a continental union with the United States, and further undermine the supportive social programs and civil liberties that Canadians citizens have come to enjoy.

Another minority government would frustrate those Canadians who have rejected Mr. Harper’s platform and past policies, possibly leading to civil unrest.

The functioning of parliament would be undermined by a continued minority government. Without a majority, the government would not be able to pass contentious legislation, rendering any debate leading up to these failures a waste of time. Loss of a confidence motion would lead to another costly election soon after this one, which would exasperate and even anger many Canadians.

Same parliamentary situation

Mr. Harper has not been able to use this election to capture a majority of seats in parliament, and a third attempt is likely to produce the same situation. A coalition government would open up the possibility of negotiated agreement between the parties as to which legislation would be introduced and passed in parliament, making for efficient use of members’ parliamentary time. The resulting legislation likely would be acceptable to a wide range of Canadians.

Clearly, a coalition government is in the best interests of Canada at this time. I therefore humbly beg and beseech you to consider my request, and using your reserve powers, not agree to Mr. Harper’s request to continue at least until the other parliamentary parties have had time to negotiate a coalition.

Yours for a free and democratic Canada,

Stuart Hertzog
Victoria, BC

Brief post-election thoughts

2008-10-15T09:27:00.002-07:00

Obviously, I'm extremely disappointed with the results from last night, and with those Canadians, obviously a lot of them, who are not neoconservatives, yet voted to re-elect a neoconservative government. That said, I have a few thoughts as to where we go from here:

1) The opposition parties must put aside partisan differences and agree to form a coalition, then approach the Governor General with this willingness to govern in the best interests of the country. greenpolitics.ca is all over this.

2) We need proportional representation, and we need it bad. I'm going to join Fair Vote Canada.

3) Last night's election had the lowest voter turnout, 61%, in Canadian history. In future elections, progressives need to get the vote out, especially the youth vote. I firmly believe that they higher the voter turnout, the more progressive our government will be.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-10-10T21:36:00.003-07:00

Well, that's it from me for a few days. I'm spending Thanksgiving weekend with family. Posts from me, if any, will be highly infrequent.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Two more Tory no-shows

2008-10-10T21:15:00.004-07:00

I went to two candidates forum in Greater Vancouver. The first one, open to the first candidate from each party in the Vancouver area who signed up, was about global poverty, and was sponsored by Engineers Without Borders and Make Poverty History. None of the Vancouver-area candidates wanted to sign up for this.

Yesterday, I went to an all-candidates forum focussing on mental health issues. The Vancouver-Centre candidates were there. Well, all except Con candidate Lorne Mayencourt.

Interesting how the Tories don't seem to want to show up anywhere where poverty might be mentioned. I dread the prospect of this government being re-elected.

CBC: Cdn.scientists oppose politicization of science

2008-10-10T14:31:00.005-07:00

According to the CBC, 85 scientists from various fields have protested what they refer to as the politicization of science. Examples include climate change denial, opposition to Insite, and the firing of the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This, to me, is one of the greatest sins of the Harper regime, along with bringing shame to our international reputation:

A group of Canadian scientists signed another open letter on Thursday, calling on political parties to end to what they see as the "politicization" and "mistreatment" of science.
The letter, signed by 85 scientists in the health, environment and technology fields, focuses particularly on a number of incidents involving the federal Conservative party, including the closure of the office of the National Science Adviser, the firing of the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and what it calls "political appointments" to the board of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada.

"While science is not the only factor to be considered in political decision-making, ignoring and subverting science and scientific processes is unacceptable," the scientists write.

"In light of these concerns, we are calling on all political leaders to articulate how they will work to improve Canada's track record with respect to the treatment of science and related due processes."

It's the second open letter from scientists published in the last week that has been critical of the actions of the federal Conservative party.

Read the entire article here.

Muzzle count update

2008-10-10T14:10:00.000-07:00

Over at Harpocracy.ca, the muzzle count is now at 104.

Open etter to the four opposiiton leaders: coaleasce before October 14

2008-10-10T13:57:00.003-07:00

Here is the interesting part of a letter from greenpolitics.ca calling for a coalition of the four opposition leaders:

I want the Governor General not to
ask Stephen Harper to form the next government of Canada. Instead, I want her to
respect the wishes of the two-third majority of voting Canadians and ask your
four parties to try to form a coalition government.

Formal letter a necessity

I believe that the Governor General has the
power to do this, and that there may be historical precedent to
enable her to take this course of action. However, I understand that former
Governor General Ed Schreyer
believes that to do so she must have a formal letter signed by you, stating your
intentions. Please ask him about this.

What is required is a formal
submission, in writing, by the parties who have agreed to form a coalition
requesting that the Governor General recognize you collectively as the
government. If the Governor General feels that you could indeed function as a
coalition and that this would be preferable to any other alternative, such a
request could be granted.

This means that you must be ready to form a coalition by October 14th,
2008.

Will you each put aside your antipathies towards each other and work to
find your common principles and policies? Will you do this for the poor and
needy; for the workers; for business people; for the environment and other
species; and for the kind of Canada that the majority of Canadians clearly want?

Will you begin to explore this possibility, NOW?

Not My Prime Minister

2008-10-10T13:39:00.002-07:00

I have just added a new resource site to my sidebar, Not My Prime Minister. Check them out!

NOW: Coalition government

2008-10-09T17:35:00.003-07:00

This is from Alice Klein in NOW Magazine. She points out that fortunately strategic voting isn't an issue in Toronto, but she does say that though she is an NDPer, there is much to choose among the opposition parties:

I live in Toronto-Danforth and proudly sport a Layton sign on my front lawn. I will be heartsick if his wonderful Toronto team doesn’t include my favourite women in politics, Olivia Chow, Peggy Nash and my own former MPP, Marilyn Churley. I urge you to please vote for these incredible contributors to our federal dialogue, who have earned our support with their talent, energy, commitment and integrity.
But that doesn’t mean the NDP is the best and only hope we have on all and everything. Dion has definitely outdone Layton on climate change.
Layton claims cap and trade is about making the polluters pay. But every credible expert agrees that any price on carbon will ultimately be paid for mostly by consumers. Cap and trade would be just like a tax, but, like the gas price surges we have all been experiencing, imposed in fits and starts, without warning. The two policies are actually complementary and should never have been counterposed. One is immediate and the other long-term.
Dion’s carbon tax plan starts out with a relatively small added cost that increases over time. The tax increase on energy use will be steady and foreseeable, allowing for innovation, planning and incremental investment over time. This is the new foundation for a sustainable economy that we need.
Cap and trade, on the other hand, involves the creation of a complex new regulatory and market system that targets the country’s largest emitters only. It takes a long time to get going (five to 10 years), its effectiveness depends on very technical aspects of implementation, and it’s highly subject to manipulation. While the cost is initially incurred by large emitters, most if not all of these costs are passed on to consumers.
“The argument that a policy capable of reducing carbon emissions will only affect producers is without economic merit,” reads an open letter released Tuesday to Canada’s federal leaders, signed by 200 economists teaching in Canadian colleges and universities
At the same time, although I think Dion’s carbon tax initiative is the best environmental policy ever put forward by a major party, that doesn’t mean I think everyone should vote Liberal.

Read the whole article here.

Video for "You Have a Choice"

2008-10-09T17:25:00.002-07:00

Check out this fantastic video for the song, "You Have a Choice," performed by several prominent Canadian musicians.

Georgia Straight: Harper dodges questions about Insite

2008-10-09T17:08:00.002-07:00

Also in the Straight, Stephen Harper refuses to answer questions about Insite. Shame!

The Georgia Straight's strategic voting slate

2008-10-09T17:02:00.003-07:00

In a step away from tradition, Vancouver's alternative newsweekly the Georgia Straight has opted to express support for the candidates most likely to defeat a Conservative candidate. Then they follow with a list of candidates to support in each riding in Greater Vancouver.

In previous elections, the Georgia Straight has recommended the best candidates in each riding. Because the stakes are so high this year, we’re joining the cross-country grassroots movement to promote strategic voting and deny Harper a majority. We have examined the polls, looked at previous voting patterns, and assessed the impact of each party’s campaign in B.C. in 2008. After doing this, we’ve recommended the candidate with the best chance of defeating the Conservative.
In some instances—such as in South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale and Vancouver Centre—we’ve overlooked outstanding candidates because we don’t think they have the best chance of winning. With crucial international climate negotiations scheduled to begin next year in Copenhagen, this is no time for vote-splitting. Harper already has the support of some of Canada’s largest media corporations. The only way he’ll be stopped is if enough responsible citizens vote strategically on Tuesday (October 14). Here are Straight recommendations for 19 Lower Mainland ridings.

Read the whole article here.

Green platform writer supports strategic voting

2008-10-09T09:56:00.006-07:00

From Queer Thoughts, advocacy for strategic voting in BC, from the creator of the Green Party climate platform, Guy Dauncey:

Here is Guy's letter that was posted:

Dear Friends,

Voting on Vancouver Island

I know it hurts to vote against your instinct, to make that all-important democratic tick for a party other than the one you believe in.

Under our antiquated, colonial, discriminatory, stupid, undemocratic, first-past-the-post voting system, however, when we split the progressive vote not two but three ways, every vote for a candidate who has little chance of winning makes Conservatives cheer.

They are laughing all the way to a possible majority government, packed with Conservative MPs many of whom, If the disgraced MP Maxime Bernier is anything to go by, think climate change is a joke, a Rocky Horror Show of doom and gloom dreamed up by us eco-freaks.

I have been a member of the Green Party in Britain and Canada, on and off, for 35 years. I wrote our Canadian Green Party's climate platform, that was awarded the highest rating by the Pembina Institute. And I am urging all people of a progressive hue not to vote Green, but to vote strategically, to put aside party loyalty for greater loyalty to our Planet Earth.

We absolutely must stop the Conservatives from getting back into power. A Liberal/NDP/Green coalition government (hoping Elizabeth May gets elected) would get Canada back on track with committed action on climate change.

In Vancouver Island North, this clearly means voting for Catherine Bell, NDP -

In Nanaimo-Alberni, this clearly means voting for Zeni Maartman, NDP -

In Nanaimo-Cowichan, this clearly means voting for Jean Crowder, NDP -

In Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, it's a close race between Keith Martin (Liberal) and Jennifer Burgis (NDP)

In Saanich-Gulf Islands, this clearly means voting for Briony Penn, Liberal

In Victoria, it clearly means voting for Denise Savoie, NDP

This is also what 120 of Canada's top climate scientists are urging us to do - vote strategically - see http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/07/scientists-environment.html

Just as a comment - if all these candidates won, with Jennifer Burgis in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, 100% of Vancouver Island's MPs in Ottawa would be women - which would be amazing.

To all those committed Greens who think this means I am betraying my deepest principles - I apologize. Our undemocratic voting system turns good friends into bickering enemies, which is a drag. I have good green friends who are running for the Green Party, and I'd love to support them - but it just does not make sense.

And yes, we all want to see Proportional Voting in Canada.

We will NEVER get this with a returned Conservative government. But we MAY have a slim to good chance with a new progressive coalition government.

with best wishes,

Guy Dauncey

Victoria
www.earthfuture.com

IMF endorses Canadian economy

2008-10-09T09:41:00.002-07:00

From Canadian Cynic, we learn of a suspiciously timed endorsement of the Canadian economy from that bastion of market fundamentalism and austerity programs, the International Monetary Fund.

I could go on but you can take my word for this -- the IMF are as evil a group of parasitic, opportunistic, right-wing cocksuckers as you're likely to find anywhere. And why do I suddenly care about the IMF? Because of this:
IMF sees Canada leading developed world

Canada will outperform other well-off countries but can't escape a global slowdown as the world works through "the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s," the International Monetary Fund says.
Wow, is that timely or what? Here we are, only days from an ugly, hard-fought federal election, and the hard-right conservative IMF just happens to come out with a relatively upbeat report on Canada's financial state. Boy, I'll bet there are some folks who just can't wait to start touting that little gift for all it's worth.

The Star: Top climate scientists urge Canadian to vote strategically

2008-10-07T09:50:00.003-07:00

From the Toronto Star, with a hat tip to Thoughts on Climate Change:

VANCOUVER–More than 120 of Canada's top climate scientists have signed an open letter criticizing Conservative government policy and urging Canadians to vote "strategically" for the environment in next week's federal election.
"Global warming is the defining issue of our time," said Andrew Weaver, a lead author with last year's Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But Weaver said Tuesday that Stephen Harper's government "has yet to get engaged in the innovative and urgent policies that we need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada."
This is shaping up to be "the rare election in which the environment is the issue," said the group's John Stone.

Read the entire article here.

New website: tracking muzzled Con candidates

2008-10-06T10:31:00.002-07:00

Following up on a previous post of mine, it looks like there is now a site called harpocracy.ca devoted to the tracking of the muzzling of Con candidates.

H/t to Saskboy.

The Star: Dion, no orator, but a man of substance

2008-10-06T09:54:00.003-07:00

Here's the full Star article referred to in my previous post:

The derogatory descriptions of Stéphane Dion are telling. He is "a geek." He is "professorial." He needs new glasses – better still, contact lenses.
This is teen talk. Shallow.
When the media chatter on Dion does occasionally move up a notch, it is said that he must improve his English, communicate better in both languages, with shorter sentences, and learn a gimmick or two to sell his convoluted carbon tax.
These are the obsessions of the age of slick marketing and the TV clip. Shouldn't we rather be asking if the leader of the Liberal party has integrity? Intelligence? Knowledge? Experience? Judgment? Courage? Vision?
Does he have anything useful to say about the economy? The environment? Medicare? Child care? Poverty? National unity? Urban Canada? Relations with the United States? Our Afghan quagmire?
Media distractions notwithstanding, Canadians would assess his personal qualities and platform positions.
They would do so, ideally, independent of the Republican-style Tory attack ads about his ostensibly weak and vacillating persona.
They would do so, ideally, untainted by what unnamed Liberals have been telling journalists (their numbers a mystery – half a dozen? a dozen? – and their possible links with the defeated leadership camps of Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff shielded from public scrutiny).
Dion has many shortcomings.
He is no orator. But nor is Stephen Harper, though the Prime Minister does read his speeches more authoritatively than he used to.
Dion's English is heavily accented. So is the French of many English Canadian politicians.
He lacks charisma. So does Harper. Sarah Palin has lots of charisma.
Dion is stubborn. So are many political leaders.
He is not good at delegating. Nor is Harper. Depending on one's point of view, the latter is either "a control freak" or "a strong leader."
Dion writes his own speeches. So did Bill Clinton.
The real rap against Dion is that he does not inspire people. Harper inspires fear. Take your pick.
Dion is disliked in Quebec. So were Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien, for about the same reason: taking on the separatists.
Trudeau routinely won a majority of seats in Quebec but did so when there was no Bloc Québécois. Chrétien didn't, with the separatists fielding their own federal party.
Dion was widely derided in Quebec for writing and piloting the Clarity Act through Parliament in 2000. But he stood his ground, with dignity and an unshakable commitment to Canadian unity. He tethered the separatists to the rule of law, Canadian law. That was nothing short of a miracle.
Unlike Harper or Brian Mulroney, Dion never blurred the line between Quebec separatists and nationalists. He made that clear again on Day 1 of this campaign.
"I love Canada and I entered politics to keep Canada united," he began, before addressing fellow Quebecers: "My friends, I am as proud a Quebecer as Gilles Duceppe. That is not the subject of our disagreement. The subject of our disagreement is Canadian unity.
"I believe that in accepting help from other Canadians and offering our help to them, we are no less Quebecers. We are even more so.
"If we take Canada out of our hearts, we lose a part of ourselves.
"The role that we can play, that we should play in this Canada that we have built is more important than ever before, now that environment has become a global issue."
On climate change, Dion's leadership has been described as courageous or politically suicidal. But there's no denying the urgency of his mission, especially after Harper derailed Kyoto, a policy that was a carbon copy of George W. Bush's.
Harper's warnings that a carbon tax would be "insane" and "crazy," and would "screw Canadians," and "destroy" and "wreck" the economy constitutes fear-mongering. A similar tax has not ruined the Scandinavian economies.
Dion's commitment dates back to his days as environment minister. Chairing the 2005 UN climate-change conference in Montreal, he was "nothing short of magnificent," says Elizabeth May, who was there.
"The fact that we emerged with the very-best-case results after 36 hours of non-stop negotiation, at 6:30 a.m. the day after the conference was supposed to have ended, was 90 per cent due to the fact that Stéphane Dion did a really good job.
"He didn't buckle to the Bush administration walking out of negotiations in the middle of the night. He managed to hold things together. ...
"I would not hesitate to put him in charge of anything difficult and I wouldn't worry that he would cave," May told the Star's editorial board recently.
On the economy, Dion's 30-day plan of action may not be adequate. But there are no easy fixes and Ottawa's options are limited, given that Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have squandered the budget surplus.
But Dion's plan is more than what Harper is offering: himself as the Great Helmsman.
The Canadian economy is indeed better than America's, as Harper says, but it's not America-proof.
Dion is a sincere and honest politician, untainted by scandal. He is a polite and decent man. He is not mean or vindictive. He does not treat his political opponents as enemies. He does not question the patriotism of the critics of his Afghan policy, let alone call them agents of the Taliban. He is not proposing to send 14-year-olds to jail for life.
Vote against him because you do not like his policies, not because he is socially awkward or that he reads books.
Vote for Harper because you like his policies, not because he got himself photographed in a sweater in front of a fireplace.

|

Media chastised for "shallow and ignorant" attacks on Dion

2008-10-06T09:46:00.003-07:00

This is a letter by my friend Annamarie to the Toronto Star in response to an excellent article written by Haroon Siddiqui.

Thank you, Mr. Siddiqui, for being the only mainstream columnist to voice the opinions of most of the people in my community who are outraged by the media's blatant bias against Stephane Dion. No matter what Mr. Dion does, says, or wears, it is derided, ridiculed and considered wrong by pundits, TV/radio hosts, newspaper commentators. These actions are beyond nauseating and assume Canadians are so shallow and ignorant that we cannot see beyond Harper's gimmics, the out-of-context sound bites in his party's attack ads, and the media's complicity in this campaign.

I am a member of a party other than the Liberals. But bias is bias regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum. And I would safely bet that the majority of Canadian voters agree.

This is another reason why Canadians should seriously consider switching to a new, proportionately representative electoral system. Our present first-past-the-post encourages hostility among party rivals instead of encouraging them to work together for the common good. In the crucial times ahead, we need more co-operation and less viciousness. This is what the media should be focusing upon instead of propagating the destruction of Stephane Dion, who is a good, honourable man genuinely wanting what is best for his country. That he is not a member of the corrupt, scandalous Old Boys' Club shows the obvious strength of his character; it is the reason why his party elected him their leader.

The Tyee: Time has come to craft a coalition

2008-10-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

From the alternative Vancouver-based online news source The Tyee. As they say, it's done in Europe all the time:

If the Conservatives do not get a majority in this election, Canada could still get a majority government. This could happen if the Liberals, NDP and the Greens (if they elect any members) formed a coalition. Such a coalition government would reflect the majority of Canadians who do not support the Conservatives. The Conservatives received only 36 per cent of the vote in the last election and, with a slight shift of fortunes, they may get less in the coming election. However, when the substantial majority of over 60 per cent gets split among four other competing parties, the Conservatives -- with a minority of the vote -- could wind up forming the government. This need not happen.
If for once the Liberals and the NDP set aside partisan politics and acted in the interests of Canada, it would be the beginning of a new era for us. In making this proposal, I am not suggesting a merger of these parties. The parties would remain as they are. They would only have to agree on a certain number of objectives and policies. On this basis they could form a majority government, or even a minority government with more seats than the Conservatives.

Cabinet seats could reflect the proportionate share of MPs from both parties. If the Liberals had 115 MPs and the NDP had 40, the Liberals would compose 75 per cent of the cabinet and the NDP 25 per cent. In such an arrangement, it would seem reasonable if Jack Layton became deputy prime minister.

At this stage, both of these parties need one another if they are to have a role in forming a government. Coalitions occur on a regular basis in Europe and in other parts of the world -- but so far, never in Canada, although the NDP and the Liberals did cooperate in the past. And it was at those times that some progressive legislation was passed. It is high time for this to occur again.

Concert: This is not a Conservative Party

2008-10-06T09:31:00.003-07:00

From the Department of Culture:

Concert

SAVE THE DATE:

The Department of Culture presents
THIS IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE PARTY!
Rocking the Vote Right Across Canada

Featuring special musical guests, videos and the results of the National Video Contest Gone in 30 Seconds
Thursday October 9, 2008
Lineup party at 7:30 pm / Doors & DJs at 8 / Show at 9

The Phoenix Concert Theatre
410 Sherbourne Street, Toronto

Featuring
Dave Bidini • Jason Collett • Jim Creeggan • Friendlyness • Manitou Kwe Singers •
Nadjiwan • Parachute Club • Porkbelly Futures • The Skydiggers • Ian Tamblyn and more…
Videos By Alex Cuba • Ron Sexsmith • Stars and more…
And The Final Results Of The Gone In 30 Seconds National Video Contest

Tickets $20 in advance and at the door

PEOPLE TAKE THE POWER NOW
VOTE FOR A NEW CANADA ON OCTOBER 14

Brought to you by the Department of Culture

Download the ad as a PDF

greenpolitics.ca: Time for a coalition of the opposition

2008-10-06T09:21:00.002-07:00

This is from greenpolitics.ca, and it is an original article written by the blog author. With permission, here's the entire piece:

Victoria, BC — Enough is enough! It’s time for the four Canadian opposition parties to come together in a coalition to stop the awful prospect of yet another mandate for what could soon prove to be the meanest, most secretive, most militaristic, and most ultra-right government in Canadian history.
This means that Jack Layton and Stephan Dion, the two major opposition party leaders, must immediately drop their egotistical pretence that they are competing equally with Stephen Harper to be Canada’s next prime minister.

Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe at least had the guts to point out during the second televised leaders’ debate that he isn’t in the running for that title.

Jack Layton’s claim throughout the campaign that he’s running to be Prime Minister is simply bravado. The NDP hit its ceiling of support a while ago and doesn’t have a hope of forming government at this time. The best Layton can hope for is to become leader of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee?

By keeping up the pretence of being able to depose the Conservatives outright, these two party leaders are only allowing Harper to triumph over a divided opposition. They are placing their individual political ambitions before even the urgent historical imperative of tackling imminent global warming.

Instead of strutting around foolishly attacking each other like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee for the title of Leader of the Opposition, they should admit that the only way to prevent Harper from destroying the social fabric of Canada is to immediately form a Coalition of the Opposition with the Bloc and the Greens.

One Coalition candidate instead of four competitors in each of Canada’s 308 federal ridings would stop a Conservative victory. If only politics was that easy…

Already too late?

It may already be too late for such an idealistic and draconian tactic. But only a Coalition of the Opposition can prevent Canada from turning into a refuge for the (hopefully) soon-to-be-humilliated American ultra-right political ideology.

Last week’s leaders’ debate illuminated Canada’s political quandary in stark detail. Three million viewers watched as the four opposition parties — Liberal, NDP, Bloc and Green — hammered away against a smug Stephen Harper, who only had to sit and bend his lips in the rictus of an artificial smile as the four opposition parties flailed away ineffectually against him.

Harper and his strategists know that they only need to “hold steady” and make no upsetting policy announcements to enable their 35% base of support of complacent, conservative, and sometimes bigoted Canadians carry them back to government against a divided opposition.

It’s an old tactic, and it’s working well for Harper as the incumbent government.

Ultra-right agenda

Currently, opinion polls are showing that the Conservatives are headed for at least another minority. Whether the election gives Steve Harper overall numerical superiority in Canada’s parliament remains to be seen. But no pollster is predicting anything less than a minority Conservative outcome.

Stephen Harper has already demonstrated that he can run the country as he wishes even without a parliamentary majority. The threat of sending Canadians back to the polls kept Liberal leader Stephan Dion supporting him, as Jack Layton pointed out in the debate, 43 times during his term as prime minister.

With the threat of another election once again removed, Stephen Harper can proceed with his ultra-right agenda of tax breaks for polluting corporations and the already affluent, with arts, environment, and social program cutbacks paying for vastly increased spending on police, prisons, and the military.

That might be a neoconservative’s dream of a ‘free’ society intent on ‘defending democracy,’ but to me it sounds like a vision of hell. It’s not the Canada I want.

Do it now, or do it later

After this election, the same situation will prevail. Which opposition party is going to bring down a minority government so soon after a gruelling and costly election? Unless the opposition parties form some form of working pariamentary coalition, they’re going to be back in the same frustrating situation.

Yes, I know it’s a stretch, but the bottom line is that Canada’s political parties cannot carry on with the charade that today’s competitive, first-past-the-post electoral system can accommodate more than two major political parties, at a time when four-and-a-half distinct national parties are vying for voter support.

The solution is to move to a proportional voting system, but that’s going to take some time to achive at the federal level. When it does come — and its arrival appears to be inevitable — coalition politics will be the order of the day.

Stand on guard… for us

So the opposition parties might as well get used to the new order of Canadian coalition politics, and use the opportunity presented by today’s stark electoral choice to pre-empt the apparently inevitable continuation of Stephen Harper’s American-inspired, ultra-right brand of mealy-minded conservatism.

Layton and Dion must put aside their antipathy and form a Coalition of the Opposition. Only this will secure the kind of Canada that most Canadians want. Serial democratic dictatorship, even dictatorship by minority rule, is no longer satisfactory. It is time to stand on guard for Canada — and for the Earth.

Gerald Caplan: unless progressive forces unite, Cons will rule

2008-10-04T15:57:00.004-07:00

This is long time NDP stalwart Gerald Caplan, in Ŧhe Globe and Mail, on the fate we will have in store for us, unless progressive forces unite. The important part is at the end in bold:

On the other hand, the night did not change the key dynamic of this election - that Mr. Harper will win handily, and whether he sneaks his elusive majority or not, he will govern for the next several years as if he has a majority. He will do whatever he wants in his lifelong quest for a smaller social state and larger security state.
Why? Because Mr. Dion will certainly be forced to step down, if he hasn't the wit to do so on his own. Mr. Duceppe may well join him, knowing that Mr. Harper helped him pull off his great political comeback, allowing him to leave on a high note. The NDP will be deeply in debt, having gambled a fortune in this campaign, and will be incapable of even muttering the word "campaign" for a long time to come. And Ms. May might have as many as one MP in the next House prepared to vote against the government.

Even though it is clearly a violation of parliamentary conventions, if it's a minority Mr. Harper can stoop once again to labeling every vote a non-confidence vote, since in our system there's no one to slap him down. But really, he'll hardly need to do so. No one will be looking for another fight for the foreseeable future. The Liberals, already a shell of their former selves, are likely to tear themselves apart as Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae go after whatever carrion is left on the dying bones.

I have no idea how it can ever happen, but unless the more-or-less progressive anti-Harper forces can come together in some form, conservatives who accumulate anywhere between 36-40% of the popular vote will continue to rule this country. Ask Jean Chretien. He won his three majorities exactly this way. Ask Stephen Harper. He recognized the secret of Mr. Chretien's success and is now busily exploiting it.

Tory candidates avoid debates

2008-10-04T10:35:00.002-07:00

With rare exception, I wonder where the media is on this. I also wonder if there are any numbers on this, in terms of how many Tory no shows there have been at all-candidates debates across Canada. Nevertheless, I did come across a couple of articles, one in the Toronto Star, and one in The Georgia Straight, Vancouver's alternative newsweekly.

From the Toronto Star:

While Prime Minister Stephen Harper was readying to take on opposition leaders in last night's nationally televised debate, several of his Conservative candidates were making themselves scarce at local debates.
From the North to the Atlantic provinces and the Prairies, Tory candidates have been missing at a number of encounters.
The latest Conservative no-shows covered four Ottawa-area debates, sponsored by Canada's largest public service union and a weekly newspaper, at least one debate in Saskatchewan and two others in Winnipeg and the Northwest Territories.
The scarcity of one Conservative at a riding debate prompted a Calgary CBC radio station to launch a contest to locate Rob Anders, the Conservative incumbent in Calgary West, to prove he was still alive.
A Liberal party list of Tory candidates who have refused to participate in debates had grown to 17 across Canada by yesterday, before the no-shows registered this week.

And according to The Georgia Straight, it's not only debates they are skipping, it's media interviews as well:

So far, there’s been an epidemic of missing-in-action Conservative candidates. Last week, the Straight contacted every female Conservative candidate from the Lower Mainland, and none replied by deadline.
This week, Vancouver South candidate Wai Young didn’t return a call to discuss more than $500,000 in federal contracts that she received from the Conservative government. The CBC reported that Surrey North candidate Dona Cadman used RCMP to block reporters. On September 25, neither of the Richmond Conservative hopefuls showed up for an all-candidates meeting hosted by the Canada Asia Pacific Business Association.

Canadians need to hear and know about this. Why are Con candidates being so evasive? What do they have to hide? What might they accidentally blurt out that they are not supposed to? What are they afraid of being asked? What policies are they afraid of having to try to explain? The Cons are running for re-election as a sitting government, and we damn well have a right to hold them to account.

Canadian musicians release song for strategic voting

2008-10-04T10:25:00.004-07:00

Through, Avaaz, Canadian Musicians have put together a record called "You Have a Choice," to inspire Canadians to vote strategically in on October 14.

From Avaaz.ca:

"These bright lights of the Canadian music scene are sending a message to voters: you can make a difference, and we need to come together and strategically support candidates who will defeat Stephen Harper and fight climate change," said Patel.

The Canadian artists who rallied together for this effort include: K-OS, Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies, Ben Kowalewicz of Billy Talent, Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace, Sarah Harmer, Hawksley Workman, Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene, Darren Dumas of The Salads and the Arts Offstage Choir under the direction of David Reed. The song was written and produced by The Hundreds and Thousands' Ian Lefeuvre and K-OS. Lyrics all contributed by the artists. Additional keyboards are performed by Todor Kobakov from Major Maker. The track was mastered by Joao Carvalho.

Top climate scientist supports strategic voting

2008-10-04T10:04:00.003-07:00

This is a couple of weeks old, but I want to make sure this is posted. Andrew Weaver, world-renowned climatologist at the University of Victoria, comes out in favour of strategic voting. From The Vancouver Sun:

Stepping into the political fray is almost unheard of for a scientist, especially one of Weaver's stature. As one of the world's pre-eminent climate scientists, he was part of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that collates and interprets climate change data for the world's governments and a lead author of its seminal assessment reports.
But so "incensed" is he by what he calls Prime Minister Stephen Harper's war on science and scientists, by the government's questioning of climate change and by the obstructionist positions the Tories have taken on the issue internationally, he felt he had no choice.
"I have historically refused to actually say anything like I've said to you," he continued. "But I recognize that [climate change] is the defining problem for humanity, and I recognize there's only one leader in Canada who's actually dealing with it."

Read the entire article here.

Harper, plagiarism, and Iraq

2008-10-02T09:36:00.002-07:00

Matthew Good astutely observes that the Howard-Harper plagiarism affair is about much more than just plagiarism:

The speech that Mr. Harper gave in 2003 was one in which he urged this country to join the ‘coalition of the willing’, and thus involve us in the US led invasion of Iraq. One therefore has to ask several fundamental questions.
1) Were the Prime Minister to gain a majority, would there be a reversal of policy regarding Iraq, even if such an alteration did not promise the inclusion of Canadian combat assistance?

2) Does the Prime Minister still hold to the belief that Canada should have supported the invasion of Iraq?

3) Given what has occurred since, would he have supported Canadian involvement in the occupation of that country?

These are fundamental questions that I feel are highly relevant.

Suzuki: We must elect leaders who care about the planet

2008-09-29T18:15:00.004-07:00

Turns out Dr. David Suzuki is blogging it this election. Cool. And while he doesn't mention Harper by name in this piece, I think it's pretty clear from this he ain't voting for the Cons.

Leaders of nations worldwide know we are near more than one environmental tipping point. So they've met to hammer out agreements in crucial areas such as biodiversity loss and global warming. Canada itself has acknowledged, through national planning and legislation, the importance of issues such as species conservation and sustainable development. Many of these agreements and strategies must be addressed during the mandate of the government we elect on October 14.
In December 2009, Canada will meet with other nations in Copenhagen to adopt an international treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. In 2010, the country will also have to report on the progress it has made regarding the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's targets for reducing biodiversity loss. Over the next few years, Canada's government must also formally review its Species at Risk Act, implement a Sustainable Development Act, and tackle a number of other crucial environmental issues.
We need a government that will lead when it comes to caring for the finite world that gives us life and sustains us. We've already squandered 20 years since global warming was first recognized as an issue requiring immediate attention. We signed the Kyoto Protocol 10 years ago, in 1998, and ratified it in 2002, but have done little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since then. On top of that, our oceans have more plastics and pollution but fewer fish, plant and animal species are disappearing at an accelerating rate, and we have failed to take advantage of the many opportunities sustainable development offers.
Even though the environment has at least been on the agenda during this election, pollsters tell us Canadians see the economy and health care as more important. But it's not a matter of one or the other. The health of Canadians depends on a healthy environment, as does a healthy economy. Everything is connected!
The economy is a huge issue, as we can see from the current meltdown in the U.S., which will surely have an enormous impact on our economy. But some politicians are exploiting our fears to imply that environmental protection and action on global warming are not compatible with a strong economy. What planet are these people living on?
That way of thinking is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. A strong, sustainable economy is not possible without a healthy environment. Global warming, pollution, diminishing resources, and loss of species and habitat will cost us increasingly more as our already burdened health-care systems are stretched to the limit, as we run short of fossil fuels and land to grow food, and as ecosystems collapse, threatening the availability of clean water, air, and soil.
Those who argue that protecting the environment will hurt the economy may want to take note that none of the current economic problems in the U.S., here, or around the world has been caused by environmental-protection measures! On the contrary, countries such as Germany and Denmark that took measures early on to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and switch to more renewable energy sources have seen substantial economic benefits and have been less vulnerable to the impacts of volatile fossil-fuel markets. We don't decry $90 a tonne tipping fees for landfills but we scream bloody murder at a suggested $10 a tonne to pollute the atmosphere with carbon. Sweden has a flourishing economy with a carbon tax at $150 a tonne!
We're a bit behind, but we can start to catch up by recognizing that environmental initiatives can give the economy a huge boost. We can keep sucking every last bit of coal and oil out of the ground until it's all gone, until it's all been burned and its carbon released into the air, or we can create jobs and economic opportunities by developing renewable sources of energy.
Yes, we can all make a difference through our own individual actions, by changing some of our habits, but we also have an opportunity to elect a government that will contribute to the kinds of large-scale changes needed for a sustainable world. As Canadians, we must hold the politicians to account and ensure that, no matter which party wins the election, we will have a government that shows foresight and leadership at home and abroad. That way we'll have a country that is thriving on opportunity rather than drowning in crisis. If we keep stalling, we won't have to worry about the economy, or health care, or anything else.

Sierra Club: Cons receive failing grade on climate change.

2008-09-28T10:13:00.003-07:00

Thoughts on Climate Change has nicely summarized an evaluation of the five major political parties platforms on climate change by the Sierra Club. As expected, the Cons fail:

Conservatives: F+

"Comments: Needs to acknowledge the climate crisis, and stop obstructing progress at international meetings. It is essential for Canada to commit to an absolute reduction target with a 1990 baseline. Should abandon the misleading approach of intensity targets."

Bloc Quebecois: B
"Comments: Develop a more detailed plan, and specify a price for carbon emissions."

Green Party: A-
"Comments: A significant part of the revenue raised should be directed to achieve further greenhouse gas reductions."

Liberals: B+
"Comments: Outline how the price on carbon will increase to a level to achieve a minimum 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Make a firm commitment to a target of a minimum 25% reduction in emissions by 2020."

NDP: B

"Comments: Either include a carbon tax to put a price on carbon sooner, or provide details for how the plan will reach its target."

View of the full report here.

Winnipeg Free Press on strategic voting movements

2008-09-27T09:54:00.002-07:00

The Winnipeg Free Press has an article on the recent phenomenon of grassroots web-based movements in favour of strategic voting. H/t to Impolitical.

Avaaz condemns Harper response to global poverty

2008-09-26T18:26:00.002-07:00

From The Harper Index:

The prestigious international anti-poverty organization Avaaz has called Canada one of the three worst offenders in the global fight against poverty.
"World leaders gather this Thursday at the United Nations to renew the fight against extreme poverty," reported an appeal from the organization. "But three countries -- France, Canada, and Italy -- are threatening to undermine the world's anti poverty efforts, by slashing their development aid budgets and breaking their international promises.
Avaaz accuses Canada of reneging on development funding. "In Canada, which kept 99.7% of its income last year, Stephen Harper seems more interested in winning his election than in upholding Canada's tradition of moral leadership," the organization charges.
It is urging its members and citizens around the world to flood the Canadian government with emails as part of "sending Harper, Sarkozy, and Berlusconi a clear signal that we expect them to keep to their word."

The Star: Harper's goal a right-wing Canada.

2008-09-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

From the Toronto Star:

Stephen Harper is often accused of having a "hidden agenda" and yearning to form a majority government so he can implement it.
In fact, though, there is nothing "hidden" about what Harper wants, which is to change Canada fundamentally from a centre-left country into a small-c conservative, right-wing nation.
The only question is how fast he will be able to do.
If he wins a majority in the Oct. 14 election, the transformation may happen very quickly.
Indeed, Harper leaves no doubt what he wants to do.
"I said for a long time, and nobody listened to me for the longest time, that my goal was to make conservatism the natural governing philosophy of the country," he said in a recent interview with the National Post. "I think we're moving the country in the right direction and I also think our party is becoming, I wouldn't say centrist, maybe more pragmatic."
To drive home that theme, Harper told reporters on the campaign trail last week that he is fully convinced Canada has become more conservative over the last 20 years.
He also argued that Canadians are more accepting of his positions on crime, taxes, national unity and social policies relating to families.
Is Harper correct? Are we becoming more conservative, more right wing as a nation?
While Harper may have an argument when it comes to wanting better controls on government spending, especially after the runaway deficits under the last Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, he is way off base when it comes to social issues.
For years, Harper has talked about the death of the Left.
Such talk is conventional wisdom in the conservative movement, especially in the United States, where Harper gets his political inspiration. He particularly likes the anti-government, socially conservative agenda espoused by the late U.S. president Ronald Reagan.
His dislike for Canada as a centre-left nation with strong social policies was well illustrated in a 1997 speech he gave when he was vice-president of the right-wing National Citizens Coalition to a conservative American think-tank. He told the crowd that Canada is "a northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it."
He went on to praise the U.S. right wing, saying: "Your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world."
In Harper's ideal world, he would give away most powers of the federal government, slash government funding of the arts (he claims ordinary folks don't care about the arts), get tougher on criminals and further reduce taxes.
Also, he would ease regulations on businesses, promote more free trade, allow more privatization of essential services, cozy up more to Washington and abandon Canada's traditional role as an "honest broker" on the world stage.
But as much as Harper would like to deny it, Canada has long been one of the world's most successful small-l liberal countries.
And as much as he would like to ignore it, most Canadians don't share his views. That's reflected in polls that show that, while the Tories are ahead, some 65 per cent of us support the centrist Liberals and the left-leaning NDP, Greens and Bloc Québécois.
In fact, small-l liberalism remains strong in Canada.
Polls consistently show we are a compassionate nation, strongly supporting universal medicare, tough environmental laws and significant foreign aid. We back same-sex marriage, abortion and a ban on capital punishment, issues on which conservatives find themselves opposed to the mainstream.
The left and centre-left want more money to fight poverty, to help natives, to create more daycare spaces. They back racial and gender equality, multiculturalism and don't consider the phrase "politically correct" to be a bad thing.
Not a bad list.
So, if voters in the centre and on the left fail to deliver a clear message to Harper on election day and hand him a majority government, will he really remake Canada in his own right-wing image?
For that, just listen to Harper himself, who, in the interview in which he touted a conservative governing philosophy, stated flatly: "I am not in politics to be loved, I'm in politics to get things done and make a difference."
That's not a "hidden" agenda.

DeSmog Blog: Economists denounce Harper Plan

2008-09-26T18:01:00.002-07:00

From DeSmog Blog:

Three top economists, led by Dr. Mark Jaccard of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, have released an analysis (attached) of the Conservative government's climate policy, saying that, as designed, the might make no headway whatever in reducing Canadian CO2 emissions.
Jaccard and fellow economists Nic Rivers and Jotham Peters, say the Stephen Harper plan is particularly faulty on two counts: it sets "intensity targets" that allow allow absolute emissions to continue going up, and it allows companies to purchase "offset" that completely absolve the firm of making any CO2 reductions itself. Both of these policies are proven failures in actually limiting or reducing the total emission of CO2.
The report, entitled "Assessing Canada’s 2008 Climate Policy," also calls into question the value of "emission targets" that are not linked to firm caps.
"Emission targets are meaningless by themselves and often a red herring. Some
environmentalists have applauded politicians for setting aggressive targets for GHG
reduction (called “stretch targets” or “aspirational targets”) and the media tends to focus
on these. As a consequence, many politicians select ambitious targets even while their
actual policies have negligible likelihood of achieving them."
In the current circumstances, all five Canadian political leaders have set emission targets for 2020 - calling for reduction of CO2 emissions of between 20 and 30 per cent.
But while the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party have all accepted the international benchmark date of 1990, the Conservatives have chosen a baseline of 2006. Because Canadian emissions rose between 1990 and 2006 by nearly one-third, that means that - even if successful - the Harper Conservatives would reduce emissions by only three per cent from 1990 levels.
Even that, however, is too optimistic, according to the Jaccard report's conclusioin:
"... it is highly unlikely that the policies of the government of Canada will achieve the target of reducing national emissions 20% below 2006 levels by 2020. The lack of an economy-wide emissions price and the allowance for 100% offsets for industrial emitters make it highly likely that emissions will be significantly higher than target levels in 2020 and indeed might even be close to today’s levels. Since the government claims that it is intent on achieving its 2020 emissions reduction target, it is difficult to understand why it does not immediately convert the intensity cap to an absolute cap and eliminate or severely reduce the offset provision. It also needs to extend its cap to cover all emissions in the economy."

Doctor refers to Harper policy on Insite as genocide

2008-09-24T10:34:00.003-07:00

A couple of BC doctors involved with the fight against AIDS have slammed the Harper government's approach to Insite, one of them referring to the policy as genocide.

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: The Harper Record

2008-09-23T11:36:00.003-07:00

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has just released The Harper Record, the most detailed and comprehensive analysis of the record of the Harper government yet released. I've just had a skim of it and I agree, it is very impressive. It contains detailed analyses of their performance in all policy areas, including the Harper government's own raison d'etre, crime policy. It also includes an overview of Harper's background. I strongly recommend checking it out.

letter to cofused Canadian voters

2008-09-23T11:10:00.003-07:00

Annamarie has asked me to post this letter to confused Canadian voters from a concerned Canadian friend.

Hello confused voter:

I am so sorry that you still think it is unfair of our venerable CBC to thrash Dion and tow the Harper line. I can see you need a bit of background info on this. When Harper cheated his way into office with the collusion of the RCMP and unfortunately Jack Layton, the whole dynamics of politics changed. Harper is a US lobbyist sent to us and financed by the republicans and big business to open Canada for the US style unregulated casino like financial system. Chretien was ousted by Martin for not cozying up to big business and Bay St. enough. Martin tried to behave as if his agenda was the usual Liberal semi socialist program even though he too was in agreement with selling out Canada to corporate interests. After all, he was the one who put us in the Afghanistan combat role under US command, Enduring Freedom. We are not under the Nato umbrella, we are already embedded in the US army. That is why Dion had to agree to the mission extension; there is no way the Americans will let us go. The Americans also blackmail and unfairly interfere with other countries internal politics. Harper win was engineered by them, because Martin was not as compliant as this current puppet proved to be. Martin was the one who put us on the road with deep integration and the SPP where the goal is to merge us into the US. As it is, we have too many laws and safeguards preventing that from happening as yet. Harper for the past 2 and a half years was furiously working behind the scenes to harmonize whatever he can with US laws and regulations, at the expense of the public. Since that time when Harper sneaked his way into office, Canada the decent, tolerant, just country ceased to exist. Witness the relentless attacks and bullying that have been going on for the past two years. Is this the country you grew up in? When Dion was chosen as leader of the party, all the pro business people went ballistic. Their lovely plan of selling us to the US developed a major snag. Here was a man who is honest, principled, just and not in politics for personal gain, thus he became their chief nemesis. In other words, he is a mortal enemy to the crooks on the right, both of big oil and big business. A man you cannot bribe or intimidate is their worst enemy. We, who attended that famous convention chose him precisely for those qualities. We did not want a Martin clone in Ignatieff or a pro Israel, and by extension another American supporter to be the new leader. We wanted a man who would stand up for Canada and we knew Dion could do it. We wanted to change the party and return it to local control for the citizen's benefit. Two weeks after the convention the attacks started from the Cons. Have you ever wondered why they spent millions in the past years to assassinate Dion's character? Isn't it strange that they did not succeed in destroying him and like an energizing bunny he keeps on going because he knows HE IS RIGHT? He has a fully developed plan for the well-being of Canada and the other side is furious that nothing seems to faze him, not his own party's lack of faith or the whole negative press he gets, he just pushes on because HE IS RIGHT! You must learn that two-thirds of our media are in conservative hands and they do not want him to win. Harper offered them unregulated markets where they can fleece the public with impunity. You think they will be fair and just? All the polls paid by them is fabricated to sound that way, to discourage the voters and have them stay home. If the Liberals lose heart as a lot of them are, the feeling forced on them already is: "what is the use, Harper will win anyway." But why should they? The cons have no platform, no plan for Canada except to let the market destroy its safety net. The CBC is a government funded organization that is gutted from the inside, and the long time anchors like Peter Mansbridge and Don Newman gave up their objectivity long ago against being fired. Don't think Harper would not do it, he has a string of wrongful dismissals under his belt.

What I am trying to say is use your head and use the internet wisely. You can find the truth easily, it is out there. The site to watch daily is The Turner Report, there you will get daily updates about the lies and shenanigans the conservatives are engaged in. Liblogs is another one, where you will read about all the outrages and happenings immediately as they occur. By the way, the only honest polling company belongs to Nick Nanos and he polls for CPAC. He was bang on with the last election results and he is the only one who does not manipulate the undecided numbers. Currently, the cons among decided voters lead at 36 per cent, the same as when they were elected in 2006, the Liberals are at 31 per cent despite the constant media barrage against Dion. Do you think there is not a concentrated effort to defeat Dion by the media? The NDP are at 22 per cent. Do you know what is the most important part of this poll? There are 20 per cent undecided voters!! Those people are waiting for the debates, they are waiting to see if anything happens like a major financial meltdown in the US or a new scandal, or Julie Couillard's book on Bernier released before the election date. There are too many unknown factors still to call this election won by the cons. Harper as a dictator may sound good to his blind followers, but this is a huge country with regional interests that cannot be run by one rigid ideology. So I will ask you to accept the fact that big business, big oil, the media and Harper are conspiring against the Canadian people. Knowing this, your duty for your and your children's sake is to go and help out with your local campaign and help however you are able. We need money and volunteers. This is the last chance for Canada to remain free; if we blow it this time will be an exploited poor region of a failing fascist empire. The slogan is WE WANT OUR CANADA BACK!! If you know any young people convert them to the cause, it is their future that is being given away. Allow Dion to return the country to its guiding principles: Peace, Order and Good Government. Let him fulfill his vision, Canada will be the richer for it.

Klara Palotay

Ken Dryden speech

2008-09-23T10:16:00.003-07:00

I'm not going to post a speech from just any politician, regardless of affiliation, but I've always got time for Ken Dryden. (Yes, he's a hockey hero, but he's also a very smart man who in my humble opinion, who would probably make a better PM than any of the folks running for the position right now.)

H/t to Saskboy and others.

We’re now about a third of the way through this election campaign. What’s been happening up until now? Where does it all seem to be going?
Stephane Dion has been talking about our economy - our economy now and in a very changing world; about the environment; about poverty, what it does to people, to kids, and the need to engage that fight now.

But really, up to this point, Mr. Harper has controlled the message of this election. Yet, this message has often been odd and surprising.

Like their slogan: “We’re better off with Harper.” This is their slogan; their ad - “We’re better off - with Harper” - like saying “taking everything into consideration, despite all this or that, on the whole, really, probably we’d have to say, (“we’re better off with Harper”). Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Nothing energizing about it, nothing exciting. Nothing that makes you want to wake up in the morning and race into the possibilities of your day. Yet this is their message. Even in their dreams they can’t quite express anything stirring, anything big. Is this what being a Prime Minister is about? What Canada is about?

Then there’s the blue vest, the “Mr. Nice Guy” ads. Ad firms are paid millions to tell the story their client wants told. It’s much easier for them when it’s a new “product” or a new “person” launch. When the information they provide is the only information - when the public knows nothing else. The problem for Mr. Harper is that the public does know something else. They’ve been watching him for 2 ½ years and Stephen Harper, they know, may be lots of things, but he’s not a “nice guy.” He’s not.

Nice guys don’t cut literacy programs. Nice guys don’t cut funding to women’s groups, aboriginal groups, health and childcare and poverty and disability groups. Toying with them month after month, teasing them with silence and desperate hope. If, they say to themselves, if I don’t say anything, if I just go quiet, maybe I might get something. Please. Then crumbs, or nothing.

Nice guys don’t decide there’s only one voice in this country that matters. Not these voices of our communities. Not those of his own Cabinet or Caucus. Not voices in the arts who get their programs cut because they say things that might make us squirm. Not any voice competent and professional who disagrees - Linda Keen, Adrian Measner, Jean-Guy Fleury - who then feel the pulverizing weight of a Government machine come down on them just so they know: you don’t mess with “the vest”.

Arts groups, literacy and poverty and childcare groups - it’s the same story. Nice guys don’t make the weak weaker and the vulnerable more vulnerable.

Nice guys don’t act like there are Canadians and not-quite Canadians. Those who fit Mr. Harper’s understanding of how life is supposed to be lived, and those, Canadians too - single mothers, addicts, gays and lesbians - who don’t.

And nice guys don’t take someone else’s person, as he did Monsieur Dion, they don’t take their personality, their character, their life, what they’ve worked hard to build, what is decent and substantial and good. What they’ve earned. They don’t take that, twist it, stretch it, caricature and distort it. They don’t buy air time and in front of millions of people, assassinate it. And pretend, ahh, that’s just politics.

Oh, and the puffin and the poop - oops, sorry. Didn’t mean it. Just like I don’t mean all the other just-as-new ads on the Conservatives’ website, that reach tens of thousands just like the Mr. Nice Guy ads on TV, that are just as abusive as the others in the pre-Mr. Nice Guy time.

If it quacks like a duck, put a blue vest on it, it’s still a duck.

But who says you need a “nice guy” to be a Prime Minister? It’s a tough, often disagreeable job. As they say about war - with the enemy all around, who do you want in that foxhole next to you. In politics, in sports and business, some not-so-nice guys are good leaders and win, and some nice guys are good leaders and win too. And some nice guys and not-so-nice guys fail. Being a good leader isn’t about that. It’s something more.

From these first 13 days, it is clear that Mr. Harper has decided this election is about him. He’s saying to Canadians: I’m a leader. I know what I want - I’m decisive - I deliver. And that, he says, is leadership. And in uncertain economic and global times, he says, Canadians need that and want that. But what Mr. Harper confuses is the posture of leadership, and the substance of leadership. Leadership is . . . leading - getting others to follow. But critically, fundamentally, leadership is direction. It is going . . . somewhere. The question is “where”? Leadership matters because the “where” matters, and it’s the job of a Prime Minister to know better than anyone else what the best “where” is. For the country. For your life and my life. That’s real leadership.

As a golfer, I can hit the ball a long way. The problem is I can’t hit it in the right direction. And a ball hit - decisively, competently - in the wrong direction is a ball that goes further and further and further into the woods. History is filled with leaders who have competently, decisively gone in the wrong direction with disastrous results.

Where is Mr. Harper’s “where”?

He doesn’t seem to want to talk about that. In making this election all about him, he is doing his best to make this election about nothing. It’s his “Seinfeld campaign.” But in 2008, how can that be? This is a time when the cost of carbon economically and environmentally is forcing the world’s countries to re-imagine the future. To reward the constructive and punish the destructive. To act. To change. To create the hard-won possibilities to compete in the economy ahead.

It’s a time when the gap between rich and poor is growing. When too many Canadians live the way no Canadians should have to live. When too many don’t have a real chance at a real future.

It’s a time when our children need more and better opportunities to learn - when they’re young and need a good start; later in college and university. A time when aboriginal peoples finally and forever need the chance of a full Canadian life.

It’s a time when, as Canadians, we need to think about ourselves differently. We are 33 million people - one of the world’s largest economies; one of the world’s richest nations; with a land mass so big and abundant amidst a world of countries that have neither. We are safe, secure and stable; we can count on tomorrow, plan for tomorrow, imagine and build tomorrow, when just about everyone else cannot. With our French and English past, with our present where people from almost everywhere live within our borders - we are a country which has learned to live with difference, accept difference, learn from difference; live the global world of the future, when to much of the rest of the world difference still means guns and blood.

Countries come and go, prominent at one time, pushed to the sidelines in another. History is a long time. And undeniably, whatever Canada has been in the past we will be far more in the future. The world knows that. We need to know that too. And our leaders need to know that, and embody it and act that way in everything they do.

There is more to us, more to Canada, than tax breaks as the answer for everything. More to Canada than life as pieces and parts - East; West. Quebec; the Rest of Canada - firewalls everywhere. More to us than Mr. Harper’s small, pinched vision of ourselves and our future.

“Better off with Harper”?

NO.

We are more than this.

This election is about something.

Stephane Dion may get a lot of criticism, but he is trying to make this campaign about something. Mr. Harper is not.

Leadership, real leadership, is first of all, most of all, knowing what’s important - then focusing on it, sharing it with others, then determinedly, relentlessly, together, getting there.

I don’t believe in “hidden agendas.” I find arguments like that just too easy. I just want to know where Mr. Harper’s going. Tell me. Tell us. What is your vision of this country? How should it work? What should it be? What is the best “US” now and for the future? How does Canada become what Canada can be? Tell us. We need to know. Tell us how, person to person, we, as Canadians, should relate to each other? What we can expect of others, and what others can expect of us? Tell us what role government should play, and shouldn’t? Tell us about families, in busy, complicated real, not fanciful lives, how as parents we give ourselves and our kids a real chance at all that’s in us to be. Families are not just card games with kids - tell us. We need to know.

And once you’ve told us that, tell us why you’re not saying to Canadians that to realize this vision, one you believe so important to our present and future, so unbelievably exciting to you and to all of us, that you need us, all of us, that you need a majority to do it? Say it, say it, why wouldn’t you? Shout it from the rooftops - - after you’ve told us your vision of the country, and for the country. After you’ve decided this campaign is not about nothing.

Mr. Harper wants this campaign to be about nothing because on all those things the campaign needs to be about, he has nothing to offer.

This campaign is NOT about Mr. Harper. It is NOT about him. It is about our present and future economy, about climate change, poverty and learning. It is about all Canadians having a real chance. It’s about encouraging, allowing, seeking out voices different from our own, that make us smarter; that bring us to our best and keep us from our worst. It’s about our understanding of ourselves as a country, about the importance of Canada in the world of our future. This is a campaign about BIG, IMPORTANT things.

In an election about nothing, Mr. Harper will win. In an election about something, we will win. We have 23 days.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT HIM. THIS IS NOT ABOUT NOTHING.

a few links

2008-09-23T09:58:00.002-07:00

Thanks to my friend Annamarie for e-mailing me the following links about non-partisan groups, advocating for Canadians to vote strategically.

AnyoneButHarper.ca

Department of Culture

Vote For Environment

Harper family values?

2008-09-22T18:27:00.002-07:00

From The Tyee, Murray Dobbin on the odd family-values stance of Stephen Harper:

You have to hand it to Stephen Harper and the Conservatives and their chutzpa at portraying themselves as pro-family. Virtually all their policies work to undermine the security of families and their quality of life. Unless, of course, you are talking about the families of the wealthy and privileged who have received about 70 per cent of federal personal tax cuts over the past 10 years.
In fact, middle class families have been stripped of social program benefits during that time and almost all of that money "saved" has found its way into the pockets of people who don't need it.

Along the way, Canada has witnessed the biggest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in its history.

Of course Stephen Harper is counting on all those facts being swept away with cozy, sweater-clad visuals of him sitting down with a family in Burnaby. Neo-cons also get a huge amount of traction from their so-called pro-life stand. But while they are keen to protect the fetus, as soon as it is born the kid and its parents are on their own.

Read the entire article here.

retired SFU prof attacks Harper government

2008-09-18T10:27:00.003-07:00

In the Georgia Straight, we see that retired SFU psychology professor Bruce Alexander has some choice words for the Harper government's war on drugs.

“The Harper government has a very strong economic ideology,” Alexander told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “That’s a perfectly legitimate idea, but in their hands it’s a dogma. And if you take it as a dogma, then you simply can’t recognize that a problem as terrifying as addiction has its roots in the kind of fragmentation that is inevitably produced by free-market economics.
"So they have to go back to the old idea that the reason we have people who aren’t behaving properly is drugs—that drugs have a magical quality of taking over human beings who would otherwise be normal guys shopping at Wal-Mart.”

Read the entire article here.

Canadian Medical Association slams Harper government

2008-09-18T10:27:00.002-07:00

In an editorial in the CMA journal, the CMA has slammed the Harper government for it's failed response to the listeriosis outbreak.

Charest not happy with Harper

2008-09-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

It seems Quebec premier and former Tory Jean Charest is none to happy with Harper's slashing of arts funding.

Progressives for Dion.

2008-09-15T16:14:00.001-07:00

H/t to Annamarie at Verbena-19 for bringing to my attention a non-partisan group calling itself Progressives for Stephane Dion.

I'm bringing this blog back, temporarily anyway

2008-09-14T22:22:00.003-07:00

I wasn't going to, but I have decided to bring back my Stop Stephen Harper blog, for the duration of the federal election campaign anyway. I still have a disdain for partisan politics, and I want to make it clear that this is a non-partisan blog devoted, at the very least, preventing Stephen Harper from getting a majority on October 14. I never thought the Cons would actually threaten to get a majority of seats, but to my disdain some polls point in that direction.

This blog will pay attention to any developments during the campaign that shed light on the threat that Stephen Harper poses to the fabric of Canadian society, in addition to reminders of exactly what Stephen Harper has stood for in the past.

Because the Stop Stephen Harper blog is no longer on the Prog Blog blogroll, posts will be cross-posted at one of my other blogs, My Intellectual Odyssey.

Fellow progressive Canadians, at this point in time, I feel a little uneasy about our future. Oh, I know no matter what happens, we will somehow endure. However, even if the Harpercons only win a minority government, the conventional wisdom seems to be that they will be able to govern as if they have a majority, because they CPC will be well funded, and the other parties will be broke. I cannot bear the thought of this. I don't know what the future will hold, but I do know that I will know that I and many others will not be willing sacrifice the fabric of Canadian society without a fight. Even if opposition parties are disabled, grassroots opposition to the ideological agenda of the Harpercons will and must be massive.

First things first, though. There is an election to fight.

this blog will stay up as an archive

2007-09-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

Due to time constraints and a shift in commitments, I will no longer be updating this blog. However, I will keep this blog up as an archive. Please use the resources on the right sidebar.

I think that the next election has to largely be about the environment. If it is, my feeling is that Stephen Harper will absolutely not win a majority in the next election. The battle is to remove him from government. Keep hope alive.

As for myself, I am a full time student now at Langara College in Vancouver. I am also chair of Amnesty International's Business and Human Rights working group in Vancouver. Please check out our blog.

This is where I feel my calling is now. I maintain the greatest of respect for those who will continue the campaign against Harper, and no one will be more pleased than I when he goes down. That said, personally, on a general level, I find partisan politics to be distasteful. I much prefer what I see as the the independence and nobility of nonpartisan social justice activism, in the tradition of Stephen Lewis or Romeo Dallaire.

In peace,
Stephen

Harper in Latin America

2007-07-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

Alex Neve of Amnesty International on Harper's visit to Columbia:

"We recognize that (Harper), probably, through dealings with the U.S. government and others, is also receiving strong messages that he needs to go down and shore up (Colombian) President (Alvaro) Uribe's beleaguered government and convey a strong message of support," said Alex Neve, head of Amnesty International Canada.

Neve said that support would be for naught if a free trade agreement with the country pushes the human rights situation out of the picture.

"It's our hope that he's going to recognize the importance of being consistent with the human rights message, that if he starts to become inconsistent then he immediately starts to lose his credibility."

There is also concern with respect to Canadian mining company Barrick Gold's interests in Chile:

The most controversial stop on the trip could come Wednesday in Santiago, Chile. There, Harper will visit the offices of Barrick Gold, whose proposed Pascua Lama gold and silver mine in the Andes on the Chile-Argentine border has become a rallying point for critics of multinational mining operations.

Reports that the company's explorations have eroded the size of three glaciers by more than half have some Chilean lawmakers calling for a halt to planned operations and a probe into the environmental effects of Barrick's activities.

I will post more about the business interests in our Business & Human Rights in Vancouver blog.

More on O'connor/Rumsfeld

2007-07-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

I also came across this via Allison's comment on liberal catnip:

IT WAS ONLY SOMEWHAT embarrassing that certain Liberals pasted U.S. President George W. Bush with gross and juvenile insults, but it was excruciatingly embarrassing that a certain Conservative, Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor, sent to former U. S. secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, a letter of congratulations for a job well-done.

Yes, it was stupid of one of former prime minister Jean Chretien’s senior aides to let reporters hear her call the president of the U.S. "a moron." And, yes, it was nasty and childish of Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish to stomp on a Bush doll for viewers of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Was O’Connor trying to atone for the anti-Bush indiscretions of rude Grits? Whatever he had in mind, he complimented Rumsfeld so lavishly he sounded both fawning and utterly ignorant of the ringing attacks on Rumsfeld by scores of knowledgeable Americans.

Read the whole article.

Gordon O'Connor and Donald Rumsfeld sitting in a tree...

2007-07-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here's Robert Fisk on Gordon O'Connor's positive feelings toward Donald Rumsfeld.

Hands up those readers who know that Canada's Defence Minister, Gordon O'Connor, actually sent a letter to Rumsfeld two days before his departure in disgrace from the Pentagon, praising this disreputable man's "leadership". Yes, O'Connor wanted "to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your many achievements (sic) as Secretary of Defence, and to recognise the significant contribution you have made in the fight against terrorism". The world, gushed the ridiculous O'Connor, had benefited from Rumsfeld's "leadership in addressing the complex issues in play".

O'Connor tried to shrug off this grovelling note, acquired through the Canadian Access to Information Act, by claiming he merely wanted to thank Rumsfeld for the use of US medical facilities in Germany to ferry wounded Canadian soldiers home from Afghanistan. But he made no mention of this in his preposterous letter. O'Connor, it seems, is just another of the world's illusionists who believe they can ignore the facts - and laud fools - by stating the opposite of the truth. Bush, of course, is among the worst of these meretricious creatures. So is the late Tony Blair.

Here's a CTV piece on the original story.

Harper: How far will he take petty partisanship?

2007-07-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Scott has a good piece on Deceivin' Stephen, as he calls him, (hey, I like that) resorting to petty partisanship, even on Canada Day of all days. Here's Scott quoting Harper and responding.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told party-goers on Parliament Hill that Canada is once again a player on the world stage. By contributing to the security of Afghanistan and Haiti, and by becoming an energy and resources superpower, he said Canada has resumed its role as a world leader… “The news is spreading throughout the world: Canada’s back,” Mr. Harper told the Ottawa crowd Sunday.

Excuse me, Mr. Harper, Canada was never “gone” to begin with, and did not just “get back” from anywhere, notwithstanding your attempts to make it sound like all of this coincided with your election victory last year. Furthermore, Canada was both in Afghanistan and Haiti long before you showed up on the scene, and definitely not under a Conservative Government.

I also caught that snide remark about the “energy and resources superpower”. That’s code word saying to the public “if you go green like those environmentalists and opposition politicians want you to, you lose our superpower capabilities that oil gives us”.

Canada Day is a day that should unite us as Canadians. A day where we should try anyway to put our differences aside. It should be sacred in that respect. That Harper would break that tradition suggests to me how desperate he is to score political points. Hopefully, it will backfire. And criticizing Harper on this day is fair. He made himself fair game.

Harper supporting missile defence?

2007-06-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being away awhile. This is from the G8 summite, but want to make sure it gets on here.

It seems Stephen Harper may be throwing his weight behind George Bush's sorely misguided and dangerous ballistic missile defence plan:

U.S. plans for its anti-missile shield include installing 10 interceptors in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic linked to an early warning system, probably based in the Caucasus region.

On Tuesday, Harper said Putin shouldn't be concerned about a U.S.-built missile defence shield because it is not aimed at Russia.

Putin's relations with Washington are at an all-time low after he threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Europe in retaliation for the U.S. missile shield plan.

The Harper government, with a minority, has to be careful in its approach, Jack Lyaton has said in response to denials from Harper's communications director:

In Heiligendamm, Germany, site of this year's G-8 summit, Harper's communications director, Sandra Buckler, told reporters travelling with the Prime Minister yesterday that Canada was not changing its stance on missile defence.

Asked yesterday what Harper meant by his comments in Bush's defence on this issue, Buckler said the Prime Minister was mainly trying to lower the tensions between Russia and other leaders in advance of the G-8 meeting.

"We're trying to make sure that the conversation stays open and the dialogue remains calm."

Buckler said that Canada would only change its position on missile defence if the Americans made a formal request.

"In order for that discussion to be reignited, the Americans would have to ask us, and that has not happened. It's not on our agenda," she said.

Dion said yesterday's he's worried that the only reason U.S. officials haven't asked is because they know Harper leads a minority government and he couldn't get it past Parliament. What Canadians are seeing this week, Dion said, are glimpses of how Harper would move Canada closer to the U.S. on military and environmental issues if it had a majority.

Before he became prime minister, Harper made clear he'd like to revisit Canada's objections to missile defence if he came to power, but he also promised a vote in Parliament.

Dion and Layton said yesterday Harper knows he can't win that vote with the current makeup of the Commons, so he's chosen to send quiet signals of support to Bush instead. Layton said he believes this is part of a larger plan to cosy up generally to the U.S.

"I think he's violating his own principles here, which were that Parliament should be deciding on such incredibly important matters of foreign policy," Layton said.

"This is all a part of Stephen Harper's desire to follow the instructions from the White House and to enter into a deeper and deeper integrated relationship in North America, with the United States. It's not where Canadians want to go, but it's clearly what he's had in his sights for some time."

Dion said that the Bush-Putin dispute presented an ideal opportunity for Canada to act as a bridge and a calming influence – to reassure the Russian leader, for instance, that this country shared concerns about missile defence but it also shared the NATO view that this isn't a threat to Russia.

Instead, Harper has presented himself as an advocate for the U.S. side, Dion said.

Cons face freefall in Atlantic Canada

2007-06-10T16:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Impolitical for this from Rodney MacDonald, Premier of Nova Scotia. The part that particulary caught my attention was that he

is urging Conservative politicians from his province to oppose the federal budget because of a federal-provincial money dispute. (emphasis mine)

I also agree with Impolitical that good ol' Peter McKay can't be happy at all about this. I think that Liz May has a real shot at beating him now, unless he stops being an apologist for the Harper government.

Bono rebukes Harper

2007-06-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

To the list of various issues that Stephen Harper has neglected, and for which he has been publicly rebuked, one could now the issue of aid to Africa. Bono has blasted Harper for blocking attempts to increase aid at the G8 meeting.

Bono, lead singer for U2 and activist for humanitarian aid, singled out Harper for criticism and accused the prime minister of blocking a deal – a charge Harper vehemently denied.

"It's completely false and the people saying this have no proof to their allegations," Harper said at a news conference as the summit ended in Germany.

But Bono said he had numerous sources at the negotiating table. ``It's as if we have the place bugged, because everybody tells us," he said.

"We know who's causing the trouble and who isn't. And we know that Canada blocked progress. We know that Harper blocked it."

He described the prime minister as out of step with Canadians who enjoy a prosperous economy and surplus public finances and would like to help others.

Harper has said he's a U2 fan but he's not at the summit to meet celebrities. His office did not respond to a phone call from Bono seeking a meeting to discuss aid for Africa. Later, it was explained that the prime minister could meet Bono at another time.

Bono said he doesn't believe the prime minister was too busy to meet with him at the summit – the leaders of the United States, Germany, France and Britain managed to do so.

"It's not the pop stars he doesn't want to meet. It's the movement that we represent," Bono said.

"I said some years ago that the world needs more Canadas, and I meant it. I can't believe that this Canada has become a laggard. I think he's out of sync with the people."

Refusing to even meet with Bono was just not a strategically smart move. They could have had the photo up, both of them smiling, and Bono's response to Harper would have been somewhat more gentle.

Nevertheless, I'm glad that Bono is speaking this forcefully not just about Harper, but about the G8. Personally, as much as I like Bono as a musician and am glad he speaks out on issues, his gladhanding with the likes of Bush just rubs me the wrong way. I can understand the diplomacy angle to a point, but I think he goes too far with it. I much prefer the Stephen Lewis fair but firm approach.

Friends of the Earth sues the feds

2007-05-31T23:44:00.000-07:00

Friends of the Earth has brought a lawsuit against the Harper government

for failing to live up to the obligations of the Kyoto Protocol, alleging that breaking the international treaty also violates Canada's pollution laws.

But the court action is a legal long shot, according to some observers, who say the suit will put the Conservatives on the defensive over climate change, but has little chance of succeeding.

"Before the government smacks them out of court, they'll get some distance out of the government they wouldn't have gotten had they not pulled this move," said Aldyen Donnelly, president of the Greenhouse Emissions Management Consortium, a Vancouver non-profit group representing major energy companies.

Ms. Donnelly called the legal action a "nuisance suit," likely launched to embarrass Prime Minister Stephen Harper before next week's G8 meeting in Germany, where climate change will be a major focus. "It's a brilliant strategic move," she said.

New site: The Harper Index

2007-05-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Verbena-19, I have stumbled upon The Harper Index, which is an excellent resource site containing lost of info on the politicla strategies and ideological agendas of the Harper government.

I have also placed it in the sidebar under Organizations and Resource Sites.

Steve V.: ideology and principle

2007-05-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

Steve V. writes a worthy post in which he attempts to articulate the conundrum of

How can you criticize this government as an ideological menace, while simultaneously pointing to their lack of principle?

His entire post is worth reading, but here's an excerpt.

The present circumstance doesn't support a hard right agenda. There is no situation, wherein Stephen Harper can expand support if he adopts the ideological agenda, that his long paper trail supports. The Harper view is the minority view in Canada, which translates to a need to "reach out" to expand support. No one would argue that Harper doesn't have majority on the brain, he mentions it frequently, his strategists openly speak of the plan.

Ideology is on the back burner, electoral reality is primary, in the first phase. One has to wonder, why is that Harper is so consumed with a majority? Why can't the government operate effectively in a minority situation if it really is pragmatic at heart? The obsession tells us that there is more to see from this government, it has calculated it needs absolute power to effectively enact the agenda. Instead of governing, we have seen a perpetual campaign, wherein Conservatives have acted like "liberals", in many regards. There is little evidence of principle, because the only principle is the acquisition of power.

Lawrence Martin calls Cons on double standard

2007-05-23T18:12:00.000-07:00

Yes, there is Conservative inaction on the environment, human rights protections, aboriginal issues and child care. However, as we have also seen, and as Lawrence Martin writes, the Conservatives are also displaying the same bullying and obstruction tendencies the Liberals did periodically in government.

Last week was symptomatic. At an ethics-committee probe of the Afghan detainee controversy, they tried for hours to block the appearance of witnesses whose testimony could prove embarrassing. They shut down the official languages committee - the same day as the tabling of a report by the Official Languages Commissioner highly critical of their performance.

In the Commons, they typically ran away from pointed questions, choosing instead to "hide behind political rants," as Liberal Ken Dryden put it.

On the cleanliness front, they've been caught up in several conflict-of-interest allegations and, now, just like the Grits, are getting dinged for living the high life at taxpayers' expense.

Thanks to Tim for this link.

Geroge Monbiot's axis of evil: Bush, Howard, Harper.

2007-05-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

From Amy Goodman's interview with Monbiot on Democracy Now.

AMY GOODMAN: George Monbiot, on the issue of a speech you recently gave, where you talked about the axis of evil: George Bush, John Howard of Australia, and Stephen Harper of Canada.

GEORGE MONBIOT: Yes, the axis of evil on climate change. These guys have got together to make sure that there is no effective international action now taken on climate change. OK, there wasn't any being taken anyway, partly because of the US gutting of the Kyoto Protocol before, but --

Read the whole interview here.

The Harper maniulation strategy

2007-05-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks to The Galloping Beaver for this from Don Martin:

A secret guidebook that details how to unleash chaos while chairing parliamentary committees has been given to select Tory MPs.

Running some 200 pages including background material, the document - given only to Conservative chairmen - tells them how to favour government agendas, select party-friendly witnesses, coach favourable testimony, set in motion debate-obstructing delays and, if necessary, storm out of meetings to grind parliamentary business to a halt.

The binder fell into my hands yesterday, two days after government whip Jay Hill called chairmen to his office for a refresher course on advancing the government agenda over opposition objections.

A source at that meeting confided that Mr. Hill "lavished praise on the chairs who caused disruptions and admonished those who prefer to lead through consensus" - an interpretation the whip strongly denies.

But the document does illustrate a government preference for manipulative tactics and proves that the chairmen are under intense supervision from the powers above.

Its tactics also fly in the face of yesterday's complaint by Stephen Harper that opposition parties are solely responsible for the committee paralysis now breaking out on Parliament Hill as the summer recess approaches.

It paints in vivid detail what Conservative chairs should say when confronted by challenges to their authority, how to rule opposition MPs out of order during procedural wrangling and even tells government MPs how to debate at committee when a hostile motion is put to a vote.

Conservatives stalling

2007-05-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

On The National on CBC tonight, Keith Boag reported on the Consdertives recent habit of either stalling or refusing to attend committe hearings when reports which embarass the government are being presented. That happened on the language committee, where the Conservatives were being blasted for their performance on bilingualism.

As one of my faviourite bloggers Catnip has observed, the Conservatives filibustered the access to information and ethics committee for the second day running to stall examinations of the Afghan detainee scandal.

Paul Wells catches Harper in a lie

2007-05-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

Paul Wells catches Stephen Harper in a lie; purporting to support the official languages act -- in fact to do so more than previous governments -- while his actions suggest otherwise:

Today in Question Period, the prime minister claimed to quote the Official Languages Commissioner to the effect that the Action Plan for Official Languages, introduced by Stéphane Dion as the responsible minister in 2003, "was not done, like he did not do anything else."

That's a lie.

Here's what Graham Fraser actually said in his report to Parliament today.

He did say the Harper government "has, in fact, directly undermined the Action Plan over the past year." He said, "Health care has without a doubt been the most successful area of the Action Plan. Anglophone and Francophone minority communities declare themselves satisfied with the Plan’s results in this area."

Arrested civil servant reveals climate of intimidation

2007-05-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

From CBC.ca, we learn that the federal bureacrat who was arrested for leaking the Harper government's climate change plan, Jeff Monaghan, says there is a climate of heavy-handed intimidation within the federal public service:

Baird said the arrest was a signal to other government employees that leaks of information wouldn't be tolerated.

But Monaghan, whose job was to monitor news reports about the government, said Thursday the proposed charges are "without precedent" in the extent to which they are disproportionate to the alleged offence.

Government the one breaking laws: Monaghan

Monaghan accused the government of using phrases such as "responsible process" and "obedience for the law" as justification for what he called a "witchhunt against the lowest-ranking temp employee in the department and possibly the entire government."

He said it was the government — in particular, the Environment Department — that was undermining due process and legal commitments by breaking the country's obligations under the international Kyoto treaty.

The NDP's Nathan Cullen speaks to the obvious and disturbing double standard:

Whoever leaked the information could be seen as a whistleblower.

"If the government has come forward and decided to break its own international commitments and an employee of the government says the government is about to break the international law — one can construe that as whistleblowing."

The government leaks documents all the time, Cullen said. But when it comes to the environment, he said, the government has a double standard.

Unfortunately, too much will be made of this by a sensationalistic media, and by a vicious Conservative Party that takes no prisoners and would think nothing of assasinating an innocent person's personality if it suits them. Of course, it has nothing at all to do with the substance of the issue:

Monaghan is a member of a collective that recently opened an anarchist bookstore in downtown Ottawa. He's also a drummer with the punk band The Suicide Pilots, which has an album called Rock Against Harper.

The band webpage on MySpace depicts a plane flying into the Peace Tower on Ottawa's Parliament Hill.

Cons try to stall committee hearing on Afghan detainees

2007-05-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

The Conservatives tried to stall a meeting of the tanding Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, which was holding an investigation into the Afghan detainee scandal. They went on for three hours, and only gave up when reporters entered the room. Hmm, interesting. Stalling the investigation wouldn't look very good to Canadians, eh?

Mike Wallace regaled fellow members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics with details of the federal Access to Information Act for the duration of his address.

His lengthy discourse in a hot room of Parliament's West Block stalled an opposition motion that the committee examine the editing of documents showing that the Harper government knew prisoners held by Afghan security forces faced the possibility of torture, abuse and extra-judicial killing.

“I think that the Conservatives tried to avoid this motion and they put so much resources and time [into it] that they have something to hide,” said Bloc Québécois MP Carole Lavallée, who put forth the motion.

Pat Martin, a New Democrat from Manitoba, said “it just reconfirms our suspicions that information was redacted to save embarrassment to the government, not for any issues of national security.”

Opposition members are in the majority on the committee. And when Mr. Wallace finally gave the floor over to his colleague David Tilson, the vote was called and it passed handily.

Mr. Wallace denied that his speech was a filibuster, arguing instead that he was merely debating Ms. Lavallée's motion.

“It's an important topic and I think it's important for our committee members to understand what the act says and have a discussion,” he said.

Albertans want tougher emission standards.

2007-05-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

I don't normally pay attention to polls, but then I found out about this one from Steve V. It says that

An overwhelming majority of Albertans believe the central plank in the federal government's new environmental plan isn't tough enough to deal with greenhouse gas emissions from their province's largest industry, a new poll reveals.

The survey, commissioned by an Alberta-based environmental think tank, found more than two-thirds of respondents believe industries should be forced to make absolute reductions in their levels of pollution, instead of being required to reduce the intensity of their emissions.

Wow.

Dobbin: Harper's disdain for human rights

2007-05-07T17:46:00.000-07:00

What do Afghan detainees, Lebanese, Palestinians, Burmese activists, gays and lesbians, and even Canadian soldiers have in common. According to Murray Dobbin, the mistreatment or lack of treatment by the Harper government show a consistent disdain for human rights in many respects. Thus, his lack of regard for the rights of the Afghan detaineees is merely the continuation of a disturbing pattern.

But when it comes to international human rights either enshrined in the UN Charter or the Geneva Convention, Harper has shown disdain. The Geneva Convention also states that it is illegal to target civilians in war. But this is precisely what Israel did in its catastrophic (for everyone) invasion of Lebanon. The rights of the Lebanese didn't count for anything as Harper stated that Israel's brutal assault on a defenceless Lebanese population was "a measured response." Measured by what standard? Certainly not by the standards set out by the Geneva Convention.

And what about the human rights of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip? Not a word here, either, even though UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said last year: "The violation of human rights I think in this territory is massive." She said that what she had seen in Beit Hanoun convinced her that Palestinians are suffering from "catastrophic human-rights violations" at the hands of Israel. But the Palestinians seem virtually not to exist in Harper's U.S.-designed foreign policy.

There are many other examples. Does Canada's new prime minister express concern over the hideous human rights record of Burma? In the fall, the UN added to the long list of condemnations, this time for the harassment and arrest of student leaders, and the continuing house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition National League for Democracy. Nope, no problem here, if Mr. Harper's silence means anything.

The few occasions in which he does call for respect for human right are situations in which his government is ideologically motivated to do so.

This nurturing of his key constituency also serves to explain the single real exception in Stephen Harper's human rights record. Regarding China, the government is making real noise about the appalling case of Huseyin Celil. Here Canada seems -- rightly so -- to be risking good relations with the Asian giant over the case of a single individual.

But why China? To answer that question you need to go back a ways in Stephen Harper's history and understand the perversity of the right wing of the anti-abortion movement. No country in the world is so hated by evangelical anti-abortionists as China because of its vigorous efforts at population control and the widespread availability of free abortion. Back in 1995 one of Stephen Harper's Reform Party colleagues issued a statement calling on the Canadian government to condemn China for policies she claimed endorsed the "consumption of human fetuses as health food." These people still populate Harper's caucus and form a critical part of his core base. And he is representing them.

Read the whole article here.

I am a proud member of Amnesty International. I want to make it clear here that I am not speaking on their behalf but rather as a private citizen. Anyway, at Amnesty, we have a saying, "Human rights for all, no exceptions." Well, by my standards, they are doing very poorly in that regard.

And yes, the Chretien and Martin regimes left a lot to be desired in this area, but the Harper regime sickens me with the openness and relentlessness of their disdain for human rights.

Baird's own economists criticize him

2007-05-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Steve V. from Far and Wide for linking to this:

Economists who endorsed a recent government report assessing the economic impact of achieving Canadas international Kyoto protocol commitments are skeptical about the new Conservative approach to fighting global warming, a survey by CanWest News Service has revealed.

Their assessment comes as the government launches a new $905,000 advertising offensive on radio stations to promote its green initiatives and respond to critics, such as environmentalist David Suzuki and former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who have called the plan a big disappointment and a fraud designed to mislead Canadians.

Although Environment Minister John Baird has insisted his approach is the "toughest in the world" because of its mandatory regulations to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from industries, the economics experts suggested it looked a lot like the previous Liberal plan that was scrapped by the Conservatives when they formed a minority government in 2006.

Amnesty - "Protection against torture applies to everyone"

2007-05-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Stephen Harper said that falsehoods are cooked up by Taliban detainees, as they are trained to lie. However,

In Afghanistan, there are generally two types of insurgents: hardline Taliban, who are true believers or members of the former regime; and others who are either hired guns or coerced into fighting.

In many cases, so-called soft Taliban are no more than ordinary farmers who've been forced at gunpoint into fighting, or they're men whipped into a religious fever by claims of outrage against Islam.

The less-committed fighters make up the bulk of the insurgent force, which has confronted Canadian troops in the vast swath of parched farmland west of Kandahar. Poorly trained and badly equipped, these young men of what the Afghans call "fighting age" do most of the dying for the Taliban. Those that survive are often taken prisoner.

Canadian commanders in Kandahar have gone to great lengths to drive wedges between the different types of fighters, enticing soft supporters to lay down their arms with promises funded by the Conservative government's reconstruction efforts

.

According to human rights organizations, people are entitled to the same human rights protection regardless of what group in which they may or may not have membership.

The government seems to suggest captured insurgents don't deserve full human-rights protection, said an Amnesty International spokesman.

"No one is exempted from the protection against torture because of what armed groups they have or have not been involved with," said Alex Neve.

"The protection against torture applies to everyone at all times and in all circumstances.

"When we start espousing views that suggest maybe torture is OK in some circumstances, or we shouldn't at least be concerned about torture when it happens to undesirable people, then we're eroding international human rights," he said.

"And we're simply espousing a view that it's all right to respond to violence with more violence, terror with more terror, torture with more torture."

Amnesty International: Monitoring isn't the solution

2007-05-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

Canada and Afghanistan reached a new agreement on the transfer of Afghan detainees in which Canadian soldiers will have access to the prisoners even after transfering them. There remain concern, however, that it will not be good enough to prevent torture.

"

Monitoring isn't the solution," said Alex Neve, Amnesty International spokesman. "It's a positive step forward compared to the former deal, but that's not the end point when torture is as rampant and systematic as it is in Afghanistan. No amount of monitoring will prevent something that is a secret, insidious practice that can inflict devastating harm and damage on prisoners in a few minutes."

Stock Day should resign

2007-05-02T23:48:00.000-07:00

Stockwell Day said the other day that Canadians were in fact made aware by prisoners that they were tortured. That means Day was either lying when he said there were no reports of torture, or he's lying now. He should be fired. If it's true, then why was nothing being done about those reports?

Miscellaneous rants

2007-05-02T17:30:00.000-07:00

Allow me a couple of rants that come to mind when I think of some of the "conservatives" that I encounter in cyberspace, and their thoughts on climate change. I put conservatives in quotes of course, because climate change denial has nothing to do with principled conservatism.

I have come across the mention of the Great Global Warming Swindle, the film which charges that the entire climate change theory is a fraud. It seems to be all the rage among the denialists these days, and it never suprises me that it is brought up. Yes, I have seen it, and I will admit, if you take it on its face value without digging deeper afterward, it's quite convincing. It's a fine piece of industry propoganda passed off as science. I understand, though. I guess there's something in human nature about listening to the tiny minority of "experts" who tell you what you want to hear, rather than the overwhelming majority of experts who tell you what you don't want to hear.

Let me draw the line. There is no scientific debate with respect to climate change caused by human activity. There is a scientific consensus. We can see that in both the IPCC reports and the joint science academies' statement. And believe me, I wish that weren't the case. Rather, I wish this was one big nightmare, and I will wake up tomorrow and all will be fine. I wish that climate change wasn't a reality, that our planet wasn't facing this crisis. However, I am a human being who wants to ensure a healthy and sustainable future for my descendents. The question at this point therefore, is what the fuck are we going to do about it. I have no interest in prolonging a debate that should have ended years ago. Henceforth, there will be no debate on the reality of climate change on this blog.

This is my blog. You do not have a Charter protected right to have your opinion expressed here and not have it deleted, just like I don't have that right on someone elses blog. Think of it like being the editor of a newspaper. S/he edits or refuses to publish letters every day and no one thinks twice about it. Nor should they. It's different if the government shut down my blog, or something along those lines. However, its my blog and I can do with it as I please, in every respect.

Now, David Suzuki.

It is true that he is not an atmospheric scientist. That said, as a scientist, and as a broadcaster and author who has explored the wonders of science for that last 30 years plus, he certainly knows more than John Baird, or most Canadians for that matter.

His busses run on biodiesel. That said, it is also true that the nature of his work requires him to consume too much carbon in other ways, but that has nothing to do the issues themselves that he is addressing. And, I think, it's worth it if he raises public awareness with respect to climate change. If it means survival, I'll take it.

I think that Harper conservatives so intensely dislike him not because of any element of hypocrisy, because hypocrites can be found on all sides of the political spectrum, but because of the combination of their idelogical opposition to him, and his mass popularity.

And another thing; if I hear one more Conservative say something along the lines of "13 years of Liberal inaction", please kill me. Put me out of my misery. First, that's a bit rich coming from the Conservative Party, a party whose ascendent, the Canadian Alliance Party, thought the Liberal government was doing too much about climate change.

More importantly, the Liberals are not in government. If they were in power, I would be yelling at them to take action, as I did at the time. They are not in government though. The Conservatives are, and them pointing to the Liberals is a copout pure and simple, an excuse to placate their industry patrons with overblown plans that don't really do much. But really it is no excuse of course. Years of Liberal inaction, a charge to which there is admittedly a significant degree of validity, is not an excuse for Conservative inaction.

High-profile attacks on Baird continue

2007-04-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

Attacks on the Baird plan continue to eminate from high-profile critics. This time: the head of the body at the UN that oversees Kyoto questions the use of intensity targets, and chagning the base year:

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, questioned the assertion that with tough enough intensity targets, an absolute reduction would occur.

“You can still see a reduction in absolute terms, but you can't guarantee how much the reduction is going to be in absolute terms,” Mr. de Boer said in an interview Monday from his office in Bonn, Germany.

“If you have a very stringent relative reduction target, but your economy grows by 30 per cent, then your emissions could still end up going up.”

Mr. de Boer suggested there is some confusion over how Canada intends to live up to the Kyoto Protocol, which it signed in 1997. To date, no official has said the government is withdrawing from the treaty but the Kyoto targets have been abandoned.

The Conservatives have said meeting Kyoto targets would have meant disaster for the Canadian economy.

“It's interesting that while it would appear that the government has set itself a new target with a new base year, which of course it's free to do, that target is less ambitious than the commitment it has under the Kyoto Protocol,” Mr. de Boer said.

“The question is how this new commitment or the new policy objective relates to the international commitment or international undertaking Canada has made with the Kyoto Protocol, and also how it fits into the debate about longer term action that's currently under way.”

Another United Nations official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there's a sense of alarm in the agency that Canada's reluctance to try to meet the Kyoto targets will encourage other countries to shirk the treaty.

“Canada is perceived to be a role model for the United States. If Canada throws up its hands and says there's no point, it has a negative rub off for the U.S.,” the official said.

The Conservatives have no one to blame but themselves. They've had numerous rewrites, numerous chances to put forth a strong green plan with teeth, and they keep disappointing.

Text of Byers' letter to the ICC

2007-04-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

From the Tyee, here is the text of the letter that Michael Byers and William A. Schabas sent to the International Criminal Court. Here is an excerpt:

April 25, 2007

Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Maanweg, 174
2516 AB, The Hague
The Netherlands
ADVERTISEMENT
Tyee's new Blog Roller series

Dear Sir,

Re. War crimes and the transfer of detainees from Canadian custody in Afghanistan

We write to draw your attention to possible war crimes committed with respect to the transfer of detainees from Canadian custody in Afghanistan. In particular, we request that you open a preliminary examination under Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to determine whether there are reasonable bases to investigate Mr. Gordon O'Connor, the Canadian Minister of National Defence, and General Rick Hillier, the Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff.

Specifically, we are concerned that Mr. O'Connor and General Hillier have:

1. Chosen to allow detainees to be transferred to the custody of Afghan authorities despite an apparent risk of torture and other forms of abuse;

2. Chosen not to take reasonable and readily apparent steps to protect detainees against torture and other forms of abuse -- for instance, by seeking a renegotiation of the December 2005 Canada-Afghanistan Detainee Transfer Arrangement to bring it into line with pre-existing Denmark-Afghanistan, UK-Afghanistan and Netherlands-Afghanistan agreements, and now, following credible reports of the torture of transferred detainees, by ceasing any further transfers.

As a result, we are concerned that Mr. O'Connor and General Hillier might wilfully be placing detainees at well-documented risk of torture, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity. If so, they would appear to be violating Articles 8 and 25 (and perhaps Article 7) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).1

Any such violations would clearly fall within the jurisdiction of the ICC, since Canada has ratified the Rome Statute, Mr. O'Connor and General Hillier are Canadian citizens, and the possible offences in question were committed after the coming into force of the Statute (as well as Canada's ratification of it).

The letter proceeds from here at some length to explore in detail relevant facts and relevant law. Read the rest of the letter.

Al Gore: Baird plan a "fraud"

2007-04-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

Al Gore severely criticized the Baird plan:

The noted environmentalist was presenting his Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth in Toronto at a consumer environmental show, with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and environmentalist David Suzuki in attendance.

Mr. Gore praised Mr. Suzuki for confronting Environment Minister John Baird on Friday, saying he saw the two exchange words on TV.

When Mr. Baird told Mr. Suzuki the Conservatives were going further than any other government in Canadian history, Mr. Suzuki said it wasn't enough.

The Conservative government strategy focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. But the plan failed to spell out precisely what many of its regulations will look like.

"In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud," Mr. Gore said. "It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

Read the whole article.

Update:

Courtesy of Scott, clips of Gore's speech here and here.

Mmm, I smell an election in the offing.

Links to reaction to the Baird plan

2007-04-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

Short-sighted Canada Fails with New Climate Policy -- DeSmogBlog
Tory climate plan fails Canadians -- Toronto Star editorial
New targets, without a serious emissions policy, are so much hot air -- Jeffrey Simpson
Will opposition force an election? -- Chantal Hebert
Baird keeps it simple -- Susan Riley
Thinking green but not acting -- Ottawa Citizen editorial
Al Gore meets 'Suzuki Nation' -- Bob Hepburn

Suzuki confronts Baird

2007-04-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

Canadian hero to many (including myself) David Suzuki confronted John Baird at a exhibition showcasing eco-friendly alternatives. Barid has refused to meet with him over the plan. Suzuki went to tell him what he thought, and to "please come and see us."

Baird had just kicked off Toronto's consumer Green Living Show when he was approached by David Suzuki, who let the minister know what he thought of the government's plan.

"It's a disappointment, John," Suzuki said as he beat a path to the minister.

"You know what you promised was a long way from what you delivered."

Baird countered that "this is more action than any government in Canadian history has ever taken."

But Suzuki was not impressed, saying that it's not enough.

"He promised all kinds of great things and it's been big disappointment to see what it is. It's all smoke and mirrors and what he's going to do is allow industry to continue to increase their emissions."

Suzuki later told CBC News the Conservatives' new plan is an embarrassment because it falls short of what is needed and what Canadians want.

"What the government is trying to do is give the illusion of movement by talking about reducing the intensity, and hard targets," he said.

"The reality is it's really a cover for allowing industry to increase its pollution, so it's not seriously addressing the emissions problem.

ICC asked to investigate Afghan detainee affair

2007-04-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

On the Afghan detainee front, which I am following, we have this:

Two human-rights professors have asked the International Criminal Court in The Hague to open an investigation into what they claim are "possible war crimes" by Canadian Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and General Rick Hillier, Chief of the Defence Staff, over Canada's transfer of detainees in Afghanistan.

Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia and William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway, make the allegations in a 14-page letter to the court's chief prosecutor in The Hague.

The professors allege that Mr. O'Connor and Gen. Hillier agreed to the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities "despite an apparent risk of torture and other forms of abuse" and have allowed the threats to continue by not renegotiating the agreement with Afghanistan on prisoner transfers.

Reaction to the Baird plan

2007-04-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

The dilly dallying on the part of the Harper on the envirnment continues. After trying again and again to put forward a plan that Canadians can accept, they still can't get it right. That must be some powerful influence the fossil fuel industry has on that government.

From CBC.ca

Keith Stewart of World Wildlife Fund Canada said there are flexibility mechanisms built into Kyoto that would allow Canada to meet the protocol, but the government is walking away from them.

"I don't think another decade of delay is anything that Canadians want, and I think the government's on the wrong side of the science and they are going to be on the wrong side of history."

John Bennett of ClimateForChange, a new Canadian environmental group, said the plan doesn't go far enough to deal with global warming.

"We were told this was their green plan, but what do we get? A few vague numbers, no hard targets … I am really shocked. I thought this plan would be tougher than this.

"They're not trying to deal with climate change."

From Canada.com

Although the government has said the new target would reduce emissions by 20 per cent below current levels by 2020, environmentalists have also said that these targets fall short of the post-Kyoto efforts that would be expected from a developed country, in order to establish an effective international agreement to stop catastrophic effects of climate change.

Based on studies by European governments, the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation have estimated Canada must go well beyond the Conservative government’s targets in order to prevent global temperature increases of more than two degrees celsius, a level that scientists have identified as a dangerous tipping point.

From CTV.ca

Julia Langer of the World Wildlife Fund disputed how the government calculated its targets, by not using Kyoto's baseline of 1990 levels.

"They way they have put it -- 20 per cent reduction by 2020 - they're counting according to a baseline that nobody uses," she told CTV Newsnet.

If you calculate that based on the internationally recognized baseline, we're still going to be above 1990 levels in 2020. That's nowhere near our Kyoto target."

She also added that asking industry for an 18 per cent reduction in emission by 2010 is also misleading.

"That's an emission intensity figure. So in other words, they're going to ask industry to reduce their intensity -- not their emissions - of how fast they pollute. So they'll slow that down, and it will be business as usual."

And, the most devastating critique of the plan, from Elizabeth May of the Green Party:

It’s official: Canada has turned its back on the world

Statement by Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada

Today, Environment Minister John Baird has made it official. Any remaining doubt has been removed. Canada is officially abandoning any attempt to reach its legally binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Canada, therefore, will be in violation of international law and will stand as the only nation, of more than 160 countries around the world that have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, to have reneged on its commitments.

This is not “Canada turning the corner”, as Mr. Baird described it. This is Canada turning its back on the world.

The new target announced by Mr. Baird is a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions against today’s levels by 2020. Thus Mr. Baird has set a course that will take Canada to 11% above our Kyoto target by 2020. We will be unable to reach our mandated Kyoto target until well into the 2020s. In contrast, the EU has adopted a target of 20% reductions below 1990 levels by 2020. The similarity of the numbers and the alarming variation of base year appear to be designed to confuse Canadians about the nature of the Harper-Baird plan. It is a plan for increased climate risk.

In fact, the changed base year makes Mr. Baird’s announced target even weaker than that announced by his predecessor, Rona Ambrose, last fall. She announced 45-65% reductions below 2003 levels by 2050. Mr. Baird has changed the base year to 2006, when emissions were higher.

Furthermore, he is jeopardizing Canada's interests. If, as the Minister claims, Canada remains committed to the "Kyoto process" (but not the legally binding targets), then, at a minimum, we should strive to get as close as possible to our targets to avoid penalties under the agreement. For every tonne of emissions missed in the first commitment period, 2008-2012, there is a 30% added cut for every tonne in the next period, post-2012. Any responsible government would recognize the risk, economically and to our international reputation, of deliberately ignoring the target.

The overriding concern is that the Harper government has no intention of remaining within the Kyoto process and, if still in power in 2008, it will formally commence withdrawal (2008 being the first year within the agreement in which formal withdrawal is allowed). This would avoid the penalties and put Canada in the pariah corner, at the same time as the world expects the US to join the process.

The small improvements from the government's previous positions are in the area of trading. Mr. Baird has accepted some form of domestic carbon trading, but not international. He has also confirmed that Canada will participate in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under Kyoto. Minister Ambrose contradicted herself a number of times on the government’s attitude to the CDM and then launched a full scale attack on CDM using false information. Mr. Baird has done the right thing in allowing for CDM measures to be pursued.

But with the wrong target in place, it makes little difference.

Read the Baird speech

Foreign affairs censorship

2007-04-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

To follow up on yesterday's post, I point to this Globe and Mail article which talks of a report from Foreign Affairs Canada about Afghanistan in 2006, in which sections touching on the human rights situation there have been blacked out.

The Foreign Affairs report, titled Afghanistan-2006; Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights, was marked "CEO" for Canadian Eyes Only. It seems to remove any last vestige of doubt that the senior officials and ministers knew that torture and abuse were rife in Afghan jails.

The report leaves untouched many paragraphs such as those beginning "one positive development" or "there are some bright spots."

But heavy dark blocks obliterate sentences such as "the overall human rights situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in 2006."

The torture of Afghan detainees and the Harper non-response

2007-04-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

In response to Graeme Smith's piece in yesterdays Globe and Mail about 30 interviews with Afghan detainees in which horrifying stories of torture were revealed to Canadians, two university professors, Michael Byers of the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC, and Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa, have said that Canada must terminate the agreement with Afghanistan on prisoner exchanges now.

The door is open for Canadian troops to be prosecuted as war criminals if enemy prisoners have indeed been tortured in Afghan jails, said Michael Byers and Amir Attaran.

They say the only solution is for Harper’s government to scrap the current agreement with the Afghan government and for Canada to build its own prisoner detention facility overseas where captured fighters can be treated humanely.

“There is no room for ambiguity. We are talking about one of the most fundamental rules of international law: the prohibition on torture and the prohibition on complicity in torture,” said Byers.

Where “there is a serious risk of torture, we cannot transfer to the Afghan authorities. That’s it. They have shown, if this report is correct, that they cannot be trusted to uphold fundamental rules.”

A couple of items need responding to.

My favourite neanderthal, Stockwell Day, had this to say.

Now we've captured them – and yes, these people we've captured want nothing more to do then to kill you [Afghanis] and your children – and we are asking you to treat them humanely. That is a radical thought for a lot of people in that part of the world. But folks, it is working.

The detainees may or may not have that mindset. We don't even know that they all are Taliban. A fair judicial process will hopefully determine that. And yes, of course they should be treated humanely. Even those who are guilty are expected to, let alone those who haven't been charged. One, it is against international law to conduct torture. Two, it is wrong. Three, it is well known that torture doesn't work. Four, any connection to torture stains our international reputation even more than it already has been, and will serve to further increase hostility toward us in Afghanistan.

To those who say that there already is an Afghan monitoring group, I give you this article in the Globe in which we find that

The watchdog agency Canada is relying on to prevent abuse of detainees in Afghan custody says it can't do the job properly because it has been barred from access to the notorious detention cells of the intelligence service.

Despite assurances that any abuse would be reported, repeated in the House of Commons by Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor yesterday, the regional head of investigations for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission conceded in a recent interview that his staff are being prevented from visiting detainees in the National Directorate of Security's detention cells in Kandahar.

"We have an agreement with the Canadians, but we can't monitor these people," said Amir Mohammed Ansari, chief investigator for AIHRC in Kandahar. "Legally, we have permission to visit prisoners inside the NDS prison. But they don't allow it."

This is a story to follow, folks. How the Harper government responds to this issue will speak volumes of its attitude toward torture and toward human rights in general.

From Thoughts on Climate Change: effective rebuttal of Baird

2007-04-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Thoughts on Climate Change for an effective rebuttal of John Baird's claims about the effect of Kyoto on the economy. "Thoughts" rightly points out that there are three prongs to the rebuttal.
-the economic cost of not taking action on climate change.
-the economic benefits of emissions trading
-the economic benefits of pursuing development of green technologies.

Harperites snub Charter celebration

2007-04-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

Courtesy Scott's DiaTribes, we find the Harper Conservatives ignoring the 25th anniversary celebration of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the single document that most defines Canada according to Canadians. Bev Oda and Vic Toews were invited to speak, but surprise surprise, declined to attend. Yeah, I can just see Vic (make him a lifer at 10) Toews heaping praise on the Charter.

From Le Revue Gauche: The Straussian sympathies of the Calgary School

2007-04-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

Please read this well-researched article by Le Revue Gauche on the Straussian tendencies of the Calgary School, of which Stephen Harper was an understudy. I consider this article to be of such relevance that I have placed it in the sidebar under Key Documents.

Here are a couple of excerpts I consider particularly poignant:

As with Strauss the Calgary School is well versed in Marxism and critiques of Marxism as we can see in the publications of its major proponent Barry Cooper. Cooper admire's Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt and Eric Voegelin and see's them as the political alternative to Marxism, and ironically these political philosophers are far more statist than Marx was.

These are the arguments of the Cold War, which while now over, remains the bugaboo of the right. One does not invest fifty years of constructing anti-liberal, anti-socialists, anti-secular, anti-humanist arguments to abandon them with the mere collapse of the Berlin wall. Today the arguments used against socialism and liberalism by Strauss, Voegelin and Schmitt are now used in day to day editorials and arguments from the Right.

While publically declaring themselves libertarians of the right, they are anything but, again the Straussian deception and lies that cover their realpolitik. They want Plato's Philosopher King, the supreme ruler, and they see him sanctioned by the politics of social conservative Christianity.

Despite the Conservative five priorities, their economic or environmental policies, Harpers regime comes down to two key right wing elements; Militarism and increasing the power of the Police and the Security State

And it is clear that the Calgary School influenced the Conservatives Environmental policy more so than Green Conservative Calgarians; Preston Manning and Joe Clark, since Barry Cooper is a founder of the climate change denier group the Friends of Science (sic). Science has nothing to do with it they are Friends of the Oil Patch. And in typical Straussian fashion all the Conservatives discussions with stakeholders on the environment were held in secret

.

See also Eugene's article Post Modern Conservatives, which I have also put under Key Documents.

NDP, Libs, Greens should try to avoid vote-splitting

2007-04-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

First, I will say that I do still have reservations about one aspect of this: Elizabeth May running in Central Nova against McKay. It will be very difficult for her to win. Not impossible, but very difficult.

That said, May is right that the opposition parties should try to work together to prevent the re-election of the Harper government. This should not be about partisanship in any sense.

May and Dion reached an agreement, but she tried to reach out to the NDP as well, seeking talks with Tom Axworthy and Stephen Lewis about a three-way agreement.

I have a ton of love and respect for Stephen Lewis. He is, along with David Suzuki, one of the two greatest Canadians alive today, in my opinion. He has opened my eyes about battling disease and poverty in Africa, and even brought me to the point of thinking about going there. The man is a saint. I think May approached the right person. However, I wish he had been more receptive to at least some dialogue.

Also, what is up with Layton not even taking May's phone calls. I would have thought it would be customary for party leaders to take each other's calls.

It would be naive to deny that it is a risky move on the part of both May and Dion. It's hard to predict exactly what the political implications could be, but as Red Tory says:

it’s forced many Liberals and Greens to “think outside the box” as the hackneyed expression goes. Generally speaking that’s usually a good thing in politics, where incurious habits of mind can frequently lead to complacency.

And as Saskboy says:

We are at a cross roads in Canadian politics, and I hope the leaders in the NDP, Jack Layton included, take this chance to move Canada away from the Harper Conservatives, and back to a socially progressive and accountable government. May has an agreement from the Dion Liberals to make meaningful electoral reforms when he goes to power, which is something the NDP have been desiring for many years (PR, not Dion in power). Clearly there is common ground to be found among the Liberals, NDP, and Greens even though the partisans inside of us don’t want to admit our respective parties can’t do everything themselves.

If thinking outside the box leads to a healther, more cooperative political system in the future, maybe even one which uses a PR electoral system, as opposed to the highly partisan one we have now, I'll take it.

There is a lot more I could say on this, but I'll close with a couple of blogs that say it well.

From The Galloping Beaver:

There's a kind of denial at work in the partisan debate about this agreement.

Does partisanship blind people to understanding that what the planet faces is going to require everyone cooperating and collaborating with everyone else? Apparently so.

And last but not least, from Politique Vert:

There Are No Political Parties On A Dead Planet.

UPDATE: I also like Scott's Anybody But Harper proposal.

The Daniel Paillé affair

2007-04-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a Toronto Star editorial on the Daniel Paillé affair. He, of course, is the separatist hired by the Harper Conservatives to investigate his arch-enemies from the 1995 referendum.

He served in former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau's Parti Québécois cabinet from 1994 to 1996, and played his part in the referendum to break up Canada. He still harbours warm thoughts for his mentor. Just last year, in a speech honouring Parizeau, Paillé recalled a "very appropriate" challenge Parizeau made to separatists after they lost the referendum, to "turn over every stone" to strengthen their case for secession. This week, however, he declined to say if he still shares the dream.

Given Paillé's background, what confidence can Canadians have in his even-handedness in judging whether Canada's federal leaders behaved properly from 1990 to 2003 when they surveyed attitudes in Quebec and elsewhere? Poll spending rose to $24 million during this period, which covers the last few years of Conservative rule by Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell, and a decade under Liberals Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.

Is there much evidence of Ottawa wrongdoing to worry about?

In 2003, Auditor General Sheila Fraser found that "for the most part" Ottawa acted "in a transparent manner and with adequate controls." She found only "a small number of troubling cases" involving polling. Even so, the Tories remain eager to probe beyond the sponsorship scandal in which cash was improperly funnelled to Liberal-friendly ad firms.

Clearly, Harper feels the time is right to dig deeper, hoping to shame the Liberals even as they try to put the sponsorship scandal behind them. For his part, Paillé bristles at any suggestion he has been hired to dig for dirt.

But in 1995, the PQ complained bitterly that the Liberals cheated them of a referendum victory, partly by outspending them. Given this bad blood, the Liberals understandably place little faith in Paillé's pledge to operate in a "professional" spirit and to deliver an even-handed report.

This, of course, is not to suggest that the Liberal reign was stainless. It certainly was not. However, this blog is not about the Liberals, it is about the Harper Conservatives. The purpose of the post is essentially to show that Harper is capable of political opportunism just as blatant and decision-making just as ubious as anyone he criticizes.

Leading scientist says Baird is misinformed.

2007-04-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

Canada.com reports that Gordon McBean, head of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, says that John Baird is misinformed on the urgency of the climate change issue, and the relevance of atmospheric scinece over the long term in responding to crises arising from climate change.

Canadian scientists would like to increase their understanding of climate change, but the federal government has been scaling back support for climate science and adaptation programs.

Baird suggested last week there's little time left for more reports and studies in the wake of the UN report.

"One of the biggest findings (of the UN report) is that these (impacts) can be mitigated, can be reduced, can be delayed by action to reduce greenhouse gases, and that's got to be the first, the second, and the third priority," Baird said in an interview with CanWest News Service.

"At some point, it's sort of like the planet's on fire, we've got to throw water on it. We don't need to research it, we need to act."

McBean said Monday "that is a sadly misinformed argument and I'd be happy to set him straight."

He adds other senior scientists would also welcome a meeting with Baird, who he says has steered clear of the climate research community since becoming minister in January.

McBean says Baird seems to be taking a short-term view of a long-term problem: "The only question he seems to be asking is: 'Do we have enough science to justify reducing emissions' ...and the science been clear on that for 15 years."

Emissions reductions are needed and long overdue, says McBean.

The key question Baird doesn't seem to be asking, McBean says, is whether there is enough science to address climate change in Canada for the rest of this century in terms of adaptation and emissions reductions. The answer, says McBean, is no.

McBean says that "repeated requests to meet with the minister have been declined. The foundation has committed all its research money and cannot take on any new projects."

Yes, this is one scientist, but he is a leading scientist, and the chair of an organization representing climate scientists. There is no comparison to industry rent-a-scientists like Tim Ball (for more on Ball, click here and then type "tim ball" into the search engine. Or, just click here).

PCers want McKay's head.

2007-04-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

I just pulled this from the Green Party site via Politique Vert.

The following will appear on a daily progressive conservative forum that reaches about 5000 readers:

Joe,

I am certain that all former and loyal Progressive Conservatives, and all current Progressive Canadians, were very pleased to hear that the Leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, will be seeking to remove Peter MacKay from federal politics. Further, I am certain that we all wish her luck. But this may not be enough.

Let us all put our heads together and see if we cannot help. We were a tremendous force in fighting against MacKay during the hostile takeover of our Party by the Alliance. We may have lost the battle, but we can still win the war.

What about public protests? Newspaper ads? Radio ads? Flyers? Anything else we can do to get the last laugh on the man who betrayed us all?

Ideas please.

If we stand with Elizabeth May, will can knock off Peter MacKay.

Charge!

Brad Thomson
Ottawa

Just switched to Haloscan

2007-04-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

Oops. I just switched to Haloscan, and seem to have lost the comments that have been made previously. I chose to make this move because it gives me more editorial control. Anway, I will get in touch with Haloscan to see if there is a way I can ertrive the comments.

While I'm here, I should note that this a non-partisan forum dedicated to stopping Stephen Harper. Commenters, please to try to stick to the topic of the blog post. For example, if a post suggests that Harper goes negative because he has nothing positive to say, don't start going all Harper on me and attacking other politicians. Besides being amusingly ironic, it is irrelevant to the topic of the post.

Andre Coyne on Stephen Harper

2007-04-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of tidbits from Andrew Coyne.

First is from his his blog, a post entitled Welcome, Tory partisans!

I never cease to marvel at the blind partisanship of some of the commenters on this site. There doesn't seem to be anything Harper and Co. could do that could shake your faith: no budget so profligate, no promise so broken, no principle so abandoned, no pandering so overt, no Quebec strategy so failed, no rhetoric so inflammatory. But I had not realized quite how far you were willing to go until now.

Read more

The second is from his National Post column, and it's called Harper has learned well.

So we are left to conclude that it does not matter to him whether anyone believes him or not. And if it does not matter to him, this must be because he believes it does not matter to anyone else. At the very least, he must have calculated, there is no political price to be paid for telling the public obvious untruths. It may even be that we prefer it. That is the rational implication, and he is nothing if not rational. What is more, he is probably right.

He concludes:

It is a lesson that Mr. Harper appears to have absorbed. The Emerson and Fortier appointments were early harbingers, the two free-spending budgets and the "nation" resolution further signs that nothing Mr. Harper had said on these matters throughout his career should be taken at face value. And if these could be excused as the inevitable adjustments in the face of political reality, or even as signs of maturity, what are we to make of the pledge not to tax income trusts, or to cap equalization payments?

Read the whole article.

You see, fervent ideology is not the only problem with Harper. I fully acknowledge that he is smart, and by that I mean he is devious. He is clearly not above compromising on clearly held political or economic principles in order to pander to the electorate. He is also clearly not above playing with the truth where it suits him. He as well is clearly not above slandering the opposition, instead of taking the high road, which one would think would be the prime ministerial thing to do. Why behave like a bully instead of letting your record speak for itself? Desperation.

What all this means, among other things, is that the electorate is not getting an accurate picture of Harper and what a majority government in all likelihood would bring.

More to come.

Harper's attack ads understandable

2007-04-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

This is priceless. It's a few days old, and I should have posted in then. It's Dion's reaction the the Harper Conservative's most recent attack ads.

You can't blame the Conservative party for running negative ads. They wanted to do a commercial about all the good things they've done . . . but there wasn't enough material for a 30-second spot.

Negotiations with the Taliban?

2007-04-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

Right on, Galloping Beaver, and Buckdog.
on Karzai conceding that there have been talks with the Taliban. It's what I think has to happen at some point if there is to be peace in Afghanistan. Perhaps the Harper government doesn't think it's as naive as they have suggested. In the words of Galloping Beaver:

Was the Canadian government aware that Karzai is talking with the Taliban? If so, why the disingenuous stance suggesting negotiation is not possible? If not, why are Canadian troops being used to support a policy we are not aware of nor in agreement with?

And a question for Peter MacKay. Who's naive now, dimwit?

To the NDP, Liberals: Stop bickering

2007-04-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

We have at this time the ideolgically the most right-wing federal government in Canadian history, and that is with it only having a minority government. It is currently threatening to capture a majority in the next federal election, which seems imminent.

Despite this, it seems that the two main Anglo-Canadian opposition parties have been resorting to petty bickering, posturing to appear to be THE party that is doing the most in response to Conservative policy, and attacking each other for their respective approaches.

I see this among some Progressive Bloggers as well. There are some PBers like Catnip, and Scott, I think, who have basically similar viewpoints to mine, that being a progressive nowadays doesn't necessarily mean aligning yourself with one opposition party and attacking the other, but rather standing up for progressive values generically. I see too many others, however, some Dippers and Libloggers but not all, who are using talking points vis a vis the other party that are quite frankly becoming very tired, as opposed to keeping their eyes on the prize. Anyone can dig up isolated quotes that can paint the other guy in an unflattering light.

In my opinion as a non-partisan progressive, there is room for criticism of both the Liberals and the NDP. However, I would also say that a lot what I've heard is unjustified, and clearly aimed at attaining some kind of political high ground. Ah well, some may say that's just the nature of the parliamentary system.

Except that there is too much at stake. Stephen Harper must be stopped. Stop the partisan bikering.

Some changes to my blog

2007-03-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

I recently finished some work on my blog. If you look on the right sidebare, you will notice three categories of links.

In the first category, Blogs, you will find some of my favourite Canadian progressive blogs.

In the second category, you will find links to the major Canadian political parties. You can rest assured that they are not listed in order of preference.

In the third category, yo will find key documents, which are articles, letters, and transcripts of speeches which highlight the far-right wing tendencies of one Mr. Stephen Harper.

Please feel free to let me know what you think, suggestions for improvement, etc.

Next task: switch to Haloscan.

Environmental groups urge passage of revamped act.

2007-03-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

Environmental groups have urged the Harper Conservatives to pass the revamped Clearn Air Act.

John Bennett of the Climate Action Network:

We expect that the government will respect the bill, put it before Parliament and respect the will of the people. This is a moment of truth for government.

This is a government bill. This is their bill. They agreed to have it brought to a committee. Two-thirds of Canadians voted for MPs who made these amendments.

Clara Demerse of the Pembina Institute:

I want to know why the minister think the bill is weaker. I think the bill is acceptable. It's not perfect, but there are targets for large emitters put right in the bill. That's what we supported.

If they are going to go ahead and make their announcement, we now have a standard. The standards are in the bill.

Stephen Hazell of the Sierra Club:

The committee has squeezed the hot air out of the clean air act and turned it into the real deal. It's a real bill.

Hate to break it to the Harperites, but they are not going to win this chess match.

Now, time to do some work on my blog.

What to do, what to do

2007-03-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

Scott's DiaTribes has been following the opposition's passing of amendments to the Clean Air Act, and the Harper government's reaction, including a discussion as to whether they will choose to consider it a vote of non-confidence.

Personally, I think politically they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they do call an election on this now, the lie will have been put to them, and their hypocrisy will have been exposed. Which would be perfect, because that's what they are. If they don't go now, they take the chance of the Liberals bottoming out now and showing higher approval ratings in the polls with time.

Danny Williams to attack Harper

2007-03-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

Newfoundland Conservative Premier Danny Williams is launching an ad campaign in the Globe and Mail attacking Stephen Harper:

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is launching an ad campaign against the prime minister, attacking Stephen Harper for reneging on promises he made over the federal equalization program.

Full and half-page ads will appear in newspapers including the Globe and Mail, beginning Wednesday, that slam Harper for including oil and gas revenues in a new equalization formula as well as implementing a fiscal cap.

The advertisements contain a graphic of the Canadian maple leaf, with the inscription: Is this what Canada stands for now?

Sources say it also quotes a Gaelic proverb: "There's no greater fraud than a promise not kept."

Harper used that quotation in campaign literature he distributed throughout Newfoundland and Labrador when he was leader of the Opposition.

Garth Turner: 60 reasons not to vote for Stephen Harper

2007-03-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

From Garth Turner's blog:

Sixty reasons not to vote for Stephen Harper.

1. Smearing MP Nav Bains’ father-in-law as being a potential terrorist, in the House of Commons.
2. Heritage Minister Bev Oda spending $5,000 on Halifax limos to arrive in style at the Juno awards.
3. Harper’s broken promise on high gas prices, saying “get used to it” after being elected.
4. Refusing to lower Canadian flags to honour our fallen military heroes.
5. Pushing recognition of “the Quebecois as a nation” through Parliament in order to win seats in that province.
6. Stacking the judiciary with pro-Conservative judges.
7. David Emerson
8. Security Minister Stockwell Day denying he bought off a former MP to secure a seat in Parliament.
9. Canceling the Kelowna Accord, cutting off talks with first nations’ leaders and refusing to deal with the Caledonia crisis.
10. Fudging the costs of government jets used by Stephen Harper and his ministers after blasting Liberals for the same thing.
11. Promising investors a break on capital gains taxes and then abandoning it after being elected.
12. Dredging up anti-gay sentiments by forcing another vote in Parliament on same-sex marriage.
13. John Baird’s partisanship.
14. Parliamentary secretary Pierre Poilievre’s hand gestures in Parliament and F-word comments in committee.
15. Refusing to allow media coverage of the return home of our Afghan war dead, without consulting the families.
16. Broken promise on providing a health care waiting time guarantee.
17. Spending more money in a single year than any other government in Canadian history, stoking inflation and threatening higher interest rates.
18. Broken promise on taxing income trusts.
19. Deporting hardworking, tax-paying resident Portuguese drywallers.
20. Conservative MP Colin Mayes writing a column saying journalists who disagree with Harper should be jailed.
21. Doing nothing about climate change or the environment for more than a year, and until forced to by the polls.
22. Making a former lobbyist for military arms dealers the minister of defence, in charge of $15 billion in spending.
23. Orchestrating a secret dirty tricks campaign against Bob Rae inside the Liberal leadership convention.
24. Preaching Senate reform, then appointing Michael Fortier to the Senate so he could be made an unelected cabinet minister.
25. Spending $150,000 per weapon to arm border guards.
26. Rona Ambrose, as environment minister, firing a government scientist for writing a book on global warming.
27. Stacking a stem cell research advisory committee with pro-life Conservatives.
28. Muzzling Conservative MPs and banning them from unauthorized media interviews.
29. Saying opposition MPs have “more passion for Taliban prisoners” than they do for Canadian soldiers.
30. Trying to dismantle the Canada Wheat Board and sacking its president.
31. Attempts to block access of the Parliamentary Press Gallery to the prime minister and cabinet. Secret timing of cabinet meetings.
32. Refusing to apologize for wiping out $25 billion in private savings with one tax measure, a great deal of it belonging to seniors.
33. Supporting Calgary Conservative MP Rob Anders’ bogus nomination process, later overturned by the courts.
34. Trying to buy the 2007 Quebec election with a 34% increase in transfer payments.
35. Refusal to even consider honouring the Kyoto Accord, or come up with a credible alternative, until forced to by Parliament.
36. Appointing Liberal MP Wajid Khan as a mid-east advisor to write a public report for Harper, then refusing to release it after he defected.
37. Claiming the Air India inquiry depended on anti-terrorism act amendments that opposition MPs opposed, when lawyers said it did not.
38. Blacking out pages on reasons for taxing income trusts when released under freedom of information.
39. Broken promise to cut the GST by a second point.
40. Raising personal income tax rate for the lowest bracket to help pay for record government spending.
41. Vowing to dismantle gun registry after fatal shooting in Montreal with registered weapons.
42. Cabinet minister Peter Van Loan botching the electoral reform commission hearings.
43. Cutting the Energuide program for low-income homeowners and replacing it with a new one for higher-income homeowners.
44. Kicking out Garth Turner.
45. Firing Conservative Senators Hugh Segal and Michael Meighan from committee work for independent thinking.
46. Threatening Conservative MPs with loss of party status if they talked about funding cuts that affect their constituents.
47. Constant campaigning, rather than governing.
48. Not a single new child care space after promising 125,000 would be created in first Conservative mandate.
49. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty spending $400 on a pair of skates while bringing in budget for “working families.”
50. Promising a lean government, then bloating the cabinet by six more people, with cars and drivers.
51. Snubbing two of the world’s fastest-growing economies and most promising trading partners, China and India.
52. Not allowing Conservative MPs to debate government policies in caucus.
53. Cutting funding to literacy programs, then sending Laureen Harper to a literacy event.
54. Attacking Stephane Dion as “not as leader” in a massive TV ad campaign two weeks after he is elected leader.
55. Breaking promises to provinces, including Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan, over transfer payments, while showering Quebec.
56. Politicizing the police and the military.
57. Linking a vote on pension income-splitting for seniors to taxing income trusts.
58. Cutting funding to women’s programs only to restore it after staff was fired.
59. Accusing those concerned with human rights of being soft on crime, soft on terror and bashing police.
60. Forcing an early election in 2007, breaking a legislated promise to have the next vote in 2009

James Laxer raises alarm bells on Harper's Quebec proposal

2007-03-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, Stephen Harper announced that if the federalists win the Quebec election on March 26, he will take steps to curtail federal spending powers.

James Laxer has raised the alarm bells:

With his proposed Grand Bargain, Stephen Harper would bring his over-arching objective of a Canada, not only with a market economy but with a market society as well, much closer to fruition. Gone would be the potential to establish national programs to create common standards across the country. At the federal level, progressive liberals and social democrats would be blocked from undertaking initiatives to advance the cause of greater social equality.

Laxer concludes:

Stephen Harper’s Grand Bargain with Quebec would place the capstone on the edifice of a right-wing Canada, which neither Quebeckers nor English Canadians want. Progressives who reject the idea of a stripped-down market society need to understand the stakes in the next federal election. It is one they cannot allow the Conservatives to win.

Read the whole article.

Pressure on Harper to support Kelowna accord is mounting

2007-03-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

The pressure is mounting on the Harperites to support the Kelowna Accord, on at least four fronts:

1) Brian Mulroney expressed his support for the accord on the weekend on the Next Great Prime Minister with Rick Mercer. He said, we've existed for 140 years and we have this shameful situation . . . and why? Very simple: we stole their land," and that he absolutely supported the accord.

2) Provincial calls have been made for the feds to support the accord. The Conservative government in Newfoundland has passed a private member's bill calling for the feds to pass the Kelowna Accord. Also, Jean Charest, who is a former federal Conservative, a couple of weeks ago called on Harper to support the accord.

3) The Opposition passed a private members bill in the House of Commons calling on the government to pass the Kelowna Accord. Of course, the Harperites voted against it. (All Conservative MPs are Harperites through complicity in supporting the Harper agenda).

4) Aboriginals are mobilizing on this issue as well as on the federal budget which failed to address issues dealt with in the Kelowna Accord. Phil Fontaine in a Star op-ed expressed his dismal view of the federal budget. Stewart Phillip of the union of BC Indian Chiefs has said that Canada will face a "summer of protest" in response to this failure.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months as I follow Harper's response to this issue.

Harper mudslinging

2007-03-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

From liberal catnip, two examples of disgraceful mudslinging on the part of the Harper Conservatives. Yes, all parties stoop to mudslinging from time to time, but these guys take it to a new level.

Harper, in question period today:

I can understand the passion that the leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for the Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers.

Give me a break!

Certainly not prime ministerial. Certianly not taking the high road. Rather, I suspect, yet another attempt to throw dirty lies at the opposition and hope they stick in a desperate drive to distract the citizenry attain a majority so they can do as they please.

Their pork-barrel budget released Monday, designed to placate the citizenry and make them feel good about Harper, and which went against much of what Stephen Harper believes in on economic policy, is another plank in that drive for a majority.

Budget isn't serious about climate change.

2007-03-21T00:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late on budget coverage here.

From Thoughts on Climate Change, here's an expl;anation as to why the 2007 federal budget is not nearly as green as it appears. Piecemeal lackluster efforts here and there without real committed action on climate change just doesn't cut it.

The Harperite Gestapo?

2007-03-18T16:18:00.000-07:00

From liberal catnip, we learn about the jackboot treatment of a Toronto Star journalist at a Harper Conservative campaign conference.

Elizabeth May announces run against Peter McKay

2007-03-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

As I speak, Elizabeth May is announcing on CBC Newsworld that she is running in Central Nova against Peter McKay. I would like to see her win a seat, and wish she would choose a riding where she would have a better chance.

That said, If she could bring down Peter McKay, nothing would make me happier. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but he was dead wrong (not to mention deceitful) about uniting the PC Party with the Alliance. The latter has swallowed up the former. The princples of the party have swung far to the right.

It will be a tall order, but if she defeats Peter Mckay, it will repesent not only an affirmation of Green Politics, but a condemnation of the Harper government.

She just said, to paraphrase, that she fears what could happen if that Harper government ever attains a majority. Maybe that is the point she is trying to make by making this choice. She knows no one else could defeat McKay, so in a sense, that is perhaps that is why she making this choice.