On The Company You Keep

This kind of makes it easy to judge Harper, doesn't it?

Now This Is Getting Ridiculous

Apparently, Stephen Harper feels that Canadians are real whores for tax cuts:

Stephen Harper is kicking off a quiet day on the federal election campaign trial by promising tax relief for service club members.

Harper says members of organizations such the Kiwanis, Lions and Royal Canadian Legion can claim a tax break for their membership fees if the Conservatives are re-elected.

I'm sure that will make the disaffected vets much, much happier.

Another Reason To Vote

If you know any young people looking for a reason to vote, please pass this on to them:

National Pipeline Approval Board

Posted by Robin Chat on Saturday, August 15, 2015

It May Be Dry Out West, But It's Raining Pork In Alberta

Desperate times require desperate measures, and there is definitely a whiff of desperation coming from the Conservative camp these days. With the majority of polls showing their fortunes in decline, it would seem that Pierre Poilievre's giddy and fatuous Christmas in July bribe stunt was but the opening salvo in preventing voters from falling into apostasy.

Targeting those whose vote can be easily bought may pick up some extra support going into the October election, but the Harper regime still knows that its base is its real strength, and one not to be taken lightly lest some choose not to vote, a real possibility given that their man has proven to have betrayed almost all the principles upon which he had campaigned when first vying for power: Senate reform, transparency, accountability, etc. etc.

Take the regime's efforts during its latest western foray.

In Calgary, Defence Minister Jason Kenney announced that the federal government would be funding Calgary’s light rail transit expansion to the tune of $1.53 billion. Yes … that’s billion.

Kenney, MP for Calgary Southeast, made sure to point out that the money was “the single largest federal infrastructure investment” in the history of Calgary.

Disavowing any connection with the impending election, Kenney described the timing as 'coincidental.'

But Kent Hehr the Liberal candidate in Calgary Centre who according to some polls is running well ahead of Conservative MP Joan Crockatt, said the notion that the timing is a coincidence is “absurd” given how long Calgary has been asking for federal support for public transit.

But wait! There's more! With citizen tax revenue at their disposal, money is no object:

The Conservatives were also showering money on local community groups. According to The Calgary Herald, qualifying associations had only a month to apply for a funding program that was part of a $46-million Western Diversification initiative.

And even though the money — such as the $45,000 given to the Lake Bonavista Community Association in Calgary for upgrading its suburban facility — won’t arrive until next year, Conservative MPs are busy making the announcements this summer.

Lest those who live west of Alberta feel they were not worthy of the Tory touch, there was this moral support to the beleaguered and brave fighters of forest fires:


Infonews reported the following with this headline: Man in blue suit thanks firefighters

For a second straight day, firefighting efforts at the Westside Road fire were the backdrop for political photo ops.

Today, several federal politicians stood around waiting, occasionally wiping dirt from their clothing while sweaty, ash-covered, exhausted-looking firefighters surrounded them for the tightly controlled photo opportunity. Helicopters carrying empty buckets buzzed overhead and a steady stream of wildfire fighting aircraft circled prior to the event.

Provinces fund their own firefighting. It’s not a federal responsibility.

After more than an hour wait, the press conference was over after less than five minutes. The Prime Minister would not take questions about why he was there, how much time the photo opportunity took from firefighters or what resources were used in the photo effort.

A federal election is less than three months away.

And it was with withering derision that the satirical site THE LAPINE treated the Harper entourage:

The selected firefighters were so tired and annoyed that they just silently watched Harper as he waved his arms around like a conductor and tried to get them to sing along with him in a rousing chorus of O Canada.

None of the group sang or even hummed along.

And none of them accepted the “Canada’s Better With Harper” t-shirts that the PM’s bodyguards were handing out.

Said one fatigued smoke jumper with an honesty that rarely finds its way into print:

“Shit man, we’d all been out there for 12 hours or so and suddenly we’re hauled out, lined up in a parking lot, left standing for an hour, and then expected to sing O Canada so Harper can get a picture?” front-line firefighter Ted McKinley told local radio station AM 1150.

“That’s complete bullshit. Harper just wanted a picture as quickly as he could get one…he still smelled like garlic from whatever he had for lunch,” said the 37-year-old father of two.

Yet the man in the blue suit proved indefatigable in his lyrical leanings:

Immediately following receiving the silent treatment from the firefighters, Harper over-compensated for the snub by waving wildly for the cameras and singing ‘The Maple Leaf Forever’ as he boarded a helicopter with Premier Clark to return to Kelowna for a scheduled beach-side fundraiser event.

Contemptuous mockery. That is all Harper and his gang deserve until they meet their day of reckoning in October.

Entitled To Her Entitlements

That seems to be the attitude of Ann Gray, another former Harper appointee, on her and her husband's lavish 'fact-finding' trips, which cost the taxpayer plenty. She regards the fuss as much ado about nothing, seeing the trips as a 'thank you' for her unpaid time sitting on the Blue Water Bridge Canada crown corporation.

Rarely has a volunteer done so little for so much, some might say.

The Harper Reign Of Terror Continues

The Harper reign of terror, a.k.a, the CRA witch hunts, continues apace, the latest victim the Sierra Club Canada Foundation.

Describing it as part of an "intimidation campaign",

John Bennett, the foundation's national program director ... has been asked to produce a list of all the politicians he met in 2012 and 2013, among other documentation.

"Clearly, the governing party is targeting groups it sees as its political enemies and is using the taxpayer's money and a government enforcement agency to do it," Bennett said in a recent fundraising letter.

"It is an intimidation campaign designed to harass and distract organizations from doing the charitable work their donors want them to do … it is an abuse of power."

The foundation reported revenues of about $700,000 in its 2013 filing with Canada Revenue Agency. Bennett is the only full-time employee in the Ottawa office, with two part-time staff and a summer student.

National Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay continues to insult the intelligence of Canadians; she consistently holds to the fiction that there is no political bias in the groups chosen for audits,

saying CRA officials make their own independent decisions without political input.

One of course is entitled to question this assertion, given that an audit was conducted on the Sierra Club in 2011, which it passed.

And then, there is this:

As of March 31, the Canada Revenue Agency had completed 21 political-activity audits, with 28 still under way and 11 still to begin. So far, five charities have received notices of the agency's intention to revoke their charitable status.

None of those audits, by the way, were of groups supportive of the Harper regime's neoliberal agenda. Infer what you will from that.

For Those Who Value Democracy

After watching Pierre Polievre make the Sunday rounds extolling his government's achievements, it would be easy for the politically disengaged and ignorant to conclude that the Harper regime is the greatest thing since the proverbial sliced bread. By Polievre's account, his government has put more money into the pockets of 'hardworking Canadians' than any other in Canada's history. What's not to like about TFSAs (a leg up for both working and retired seniors, according to trickster Pierre), income-splitting and new pending budget measures for seniors. All is well with the world.

Except that it is not. Scratch beneath the surface of such self-serving rhetoric and you will find a profoundly anti-democratic regime with barely concealed contempt for those who hold differing views, that latter considered one of the most important elements of any society that deems itself healthy and dynamic. The regime has used every trick at its disposal to demonize those dissenting voices as it extols a consumer-driven politics meant to turn us into a people who embrace mediocrity and absence of bold vision.

Although I have written about it many times, the Harper-directed CRA witch hunts make for a good illustration of the profoundly intolerant and anti-democratic nature of the Harper regime.

Steven Zhou writes:

If a democratic system thrives on participation from a civil society free to express itself without state intervention, then Canadian democracy could use some help these days.

Citizens who band together into groups that push politicians to engage a problem should, in theory, be a vital aspect of democratic decision-making. Yet the Harper administration, in its infinite political wisdom, has devoted millions of taxpayer dollars via Canada Revenue Agency, formerly Revenue Canada, to, in effect, target groups that are critical of federal policies.

The statistics paint a damning picture:

The CRA launched a series of 60 audits in 2012, and, tellingly, the targeted organizations all seem to espouse views that don't fit so well with the Harper agenda.

These 'political-activity audits' have primarily targeted environmental groups, human rights organizations, and labour-backed think tanks like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Meanwhile, more conservative-minded groups like the Manning Foundation or the Fraser Institute have not faced such aggression from the CRA. Many of them have also, like their leftist counterparts, participated in 'political activities.'

And this pattern holds true for the CRA's latest target:

[T]he latest charity to be targeted in a significant way is the United Steelworkers' Humanity Fund, a labour-backed organization that has supported food banks and disaster relief initiatives for over 30 years.

It has donated about two per cent of its annual revenue to the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA), an umbrella organization that advocates for more accountability in the Canadian mining sector, among other things.

This support for the CNCA, an organization that hasn't shied away from its political purposes, is apparently what the CRA is zeroing in on. The fund has often butted heads with the Harper administration over labour issues, and wants more oversight of Canadian mining practices abroad, which, according to its president Ken Neumann, is primarily why the CRA began auditing the group's finances last year.

The intended purposes of such audits, of course, are to provoke both fear and self-censorship:

Such audits can certainly disrupt an organization's day-to-day operations significantly, but this kind of trouble isn't the main reason why these intrusions are bad for Canadian democracy in the long run. Targeted organizations that are forced to go through the lengthy auditing process can, whether the government intends it or not, become examples of what not to say or do in the Harper era.

One can hardly blame other charities if they decide to interpret the current inquisitorial atmosphere as being politically motivated. This means that if they want to keep their charitable status, practicing a degree of self-censorship may end up being totally rational. This is an anti-democratic development almost by definition, and it hardly matters whether a particular agenda is behind it all, though the available evidence suggests that Revenue Canada's choices aren't exactly politically neutral.

Will such practices, profoundly inimical to democracy, be noted by average Canadians, or will their vision be blinded by budget baubles designed to cultivate the selfish part of their natures?

I don't know the answer, but I do fear it.

And Speaking Of Harper's Former Friends and Appointees....

Another one sends his greetings from jail in Panama. The disgraced Arthur Porter, the Harper-appointed former Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee of Canada and alleged fraudster, has a message for his former good buddy:

Porter told The Canadian Press in a recent phone interview from La Joya prison that he wouldn’t mind a visit from Harper while the prime minister is in the region this weekend for the Summit of the Americas.

“If he wishes, he is most welcome to come and see the conditions that I live in now,” Porter said of Harper during the conversation, which was drowned out at times by the shouts of other inmates in the background.

“The [prison] air is the same, the infections are the same, the difficulties in finding water and food are the same. You know, some days are better than others.”

Porter has been detained since May, 2013, in the Central American country as he fights extradition to Canada. He faces fraud charges in Canada related to a $1.3-billion hospital project in Montreal.

Alth0ugh the Prime Minister will likely pass on the invitation, I can't help but think he would find that prison air, shall we say, bracing.

Just A Reminder Of Some Upcoming Events

And who says there's nothing to look forward to?