About That Fifth Columnist In Ottawa....

Star readers have much to say:

Harper downplays concerns about trade deal, Sept. 27

It’s a dangerous world but Big Oil, multinationals, banks, the wealthy and his party’s masters can rest easy in the knowledge that Secret Agent Stephen Harper has their collective backs.

He knows how to keep a secret and he’s always on the job fighting democracy and protecting the rights of those who count and those who pay to win. They know their rightful place as the rulers of Earth is assured.

The snivelling masses will be starved of inclusion (or even information) and begin to realize resistance is futile. Rights, freedom, social benefits and environmental roadblocks will be eradicated. When needed armies will be sent forth to secure oil wells or anything else of value to those who matter and there will be no interference from lowlife citizens.

Thanks to men like Secret Agent Harper, courts and politicians will be there to protect the rights of those who matter.

Randy Gostlin, Oshawa

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has driven another nail in the coffin of our once healthy democracy. It is time citizens woke up to the fact that free trade is a synonym for a license to pillage, plunder and destroy given to the multinational corporate oligarchy. Under this disgusting sellout of our nation, municipalities can no longer give preference to local businesses.

If a foreign-owned industry is poisoning the citizenry and the municipal council does its duty and stops the practice, the company can sue the Canadian taxpayers for lost profits.
Those who are not well enough off will have to go without medicine as this backdoor deal will lead to higher costs.

To his credit Stephen Harper is keeping the promise he made to his American Republican party friends that he would destroy the once decent country we used to have. Our provincial governments who care about their citizens should refuse to enter into this rotten deal.

Bill Prestwich, Dundas

What is happening to this country?

We have a Prime Minister who just negotiated a far-reaching trade agreement but is refusing to disclose some of the important details. It is said to benefit Canadian companies but at a price of sacrificing our sovereignty by making companies answerable to an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism instead of being subject to our laws.
We have a government agency, Health Canada, whose mandate is to safeguard our health care system and yet this agency claims that it cannot stop a company from importing drugs that are defective and could harm patients.

We have corporations buying their way out of criminal prosecution for fraud by agreeing to “settlements” in millions of dollars.

.......

It seems to me that the interests of the majority of Canadians are being squeezed out by corporate, business and professional groups’ interests on the right and by refugee, immigration, anti-poverty, climate and other special interests on the left. And when somebody speaks out for this majority they are often dismissed as “populists” by the media.

The dictionary defines populist as “a supporter of the rights and power of the people.” Isn’t that what democracy is supposed to be all about?

Michael Poliacik, Toronto

The Harper Attack On Canadian Values

As I have written elsewhere in this blog, for various reasons I have never believed that democratically elected governments are necessarily a reflection of the values or the will of the electorate. I have also written of my strong belief that governments do, however, have a potentially huge impact on the national ethos. By their policies, rhetoric and treatment of opposing ideas, governments can and I suspect do frequently deform the souls of nations.

The eloquent lead letter in today's print edition of The Star reminds us all of how far Harper Inc. has taken us down a road that darkly deviates from the things that our country has traditionally held dear:

Supposedly, our federal government acts in the best interests of citizens. Ample evidence proves otherwise. On matters of immigration, human rights and justice, they not only break faith, but act with an unbelievable lack of humanity and compassion.

When the Supreme Court decreed that Omar Khadr’s rights had been violated, that young man still agreed to plead guilty and face a longer sentence in order to return to Canada. The United States expected Canada to act immediately; the government has still stalled.

Only after extreme pressure from citizens has the government lived up to its obligation to give shelter to Afghan interpreter Sayed Shah Sharifi, even though his aid to Canadians was verified by the military and foreign correspondents. He has been told that he has a seat reserved on a flight to Canada on July 28. Again, the government moved with extreme reluctance.

In an unbelievably petty and cruel bureaucratic ruling, a Canadian woman who has lived here since the age of 4 and has taught generations of Canadian schoolchildren, is being denied Old Age Security because she could not supply landing papers showing the date that she arrived here from England. What absolute nonsense.

At one time, Canada had visitors from abroad to learn about our increasingly progressive prison system under Commissioner Ole Ingstrup. Sadly, we have regressed and are now considered below UN standards.

When Public Safety Minister Vic Toews passes on to the next world, I fervently pray that he is placed in a “perfectly appropriate” double-bunk situation for a minimum of one year. It will be too late to help current prisoners, but it is a sentence that I feel the minister deserves.

I resent intensely this government that to me represents ever more frequently a betrayal of Canadian values and that persists in diminishing the Canada that I love. When the next election rolls around, my vote will be ABC.

Shirley Bush, Toronto

More on The Harper Betrayal of All of Us

I wrote a recent brief post on the Trans Pacific Partnership that Canada recently signed onto, the price of admission being the surrender of much of our sovereignty over the environment, working conditions, etc.

A new article published in The Nation paints a grim portrayal indeed of the future we face as a nation when this pact is finalized, going well beyond the compromises made in NAFTA.

I urge you to read it, and consider what each of us can do, given the fact that we, our children and our grandchildren will all be the poorer for this absolute betrayal by the Harper government.

H/t to Kev.

Canada Day? Really?

In my non-virtual life, I like to think that I am a reasonably pleasant fellow who enjoys the small pleasures life has to offer, has a decent sense of humour, and can see the good as well as the bad of this world.

I sometimes fear, however, that in my blogging life I am turning into one of those grim, overly earnest and shrill presences for whom the political apocalypse is at hand. I wish I could say that this blog entry was going to be different, but that would be untrue.

The truth is, I find little to celebrate on this Canada Day, the latest reason blazoning forth on the front page of my Sunday Star with this headline:

Tories slash funding for young offenders by 20 per cent

The Star exclusive reveals that the Harper government has slashed 20 per cent of federal funding for youth justice programs in Canada, cutting $35.6 million used to supervise and rehabilitate young offenders....

In typically Orwellian fashion, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson made no mention of the drastic cut Wednesday in a news release that trumpeted “continued support” for the Youth Justice Services Funding Program.

Apparently there are three components to the programs that are now in jeopardy:

- measures to target violent young offenders,

- measures to rehabilitate and reintegrate youth in trouble with the law,

- measures to deal with less serious types of offences outside the formal court process.

Given their predilection for seeing the worst in human nature, I suspect the Harperites were most offended by the rehabilitation and reintegration elements of the program.

So, while the Harper regime continues to target the most vulnerable amongst us, and while it continues to attack and try to dismantle traditional Canadian values that emphasize the primacy of the collective over the individual, I shall not be celebrating Canada Day.

Now, time for a bike ride to try to restore my equanimity.

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Harper To Surrender More Of Our Sovereignty To Corporations

As has already been reported, the price of admission for Canada's entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations is the acceptance of everything thus far negotiated. Although all of the talks are secret, with corporations but not citizens privy to its contents, this much is known: the TPP enhances corporate rights to sue governments when public policies interfere with how, when and where they make profits - in others words, a further abdication of our national sovereignty, a process that began under NFTA.

This link includes a video that offers some insight into what is going on behind our backs, and it is nothing less than an absolute and utter betrayal of all of us. Although spoken of from an American perspective, don't forget that the changes discussed will apply to all signatories.

Two Recommendations For Monday Morning

Since I have a bit of a busy day ahead, I will be brief and recommend two sources for some Monday morning edification. The first comes from a link provided by the redoubtable Dr. Dawg, who continues to go where angels and the mainstream media fear to tread.

The second, which I am taking the liberty of reproducing below, is yet another example of the wisdom of Toronto Star readers. In this case Bill Livingstone of Toronto punctures the myth of conservative fiscal prudence and sees a more sinister purpose served by Harper running the current deficit:

Every so often, we elect a conservative government. It seems we just can't tolerate a balanced budget or we just let our emotions over some silly scandal carry us away. In recent memory, no conservative government anywhere in the world has balanced a budget. It's their goal to create a deficit in order to have an excuse to cut social programs. For the Harper Conservatives, this is all working out to plan, with a little help from the recession of 2008 where the debt was increased by so-called Keynesian economics but did more to help GM and the banks than stimulate the economy. In truth, our banks didn't need help, at least not in the way someone starving on welfare needs help, but we gave them money anyway.

Anyway, now that we have a big deficit, we can cut OAS and EI. Without the deficit, people might be up in arms. With the deficit, even most seniors will still vote conservative in the next election while they give the government billions as they cash in their RRSPs. So far, all is going according to the conservative playbook. So what comes next? The conservatives are not forthcoming but history is quite clear on this. All the cutbacks and austerity will almost certainly lead to a depression. And history shows that conservatives always have the excuse that they didn't cut deeply enough or fast enough. That is rather a deception. The real reason is that, as history can surely reveal, even in a depression there are winners. Hint, follow the money.

Eventually, a democracy (if we still have one) will bring in a liberal government with real Keynesian policies that actually stimulate the economy and all will be well again. But then eventually, after a couple of good decades, when memory fades about why we regulate and why we really pay taxes, we will vote in another conservative government . . .

Bill Livingstone, Toronto

It's Time To Show Some National Self-Respect

When I was a child, I was afraid of many people: my teachers, who believed in strapping and slapping us as early as Grade One, school bullies who periodically picked on me, and some of the thuggish people residing in my working-class neighbourhood who enjoyed verbally assaulting those even more powerless than themselves.

It didn't occur all at once, but gradually, as I got older, whatever was in my personality that encouraged easy victimhood changed, and I started to assert myself as an individual. And over the years I have discovered that although my battles are not always won, there are clear and healthy psychological benefits in refusing to adopt a passive acceptance of the injustices and indignities the world can offer. Sometimes there are victories to be savored which can be particularly sweet.

It is therefore difficult for me to watch so many of my fellow Canadians wearing personae of passivity, indifference, and helplessness in response to the national bullying that is the defining characteristic of the Harper regime, the arrogant thrusting through of the budget omnibus bill just the latest example. Far too many of us are content to allow our video games, our smart phones and our sundry other diversions to narcotize and infantilize us while the country we love is being radically altered by a government that respects neither its constituents nor the values that define us as a nation.

It is time for everyone to grow up.

A story in yesterday's Globe suggests that Harper's latest assault on democracy could prove to be a costly one for his government, as Tory M.P's are hearing from constituents loudly complaining over thuggish tactics to pass a budget bill that includes far too many non-budgetary items, many of which, for example, pertain to the weakening and, in many cases, the dismantling of environmental protections and oversights.

Now is the time to communicate volubly and voluminously our displeasure.

Now is the time to begin the long process of reclaiming our democracy and educating ourselves to the perils it faces.

Now is the time to start mobilizing our opposition to this regime so that 2015 does not repeat recent history.

I have an out-of-town-commitment today, but in my next post, I hope to have composed a letter to my M.P. David Sweet, putting him on notice by expressing some of the things I have discussed above.

Gated Democracy? - Protesting The Harper Omnibus Budget Bill - Part 2

Yesterday I got a glimpse of the kind of democratic expression that is considered acceptable under the Harper regime. It is one that I found profoundly disturbing.

Almost a week ago I wrote a post describing a march organized by Leadnow.ca to the constituency office of my Conservative M.P., David Sweet. Yesterday, another demonstration to protest Bill C-38, the Harper budget omnibus bill, took place, this one organized by the local chapter of the Council of Canadians and joined by a variety of groups and individuals.

Despite the short notice, this march from downtown Dundas up to Mr. Sweet's office in Greensville was well-attended, and I was very pleased by the healthy presence of young Canadians, each participant bound by a deep concern for the dark road Stephen Harper and his acolytes are leading us down.

However, young and old alike were in for an unpleasant surprise upon arrival at our destination. We were met with a No Trespassing sign at the entrance to the strip mall housing Sweet's constituency office, an interdiction authorized by the property owner, IPC Investments, we were told.

Not one to be satisfied with such an expedient and un-Canadian dismissal of democracy, I ventured onto the property to ask for the owner. Flanked by four Hamilton police officers (all of whom, I must say, discharged their perceived duties in a very professional and non-confrontational manner), I spoke to the owner, who refused to give his name. (I later learned his identity, but it seems pointless to give it here, as I suspect his is an attitude endemic in Harperland.)

I asked him why we were being denied access to the office of our M.P., and he told me it was private property. When I persisted in my questions, he said there had been an incident of property destruction a couple of months ago, at which point the officer told him he didn't have to answer my questions. Interestingly, a lawyer who was in attendance later contacted the property owner who "alleged that people in the past had caused damage by breaking foliage and walking on plants," none of which was in evidence in this concreted and rather sterile-looking strip mall.

Thus literally relegated to the street (also an apt metaphor for where this battle must be fought), many of the attendees spoke eloquently about their concerns over the omnibus bill. Representatives from labour, the environment, poverty and political action groups, as well as former politicians and individuals, all united by their love of this country and their compassion for its members, offered moving perspectives on the dangers inherent in the Harper push to fundamentally alter the values and traditions that I would like to think the majority of Canadians hold dear.

Many of yesterday's attendees were veterans of the battles to safeguard those values, maintain our democratic rights, and hold our politicians accountable to those they were elected to represent and serve. Many others were young and just beginning to take up those battles, but all were united in their passion and their determination to fight for the things truly worth fighting for in this life.

It is this spirit that the Harper regime can never really understand. It is this spirit that Harper and his followers would love to crush. But it is also this spirit that, as both history and contemporary world events amply demonstrate, is the one aspect of humanity that is truly invincible, and will never die.

Protesting The Harper Omnibus Budget Bill

I wrote a post the other day about a Leadnow.ca campaign promoting nation-wide demonstrations at the constituency offices of Conservative M.P.s to protest Bill C-38, the Harper government's omnibus budget bill that changes over 70 laws, eroding further our democracy, our labour laws, and our environmental safeguards, to name but three of its insidious contents.

Locally, a group of us gathered at the office of David Sweet, the Harper M.P. for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale. Although disappointed that he wasn't there (and in fairness to him, I checked afterwards and found out that his constituency hours are only Monday through Friday), it was nonetheless a healthy gathering of people, many of whom shared the view that this was just a first step in organizing local opposition to the agenda that Harper Inc. is mercilessly pursuing at the expense of the well-being of all Canadians.

None of us, being mature adults, are under any illusion that the fight will be easy or of short duration. We all know the power of the Conservative propaganda machine; coupled with the fear that the regime inspires in various groups who still subscribe to the tenets of democracy, and the contemptibly divisive tactics employed by a government drunk with its own unholy power, the road ahead is littered with obstacles.

But at least the process is in place. And while I recognize that it is very often very difficult for people to take that first step outside of their 'comfort zone' to join a protest, I suspect most would say that once they have taken that step, they look forward to more opportunities to do what they can to ensure that the great country they have known throughout their lives offers the same values and the same opportunities for their children and their children's children, down through the generations.

The future is at stake!

The Economy And The People

Several years ago, while he was still writing for Canada's self-proclaimed 'newspaper of record,' Rick Salutin penned a column entitled something like, The economy is doing fine, the people not so much. In it, he made some trenchant observations about how, over time, the well-being of the economy and the well-being of the people, once essentially synonymous, have sharply diverged. His thesis was that while the economy once served the people, today the opposite is true.

Echoing that thesis, in today's column entitled GM Oshawa job cuts show real economy hurting under Stephen Harper Thomas Walkom offers a similar perspective.

His biting analysis begins:

When Stephen Harper’s Conservatives talk about protecting the economy, they are speaking of an abstraction.

They override the right to strike of rail and airline workers in order to further this abstraction. They run roughshod over the environment in its name.

But the real economy is not an abstraction. It is people’s jobs and wages. It is our livelihood. It is how we get by.

And this real economy is not doing well.

Walkom then goes on to eviscerate the propaganda so proudly and persistently proclaimed by Harper Inc. that they are economic masters of the universe, the only party protecting the values and addressing the concerns of 'ordinary Canadians.'

For an inkling of whose interests the Harper regime is really protecting, please take a look at the article. Must reading in the arsenal of the critical thinker.

An Opportunity To Send Harper Inc. A Message

I received the following email message last evening from Leadnow.ca:

Since the Harper Conservatives announced their Omnibus Budget, more and more Canadians are rallying against a bill that would put a black mark on our democracy. Now, we’re writing to invite you to join a national day of action at Conservative MP offices, and supporting locations across Canada, this Saturday, June 2nd.

Even some traditional Conservative allies are now saying that the Harper Conservatives have gone too far. Last week, David Wilks, a Conservative MP, told a small group of his constituents that he, and many other Conservative MPs, were deeply troubled by the Budget Bill and that he would consider voting against it if 12 of his colleagues, enough to stop the bill, stood with him.[1]

It’s time to stand up. This Saturday, we’ll gather at Conservative MP offices and support locations across the country to bring Canadians together in opposition to a Bill that contains a sweeping agenda to remake Canadian society. And, we’ll shine a spotlight on the Conservative MPs who can stop the bill, split it apart and start over by inviting Canadians to help them make better laws.

If you are interested in this opportunity for a democratic expression of disgust at the direction Harper Inc. is taking us in, please click here to find an event near you.

A Journalist Writes About A Pattern

The other day I wrote a post about detecting patterns in political behaviour, opining that most media spend a disproportionate amount of their considerable resources covering trivia like celebrity gossip and acting as shallow and lazy supporters of government propaganda. The Toronto Star, I asserted, is one of the few exceptions in the world of newspapers.

Despite my feelings of repugnance toward The Globe and Mail, they still have at least one journalist who writes and thinks independently: Lawrence Martin. Yesterday, in a piece entitled The time has come for a progressive revival, Martin, drawing upon the work of a blog posting by Alex Himelfarb, the Clerk of the Privy Council under Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien and, briefly, Stephen Harper, discusses the slow but relentless dismantling of the progressive state at the hands of Harper Inc., a change that was presaged by the dropping of the word Progressive from the party's name and one that is accelerating under recent legislation.

I hope that you will have time to read both pieces. While Himelfarb's analysis is lengthy, it is a solid testament to the robust nature of the politcal blogosphere. Martin's piece is much shorter but, I believe, captures the flavour of the originating work.

Patterns

Something that occurs just once is mere happenstance; twice is a coincidence, and three or more times is part of a pattern. - Anonymous

Being able to detect patterns, whether in the lab or in the crucible of political behaviour, requires time, intelligence, and access to extensive sources of information. Few of us possess sufficient amounts of all three to be able to conduct such analysis in isolation; therefore collaboration would also seem to be a fourth requirement.

While the Internet has made it easier to detect such patterns, and indeed there are certain bloggers I read who are masterful in their capacity for pattern-detection (Dr. Dawg and The Sixth Estate come immediately to mind), there is still a vital role to be played by organizations that should have all four components in abundance - the mainstream media.

Sadly, however, many newspapers and television networks have degenerated into lazy, sycophantic and shallow promoters of government policy and celebrity gossip, affording little upon which the critical thinker can draw for nourishment. However, there is one paper who readers of this blog know I take a special interest and pride in, and that is The Toronto Star.

Canada's largest-circulation newspaper, The Star is often dismissed by the reactionary right as a 'leftist-rag', a derogation not surprising since nuanced thinking is not the extreme-right's forte. However, in my view it provides much-need information so sadly missing from Canada's self-proclaimed newspaper of record, The Globe and Mail, a journal I have occasionally written about on this blog.

The fact that The Star has such high circulation figures and healthy profits is a clear indication of the appetite that exists in this country for solid journalism. It is certainly why I subscribe to it.

A national debate on key issues affecting the lives of Canadians cannot take place in a vacuum. And while Harper Inc., probably the most secretive government in our history, sees openness and truth as an impediment to the implementation of its neo-conservative agenda, The Star continues to ensure that the vacuum is never absolute.

I therefore highly recommend perusal of this morning's editorial, in which The Star, while discussing the changes in the Employment Insurance appeals system, detects a larger pattern at work here, ending with this assertion:

What is emerging is a system that gives more power to the government and makes it more difficult for Canadians to challenge the way their tax dollars are being used, their rights are being eroded and their avenues of appeal are being shut down.

Canada For Sale

At least that's all I can conclude given that the ineffectual Investment Canada Act is about to become completely impotent thanks to changes announced today; in a short time, the government will not even bother reviewing foreign investments in or purchases of Canadian companies worth less than $1 billion.

National borders? Economic sovereignty? Closures of branch plants? Completely irrelevant in the new Canada being formed by Harper Inc.

Harper Omnibus Bill To Cede Some Of Our Sovereignty

Everywhere we look, more and more evidence of Stephen Harper's intention to betray Canadians through Bill C-38, his omnibus bill which covers a multitude of sins.