More On The Harper Record Of Contempt

H/t Peter Ormond

Uh Oh. Mr. Harper Will Not Like This

There are many ways in which the 'Fair' Elections Act makes it more difficult for Canadians to exercise their voting rights; a group especially hard hit are aboriginals, not known for their support of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Previous federal elections have allowed a second person to vouch for the identity of a voter who lacks documents that contain an address. But last year’s controversial Fair Elections Act essentially ended the practice after the Harper government said it was open to abuse.

The act substitutes a new procedure — called “attestation” — which makes it more difficult and complicated for a second voter to declare that a prospective voter resides in a riding.

Critics of the Fair Elections Act warned the elimination of vouching would particularly hurt First Nations communities, where ID with addresses is hard to obtain.

In response, Elections Canada has budgeted up to $1 million to try to reduce the damage done to First nations people by this odious act.

How do they hope to accomplish this? Elections Canada

is planning a series of outreach projects, including through the Assembly of First Nations, to spread the message that people without ID at polling stations “don’t have to give up and go away”.

The contract with the AFN includes an effort to hire more indigenous people for election work, and a post-mortem after the vote, now scheduled for October.

While the efforts by Elections Canada are commendable, it faces an uphill battle, given the traditionally poor participation in elections by aboriginals, who bear an historic alienation from the democratic process.

Nonetheless, one can be certain that the Harper braintrust, which looks upon any opposition, however legitimate, with deep animus, is at this moment plotting ways to circumvent this modest effort by Elections Canada to engage First Nations people.

Stephen Harper: Merry Christmas And Bah, Humbug!

My fellow Canadians,

If the above doesn't not warm the cockles of your Christmas hearts, please check out these, a small portion of this year's 'gifts':

Something for your digestive consideration.

Something for the greenie on your seasonal list.

And, for those workers both domestic and foreign, one of my perennial favourites.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. ;)

If you still need an infusion of seasonal spirit, click here for a special treat that will leave you demanding more.

Where Some Truth Resides

A friend of mine sent me the following. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

Prime Minister Harper took an aerial tour of the proposed pipeline route through BC earlier this week.

When he returned he said he thought it went reasonably well.

"Something's Not Right, Mr. Harper"

While Mr. Harper would have us all believe he is working to make Canada safe from terrorism, there is a far more insidious problem that he is choosing to ignore. Watch as 12-year-old Tori Metcalf rebukes the Prime Minister for his negligence:

The Blinkered Worldview of Stephen Harper

Recently, I wrote a series of posts on Stephen Harper's misuse of the Canadian Revenue Agency through the orchestration of audits on nonprofits that criticize his policies. For Dear Leader, life is uncomplicated: you are either with him or against him, and if you fall into the latter category and have a certain public prominence, the knock on the door may not be far off.

One of my readers, Troy Thomas, made the following comment:

You know, this is how First Nations have been treated for decades, so I'll share what usually happens to First Nations.

Audits aren't the end. They're a means.

A First Nations band which is getting uppity, i.e. publicly complaining about not getting properly funded or complaining about interference, will get audited.
The auditor, that bribe-able one from the USA, Delasomething, [Deloitte] will find in its report what the government asked for it to find.

The government, using the fictitious audit as an excuse, will force the uppity First Nations band to take on the expense of the audit, and then force the uppity First Nations band to take on the expense of a private for-profit third-party firm, which will do what the band used to do for a third or a quarter of the cost.
So, from experience, expect more than the audits. Expect the government to slide its own people into these charities, by using the audits as its reasons: "Oh, these charities are improperly run! They need experience from the private sector in order to do as they're supposed to!"

Something like that.

It now appears that Mr. Harper has yet another weapon with which to further undermine opposition and divide Canadians even further: the new First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which, as reported in The Toronto Star, requires First Nations communities across the country to publish a range of annual business and financial records, including salaries and benefits.

The communities were previously only required to submit these records to the government without sharing them with the public.

While the average remuneration reported is quite modest, there are exceptions:

- the Snuneymuxw First Nation in B.C., revealed that Eric Wesley, a councillor, received $307,201 in contracts for construction related services in the last fiscal year from his own community.

- Chief John Thunder of the Buffalo Point First Nation in Manitoba earned $129,398 for the year in salaries and benefits. The community he represents is made up of less than 200 people.

So what might be the strategic value of making this information public, as opposed to simply making it available to band members?

Given the government's distasteful paternalism toward aboriginals, vilification of their leaders will create even greater disharmony than already exists within their communities; the greater the disunity, the less chance of speaking with one voice.

Given First nations' concerns over Harper's pipeline obsession and his total disregard for environmental concerns, undermining aboriginal leadership will work in favour of the Prime Minister's monomania.

And how have First Nations' people reacted to this latest attempt to discredit them?

“Everything points to (an attempt) to build on the propaganda that aboriginal governments are dishonest,” said Ghislain Picard, interim chief of the Assembly of First Nations, in an interview. “That’s the thinking that’s out there and that’s what they keep building on.”

Picard said the government is always trying to find ways to discredit First Nations people in Canada.

“It reflects the ideology of this government since 2006,” said Picard. “They’re already working very hard to find that one community that might be outside what they would (describe) as the model First Nation and then just pass that brush over to all First Nations.”

While Stephen Harper insists it is all about transparency, about the only thing really transparent here are his motives.