On The Company You Keep

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

Parental Warning

The following contains coarse language.

While I know it is perhaps beneath the standards I try to maintain on my blog, I rather liked this:

A Quick Thought About The TPP

I was not planning to write about the Trans Pacific Partnership deal gleefully announced by Mr. Harper yesterday, trade and economics not being my strong suits. However, looking at the overall details of what it entails prompts me to make an observation.

First, a few of the details:

Beef and Pork

Under the deal, Canada could double or triple its annual beef exports to Japan to nearly $300 million, according to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. The beef industry would see a phase out in tariffs to those countries from 39 per cent to 9 per cent over 15 years. The deal also secures Canada’s ability to export more pork to Japan, where producers sell roughly $1 billion worth of the meat annually.

Fish and Seafood

The deal means far greater access for Canadian producers to other Pacific Rim markets. Canadian seafood — from frozen fish to fresh crab and lobster —is currently slapped with tariffs of up to 15 per cent in Japan and Malaysia, 34 per cent in Vietnam and 5 per cent in New Zealand. The tariffs on fish and seafood to those countries would be gone within a decade. Japan imports a number of premium seafood products from Canada such as crab, shrimp, lobster, herring roe, sea urchins, salmon and halibut.

Forestry/wood products
About $1 billion in Canadian forest products were subject to tariffs last year. Exports to countries like Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia will gradually be reduced, thereby increasing access for these products.

Metals and Mining

Iron and steel products would benefit from Japan eliminating tariffs of up to 6.3 per cent within 10 years, Vietnam wiping out tariffs of up to 40 per cent within 10 years, Malaysia doing away with tariffs of up to 25 per cent within a decade, and Australia cutting tariffs of up to 5 per cent within four years.

I trust that you can see the pattern here. The gains under this deal for Canada reside almost exclusively in what are called primary industries. What is a primary industry?

An industry involved in the extraction and collection of natural resources, such as copper and timber, as well as by activities such as farming and fishing. A company in a primary industry can also be involved in turning natural resources into products.

Primary industry tends to make up a larger portion of the economy of developing countries than they do for developed countries.

It seems to me that the deal Canada is entering into is merely a continuation of the Harper retrograde vision of Canada as the traditional hewer of wood and drawer of water, a vision he based the bulk of our economic hopes on in his relentless promotion of the Alberta tarsands.

Value-added jobs will take a real hit under the TPP:

Automobiles and Auto Parts

An auto will need to contain just 45 per cent TPP content to qualify for free trade. And for auto parts, the figure is 40 per cent. that’s down from 62.5 per cent and 60 per cent respectively under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which this will replace. Japan already offers duty-free access to passenger vehicles and auto parts. Canada agreed to phase out its 6.1 per cent tariff on imported vehicles over five years. Malaysia and Vietnam, which have tariffs of 35 per cent and 74 per cent respectively, agree to phase them out over 12 years.

According to Unifor president Jerry Dias, that betrayal concession will cost upwards of 20,000 auto industry jobs.

And what do we get in return? Long-term elimination of tariffs that may allow for more sales of industrial pumps, medical equipment, and harvesters and mowers.

As well, there is the opening up of Canada's dairy market, in exchange for which Harper is promising billions of our tax dollars to farmers who will suffer losses.

I'll leave it to others with more wisdom to decide if all of this sounds like it will produce a net benefit for Canada.

Seeing Harper For What He Is

John Langs carved "Anybody But Harper!!" into his 46-acre field of rye near Brantford, Ont. Each letter is 100 metres tell.

Star readers once more offer their trenchant assessments of Stephen Harper's character (or lack thereof):

It’s hard to reconcile Stephen Harper’s ongoing tough talk on standing up to terrorism when we remember that during the gunman’s attack on Parliament Hill last October, Harper jumped into a storage closet and hid for 15 minutes.

Indeed, it was reported by CBC News, that one week later, he apologized to his caucus telling them he felt remorse for doing so. (At the time, many of his MPs were alarmed by his sudden disappearance.)

It certainly seems that Harper’s actions graphically illustrate his penchant for looking after No. 1. One might wonder if this is a good character trait for someone supposedly looking after a country.

J. Richard Wright, Niagara-on-the-Lake

Stephen Harper relates everything to ISIS. The question to him becomes: How many more Canadian bombs would have prevented that little boy drowning? Canada is facing a crisis beyond Harper’s understanding. It’s difficult to imagine Canada’s international reputation getting any lower, but he is doing his best to realize it.

Raymond Peringer, Toronto

As a member of the PEN committee for Writers In Exile and a supporter of our local refugee shelter, “Romero House,” I have watched the brutal immigration policies of the Harper government over the last 10 years.

In 2011 the Harper government said they wanted any refugees admitted into Canada to be sponsored privately, to keep costs down. Okay, so there were hundreds of church and community groups that said yes, found refugee families and individuals in the camps to sponsor, many of them Syrian. These private groups made their applications for the refugees, found accommodation, bought furniture, donations of food and people to help integrate the people into Canadian society. Then they waited – three months, nine months, 16 months, two years and Canadian immigration simply refused to process them. No response, no explanation, nothing. We couldn’t believe it.

This was under then Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and it’s just as bad now under Chris Alexander.

In scores of these projects the accommodation had to be let go, the furniture sold and the groups disbanded and the refugees continue to live in the camps without hope.

I have no idea why the Conservative government refused to process these applications for years. Private individuals would pay. Whatever is going on in Ottawa, we have to challenge it. Especially now with this heartbreaking Syrian crisis.

Keith Ross Leckie, Toronto

.....Even a cold-hearted economist like Mr. Harper should realize many of the refugees include highly trained individuals, including doctors, scientists, technologists and tradesmen. If Canada had been led by xenophobic leaders in the past, our country would never have survived long enough to achieve its unique ethnic diversity but instead would have disintegrated into an assortment of resource-rich territories belonging to the U.S.

Lloyd Atkins, Vernon, B.C.

I Hope This Gets A Lot Of Airplay

Here is the newest NDP ad, a clever sendup of the Conservative record using the job interview format so favoured by the Tories in their attacks on Trudeau.

Go On, Make Her Day

You'll understand the relevance of my post's title when you get to the end of the following video, about the efforts of 81-year-old Doreen Routley, a former steadfast Conservative, to convince people not to vote for Stephen Harper in October. I shudder to ponder what expletives Angry White Guy would hurl at her.


And as a supplement, you may wish to check out some Star readers' reactions to the revelations emerging from the Mike Duffy trial, a few of which I reproduce below:

To help Canadians suspend disbelief and to enter his imaginary world, the next three Senate appointments by the Prime Minister will be: the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the Boogey Man. Together, they will enhance our benefits and scare those who threaten us.
Chuck Simmons, Pickering

We’ve seen this movie before. A network of senior political operatives scrambles to cover up an unravelling embarrassment in order to insulate their boss whose abuse of power created the problem in the first place.

After Watergate was exposed, Richard Nixon won the largest majority in U.S. history. It was only later that the wheels came off.

We can only hope it doesn’t take as long for us to be rid of our tyrant and his gang of democracy suppressors.

Dermot P. Nolan, Hamilton

The Duffy trial can aptly be renamed “Wruffygate” due to its profound effect on the federal election campaign. The mounting email evidence and testimony leaves us with two clear conclusions.

Either Stephen Harper knew all along about Wright’s activities. Occam’s razor favours this explanation. Almost nothing happens in the Party of One without Harper’s knowledge.
Or his many underlings were too afraid of their dictatorial leader to tell him what Nigel Wright was doing to extricate Mike Duffy from his dilemma. We have seen this before when Saddam’s underlings were too afraid of him to relate how few weapons he actually had. The resulting electronic chatter fooled U.S. intelligence into thinking he had “weapons of mass destruction.”

Either way, the scandal has derailed Harper’s branding. During the Macleans debate, he simply stuck to his party line, largely ignoring the criticisms of the progressive party leaders. Now he has to answer persistent questions about the Duffy trial evidence. Canadian voters are getting a true picture of the inner workings of the ruling Conservatives.

Donald A. Fraser, Waterloo

The Pinocchio Effect

Those of us who have followed the machinations of the Harper regime over the years know that it is a rare occasion indeed when Stephen Harper tells the truth, either inside or outside the House of Commons. His capacity to convincingly dissemble, or effect what Stephen Colbert has called 'truthiness,' no doubt comes from long practice. Thursday's leaders' debate was no exception.

Happily, the alternative press rarely lets opportunities to correct the Harper record pass. Press Progress has compiled seven lies the prime minister uttered during that debate. Following is but of the seven, so please make sure you check out the link to see the full array of his prevarications.

The reality is Harper doesn't have a balanced budget.

On two separate occasions during the leaders debate, Stephen Harper claimed Canada has a balanced budget.

"We have a budget that is balanced now and other countries don't," Harper said, later explaining "the reality is the figures out of the Department of Finance show that so far this year we are substantially in surplus."

Unfortunately for Harper, the Finance Canada report he referenced only looks at April and May. Another report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer looks ahead and takes into account dire new projections for the Canadian economy released by the Bank of Canada.

The PBO's projection says Canada will not balance its budget and will run a deficit of $1 billion this year, meaning Harper will run his eighth deficit in a row.

In case you are interested, his other lies ranged from misrepresentations about environmental assessments to greenhouse gas emissions to the 'freedom' his backbenchers enjoy.

The man definitely has no shame.

A Record Of Failure

Stephen lacks the requisite skills and temperament to succeed in any position of responsibility; recommend removal at earliest possible date.



Stephen's oil monomania suggests a pathology deeply harmful both to himself and the entire country.


Stephen's addiction to rabid and exclusionary ideology and his capacity for gross fabrications are also cause for deep concern:

Harper moves directly into attack mode on GTA stop, Aug. 4

As Stephen Harper and the ruling Conservative Party have amply proven over the past decade, in the Alice in Wonderland fantasy world of neoconservative ideology, nothing is what it seems to be and anything is justifiable to achieve your aims.

Lying to cover your mistakes is effective crisis management and denying responsibility for them is the prime directive. Corruption is acceptable – just don’t get caught. Cronyism, patronage and double standards are legitimate political practices unless exposed, while saying one thing and doing another is ethically acceptable.
Welcome to the modernist neocon politics of cynicism and despair. In the face of undeniable and self-apparent realities of a sinking Titanic we are reassuringly told not to panic – everything’s just fine by our captain — the economy and our democracy are strong. This while the Conservatives continue to siphon off increasing economic wealth to enrich the 1 per cent and we teeter on the brink of a yet another cyclic recession in the boom and bust globalized capitalist economy amidst ongoing and persistent social decline.

To expose the truth, we must look behind Stephen Harper’s perpetual fixed smile and examine the verity of his claims and those of his movement. Amongst the most persistent and egregious oft-repeated myths perpetrated by neocons is the one that they are the best stewards of the economy and that cutting taxes is the way to improve the financial health of Canada. The lion’s share of these tax cuts always go to the private sector and the wealthy while the messaging is tax cuts for the middle class.

Over the past decade Canada has had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world and little has changed so clearly this strategy has not worked. There is also little credible economic research that indicates any beneficial effects to the widely employed practice the neocons mindlessly chant. Similarly, cutting interest rates and depressing the Canadian dollar has had marginal positive effects on the economy while significantly raising costs for everyone in Canada in order to benefit a few industries that export goods.

A second mantra of neocons is cutting the wasteful cost of government. This is how tax cuts are paid for and is code for their dedicated bias towards the dismantling of government, social programs and social opposition to Conservative policies. It serves the double function of actually deconstructing the core structure of democracy that these organizations represent such as the changes to the Elections Act, the cuts to Statistics Canada and the muzzling of Government of Canada scientists.

These steps are more sinister than the changes to the economy but both are deeply concerning. Stephen Harper’s government has cut funding to a host of activist and other credible research groups while using the CRA to harass legitimate non-profit organizations that support causes disliked by the right such as the environment or who directly challenge the government on social policy. All this happens while the government covertly allocates billions of taxpayer’s money to corporate welfare, tax cuts for the wealthy and frivolous expenditures like the memorial to the victims of Russian aggression. Our democracy is looking more like an oligarchy every day that Stephen Harper is in office.

Contemporary neoconservative dogma as practiced by the extreme right of Stephen Harper’s Alliance/Conservative Party is a direct threat to real democracy, freedom and human rights that all Canadians should be concerned about that comes in the form of thousands of small and large negative changes to our social and governmental systems intended to weaken the structure of government itself and its democratic protections for citizens while strengthening the powers of the corporate sector and powerful right-wing elites.

When we vote on Oct. 19 we need to understand that the enemy of democracy is not the external threat of ISIS as Stephen Harper would claim but Harper himself and the ideology he stands for. Before we invite the Trojan horse into our Canadian village we need to think carefully about what we are actually getting.

Robert Bahlieda, Newmarket

Sometimes, Few Words Are Needed.

Many thanks to my sister-in-law, Vicki, for alerting me to this.



The saddest thing for Canada is the fact that from the second panel on, everything is true.

Harper Under Seige

Once more, editorial cartoonist Graeme MacKay scores a solid bullseye.



As does Corrigan over at The Star:



And let's not forget Star readers:

Since the post-2008 Great Recession, Stephen Harper’s primary focus on energy (oil/gas) economic action strategies have painted our economic flexibilities into a corner. Now we find our transnational economic drivers near exhausted.

Interest rates are now .05 per cent. We are on the precipice of falling financially/economically into quicksand recessionary territory.

In hindsight, consider what if we had developed multi-faceted strategies for dynamic, clean-energy manufacturing 21st century technologies in critical mass in construction, science, industry and commerce? Would we be so constrained now with lowest possible oil/gas commodity prices? Would our “loonie” be so vulnerable? Would our frivolousness with tax dollars tied to ineffective foreign policies be so committed to 20th century industrial, free market strategic imbecilities?

Harper’s single-minded chess tactics with much of what he mismanages is fast becoming an economically unmanoeuvreable position now on a precarious global stage. And now with Iran’s economic sanctions lifting as result of the deal with the Western powers, there’s no promise of recovery ever being tied to those “triple-digit” commodity prices that Canada’s oil producers followed our PM so recklessly on.

Brian McLaughlin, Saint John, NB

I’ll have to agree with Mr. Goodale’s take on Harper’s economic record. What’s Mr. Harper’s experience in economics, again? None in the private sector that I could find. I think Canadians know who is really in over their head.

Geoffrey Allen, Markham

And one more reminder from MacKay of Mr. Harper's fiscal ineptitude:

Our Baby-In Chief Strikes Again

It doesn't take a degree in psychology to know that Stephen Harper has, as they say, issues. His obsessive secrecy, reported emotional volatility, deep vindictiveness and completely ruthless dispatch of those who represent perspectives, policies and values differing from his own are all markers of a deeply disturbed individual. That he is Canada's prime minister is a national tragedy.

The latest instance of his lashing out, his puppet finance minister's public denunciation of Ontario's plan to establish its own Retirement Pension Plan, is yet another prime example of his unfitness to govern. Martin Regg Cohn writes,

People of goodwill can disagree. But why does a prime minister of ill will have to be so willfully disagreeable, so reflexively destructive, when playing electoral politics?

Stephen Harper’s pettiness in trying to sabotage Ontario’s legitimate efforts to create a public pension for middle-income workers sets a new low in gamesmanship. It will only take money out of the pockets of workers, taxpayers and employers who will be forced to pay higher fees because of the federal intransigence.

The establishment of the plan, upon which Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne campaigned, is a response to the refusal of the federal government to expand the Canada Pension Plan, which most provinces desire to see happen.

Harper’s decision this week to stab Ontario in the back — and middle-class Ontarians in the front — may go down as one of the most offensive, retrograde and thoughtless blunders ever committed by a sitting prime minister plotting his re-election on the backs of prospective pensioners.

His Conservative government is toying with the futures of young people who face a lifetime of precarious employment without proper pension coverage. Ontario’s plan is being designed by some of Canada’s foremost pension experts as a cost-effective, low-fee program that parallels the successful Canada Pension Plan.

Here's what minion Joe Oliver leaked to the public before sending to Ontario:

“The Ontario Government’s proposed ORPP would take money from workers and their families, kill jobs, and damage the economy,” Oliver writes with fatuous hyperbole in the undated letter leaked to the media before it was even transmitted to Queen’s Park.

As Regg Cohn tartly observes, this rejection is conspicuously absent of any research or statistics to back up his shrill dismissal. And to compound the insult, the feds are refusing to make any legislative changes to facilitate the Ontario pension:

Astonishingly, the Harper government will refuse to collect pension deductions on Ontario’s behalf or provide any information to assist the plan — services for which it would have been fairly compensated by the province. In short, it’s not merely a hands-off attitude but a hands-to-the throat approach.

The result of the PM’s partisan tantrum? Higher accounting and compliance costs for business, and additional government funding made necessary by the same federal Tories who always claim to be reducing red tape and cutting waste.

There appears to be only one solution for a prime minister who seems to have a temperament that never grew beyond the 'terrible twos' - isolate him from any further contact with the electorate by tossing him and his playmates out of their playpen in October.

Unfriendly Fire

One hopes and expects that veterans have long memories; if they do, the Harper regime will find their lies catching up with them.

A new campaign, entitled Vote To Stop The Cuts, has been launched by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, its aim to put the Harper record under scrutiny with facts that even the most seasoned spinmaster might find hard to counter. Consider this damning information about Veterans Affairs:

- In 2013 and 2014, the Conservative government closed nine Veterans affairs offices across Canada – in Corner Brook, Charlottetown, Sydney, Thunder Bay, Windsor, Brandon, Saskatoon, Prince George and Kelowna. Total served by affected offices = approximately 21, 432.

- Total value of cuts to Veterans Affairs Canada as of 2015: $113.7 million

- From 2011–12 to the current 2014–15 budget year, the Veterans Affairs staff has been cut by 24% with an additional 1% cut planned by 2016–17. The majority of these jobs were front-line positions.

- The department now has the smallest workforce since before the war in Afghanistan.

- Veterans Affairs offices are now so short-staffed that there is a backlog of 6 to 8 months in providing requested services to veterans. 1 in 5 veterans suffering from a mental illness has to wait more than 8 months before their requests for help are answered.

The genius of the campaign is that it is framed in such a way to show that ordinary Canadians are also falling victim to the parsimonious practices of the current regime, making it much harder to dismiss it as simply an effort by public servants to save their own jobs. In addition to the plight of veterans, it offers up facts on cuts to border security, environmental protection, employment insurance eligibility, public search and rescue capabilities and Canada's food safety.

This video offers an overview:



The site also has downloadable posters to help spread the word on these issues. In my view, it is incumbent upon all of us who yearn for a better Canada, a Canada free of the lies, distortions and myriad failures of the Harper regime, to help promote this and other efforts to ensure that October marks the month when our country begins what will undoubtedly be a lengthy but long overdue rehabilitation.

A Very Good Week

H/t The Toronto Star

For progressives, it has been a very good week. For Stephen Harper and his adherents, not so much.

First, there was the resounding and iconic defeat of the Progressive Conservative dynasty in Alberta. The message to the broader population: change is possible, a message not likely to be forgotten as we head into an October election.

Next, a major misplay by the Prime Minister's team in publishing online, for the infamous propaganda organ 24/Seven, the faces of Canadian soldiers during Harper's visit to iraq and Kuwait, part of his never-ending re-election campaign.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, was the release of Omar Khadr, the government's relentless efforts to keep Khadr from the public's view so they could control the narrative about him having failed, as noted yesterday. Instead of the remorseless terrorist portrayed by the regime, the public saw a thoughtful, gracious and reflective man eager to get on with his life.

As observed by Thomas Walkom in today's Star,

he came across in that brief press conference as remarkably human — as someone who wants to build a new life, but isn’t entirely sure how to do it; as a person who has outgrown his past but is still trying to come to terms with it.

This is not the Omar Khadr that the Harper government wants us to see. It prefers a world that is black and white, where the bad guys are terrorists who commit heinous crimes and the good guys are one-dimensionally heroic.

Government ministers, and the prime minister himself, refer to the fact that Khadr pled guilty to war crimes, including murder.

The Star's Chantal Hebert is equally lacerating in her assessment of this week's displays of Harperian ineptitude:

All week, partisan overkill made the government look both ugly and inept. It is hard to think of a more self-defeating combination for a party that is about to solicit a fourth mandate.

Her observations about Khadr echo those of Walkom:

As the former Guantanamo detainee holds his first scrum, it becomes apparent why Harper’s government was so adamant that he not be allowed to speak to the media. It was easier to paint Khadr as an unredeemable terrorist in the abstract than it will be now that most Canadians have the opportunity to hear from the actual person.

Despite that, the government held firm, Mr. Harper refusing to utter even the glimmer of a gracious note, as he offered his thoughts and prayers to the family members of U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer.


For a man who always seeks to be in total control, Stephen Harper must have found this a very frustrating week. May he continue to live in interesting times.

Bye, Bye, Steve

Operation Maple has a series of videos in which ordinary Canadians discuss their reasons to 'leave Steve' in 2015. Here they begin:

On Harper's Mastery Of The Economy

H/t The Toronto Star

'Nuff said.

Can Stephen Harper Buy Your Conscience?

Stephen Harper offers so much to so few - tax cuts, increased Tax-Free Savings Accounts, income-splitting, to name but a few of his 'gifts.' His disingenuous rhetoric notwithstanding, however, Harper is really offering all kinds of bribes inducements for you to think only of yourself, and to ignore the niggling voice within telling you that all is not well.

This video offers a sharp reminder of the larger reality within which so many people must live. You probably know some of them.

Canadians Working Longer for Less Pay

How many times in the last year have you wondered... "What if it happens to me? What if I lose my job?" Who could blame you? More and more Canadians are barely hanging on.

Posted by CBC News: The National on Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Less Than Meets The Eye

So much for fiscal prudence. So long credibility.

Those words, written By Scott Clark and Peter DeVries, succinctly summarize the illusions, misdirection and magical thinking that Joe Oliver's budget is based on.

As the authors point out, six 'rabbits' that Oliver pulled out of his hat on Tuesday conceal some disquieting truths:

First, the government changed the methodology the Finance Department uses to forecast oil prices. Oliver is now forecasting that oil prices will increase in the coming years, averaging $54 a barrel in 2015, $67 in 2016, $75 in 2017 and $78 a barrel in 2018 and 2019.

According to projections by the World Bank, this is quite an optimistic forecast.

The second rabbit was the selling off of capital assets to cover one-time spending. In the budget, asset sales amounted to an incremental $1 billion in 2015-16, resulting from the sales of the government’s GM shares. These shares were sold at a steep loss solely to achieve a political commitment — a balanced budget in 2015-16

The next feat of prestidigitation is found in the contingency fund:

In previous budgets, Finance included a contingency reserve of $3 billion per year. The contingency reserve is also there as a buffer in the event that economic results do not turn out as expected. The contingency reserve was cut to bone Tuesday — to just $1 billion in each of the next three years.

Given the precarious financial outlook for the world, this cut can only be seen as foolish, reckless, and overtly political.

The fourth rabbit was an increase in the “lapse” — the amount of funds appropriated to departments and agencies by Parliament but not spent during the course of the year. The lapse for 2015-16 and the next two fiscal years has been increased...

The consequences of such 'lapses' cannot be underestimated. Here is but one example:

The fifth rabbit was the government’s decision to continue to assume higher-than-required Employment insurance (EI) premium rates. This generated an additional $1.8 billion in 2015-16.

And, as Thomas Walkom points out,

The finance minister managed to win his surplus this year largely by taking $3.4 billion from the employment insurance account...

The final rabbit — certainly not the least controversial — is government’s forecast of $900 million in 2015-16 resulting from legislating “a modernized disability and sick leave management system” on public sector unions in the budget bill yet to be tabled.

Since negotiations are ongoing, bargaining in bad faith is not too strong an accusation to level against the government which, in fact, may relish a battle with the unions going into the election, given public antipathy toward those who do well in unionized environments. Nevertheless, counting on almost $1 billion being extracted from public servants does appear to be a tad wishful.

All in all, once the surface of this budget is scratched, the alleged economic prowess of Stephen Harper is once again exposed for the myth that it is.

A Harper Dynasty?

That's what the leaden-tongued Finance Minister seemed to be suggesting last night in discussing his budget. Either that, or the message was "Screw future generations."

You decide:

Under Harper's Economic 'Stewardship'

H/t Stephen Lautens

Canada's Outlier Status

Well, this is bauble budget day, the day the Harper regime makes its big pre-election push to convince us that all is right with the world, and that our natural selfishness is something we should revel in, not revolt against. It is a day in which further plundering of the federal coffers is presented as a triumph of respect for all "hardworking Canadians" who deserve to keep more of their "hard-earned money." It is a day in which the collective needs of the country and the world are ignored.

Fortunately, not everyone is so easily distracted by the promise of shiny new things. One such individual is Omar Aziz, who, writing about climate change, says that Canada, under Stephen Harper,

is an international pariah. Among rich world countries, Canada is the largest per-capita emitter of GHGs, according to the World Resources Institute. The advocacy group Climate Action Network ranks Canada’s climate strategy as the fourth-worst in the world, ahead of only Iran, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia.

There seems to be no prospect of improvement on this sorry record:

Ottawa will fail to meet the emission targets it pledged at the Copenhagen conference in 2009, just as it failed to meet the UN’s March 31 deadline to submit its emission targets ahead of the upcoming climate change conference in December.

Increasingly, our country is becoming an international pariah:

Having met U.S. President Barack Obama’s Envoy for Climate Change, I am certain that Washington is taking the Paris negotiations very seriously. Canada, meanwhile, looks like it will show up to the Paris conference with almost nothing to offer but talking points, despite the fact that Canadians consume more energy per capita than Indians, Chinese or Americans. This is both a shame and a sham.

Compounding Canada's inexcusable inaction is the heavy hand of Harper censorship:

Ninety per cent of government scientists feel that they are not allowed to speak to the media about their research; almost as many fear retaliation if they do. If you are wondering why climate change reporting in Canada has been so vacuous over the last few years, it is because new rules put in place by Stephen Harper in 2007 limit what Environment Canada scientists can say. The position of National Science Advisor was eliminated in 2008. It should come as no surprise then that media coverage of climate change has been reduced by 80 per cent. If the brilliant government scientists working on this issue are muzzled, the public has little access to the very people it should be hearing from.

Mind you, that hardly excuses the ignorance that many embrace on this subject, given the wealth of information that is available literally at our fingertips. If we are oblivious to the coming peril, it is by our own choice.

The heavy lifting being done by other provinces and countries puts the Harper inaction to shame:

British Columbia has put in place a carbon tax, Quebec has a cap-and-trade system, Ontario announced a similar policy earlier this month, and Alberta has an imperfect but necessary regulatory scheme. The European Union has an ambitious emissions trading program and the United States and China signed a major climate accord last year. China is also piloting seven cap-and-trade programs, including one in Shanghai.

Aziz notes the irony of a federal regime so obsessed with security that it ignores the threats posed by climate change:

Climate change is not simply an environmental concern; it is a national security concern, which is precisely what the Pentagon now calls it.

The effects of climate change will permanently damage wildlife, agriculture, oceans, coastal inhabitants, transportation systems, disease prevention efforts, food and water supplies, public health, and nearly every facet of modern life. The poor and disadvantaged will face the harshest consequences, both in rich countries and in developing ones.

Back in 2009, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called climate change the greatest challenge facing the world. Nothing has changed in the intervening six years other than even more egregious contempt for action from a federal government locked in an ideology for which we, our children and our grandchildren will pay a very grievous price.