A Peek Behind the Curtain

As usual, Star readers get it:

Re: Doubling is troubling, April 11

Eleven million people with TFSAs seems like a lot of lost tax revenue. It is simply another way to avoid taxes and should be stopped, not increased. Of course under Harper it will only increase and continue to decimate our social programs.

The opposition must be united in campaigning against this blatant tax cut and revenue loss.

Elaine Purdie, Toronto

The Conservative government seems to think they are doing such a great service to Canadian families by providing its Universal Child Care Benefit and by increasing the TFSA contributions to $11,000.

Social Development Minister Candice Bergen actually thinks that the Child Care Benefit gives families an equal choice. And Finance Minister Joe Oliver believes that the TFSA is somehow equally beneficial to all.

Are they deliberately blind to the plight of middle and lower income families? Do they not understand the situation of single parent families? What percentage of families have a stay-at-home parent? Who can afford a properly licensed daycare facility? Who has the disposable income to put away $5,000 a year let alone $11,000?

It’s obvious that Oliver, Bergen and company do not know or care to know the real financial situation for the vast majority of Canadian families and they certainly do not want to hear what the experts are saying. They might have had a better understanding had they not cancelled the long-form census, but why bother with data when you can make policies out of ideology?

It really is time to unseat this incredible bunch of no-nothing ideologues.

Stephen L. Bloom, Toronto

There is an underlying aspect to the various tax cuts the Harper Conservatives have implemented or will be implementing – increased TFSA contributions, GST cuts, income splitting, etc. – that has fallen below the radar. The commitments Joe Oliver is talking about are ways to destroy the federal government’s ability to raise revenues for generations to come and impede the ability of progressive future governments to repair the social safety net Stephen Harper has been slashing since 2006.

What voters fail to see is that for every 50 cents of tax breaks they get from Harper, they face a dollar in increased fees or lost coverage at every level of government because federal transfers are disappearing.

The extra cup of Timmy’s they can now buy every week means fewer meat inspectors, transportation safety checks, fiery tank-car derailments, or uninvestigated chemical spills in our lakes and rivers.

Sure, the rich will benefit more now, but in the end, everybody loses.

Mark Jessop, Barrie

Given that the doubling of the TFSA maximum will cost future governments billions in revenue, any measure that ties governments hands regarding running any deficit would inevitably result in massive cuts to programming, which could prove politically toxic.

It remains to be seen how firm the “no deficits” language will be, but if the current government really does intend to tie the hands of future governments, one has to assume that the Conservatives are thinking that those future governments will not be Conservative.

Let’s not disappoint them.

Steve Soloman, Toronto

The Vindication Of Thomas Mulcair

Some will remember the abuse heaped upon NDP leader Thomas Mulcair back in 2012 when he said that Canada was suffering from the same Dutch disease that afflicted the Netherlands after natural gas fields boosting that nation's currency reduced the competitiveness of its exports back in the 1970s. The culprit in Canada was the unrestrained exploitation of its oil fields, leading at one point to our dollar being valued higher than the American one. Exports suffered, manufacturing continued to decline, and the Harper regime gleefully denigrated the NDP leader for an inconvenient truth.

It would seem that Mulcair's analysis has been validated by both statistics and analysis.

Says Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Emanuella Enenajor,

"The currency's appreciation of almost 60 per cent over the last 15 years has really hurt the manufacturing sector".

The fact that oil prices have now dropped is not having the salutary effects one might hope for:

Just because low oil prices are reducing transportation and energy costs, and the floundering loonie is making Canadian exports attractive again — it doesn't mean the sector will bounce back immediately.

You can't just turn the lights back on in the factory and start sending the widgets out the door again.

When the energy sector started to lose steam, the old stalwarts of the economy weren't there to pick up the slack.

"The Dutch disease that Canada has experienced has been more than a decade in the making, and I think it has really hurt business confidence," added Enenajor.

Of course, with an election in the offing, expect the Harper regime to give no quarter, evidenced by party stalwarts like the redoubtable, predictable and hyper partisan Pierre Poilivre:

"The leader of the NDP calls [the natural resources] sector a disease!" Pierre Poilievre sneered at Mulcair across the floor of the House of Commons last week.

Here is the interview with Emanuella Enenajor:

Amanda Lang Interviews Ed Broadbent

If you have as low an opinion of the CBC's disgraced chief business correspondent, Amanda Lang, as I do, watch the following video. I think you will find that, with her absolutist questions typical of the extreme right and the intellectually deficient, she does not exceed expectations.



For Broadbent's thoughts on how Harper has failed this country, click here.

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.

Tells You All You Need To Know, Doesn't It

It is a mental picture I hope all Canadians carry to the polls this October:



“To Duff, a great journalist and a great senator, thanks for being one of my best, hardest-working appointments ever,” reads a photo signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper entered as an exhibit Thursday.

Hither And Thither

For a government whose every policy seems to be concocted with an eye to re-election, it is not surprising that Finance Minister Joe Oliver has not yet firmed up a date for this year's budget. After all, he and the rest of the cabal need to know how effective their war on Canadian peace-of-mind is going first.

Have they, for example, succeeded, via Bill -C-51, in diverting the masses away from what heretofore has been their biggest concern, the economy, now forecast to have a rough year ahead thanks largely to the sharp drop in oil prices? Are lavish tax cuts and credits having their intended effect? Is appealing to Canadians' self-interest at the expense of the collective still working?

A new poll might prove instructional for 'Uncle Joe' et al.

The economy trumps terrorism by a massive margin as a priority for Canadian voters, according to a new poll, even as the Conservative government turns its attention to national security in preparation for this fall’s election.

Canadians are also far more likely to favour infrastructure spending over tax cuts as the best way to give the economy a boost.

Apparently, Harper is in need of something spectacular to move some recently-awoken citizens:

A Nanos survey conducted for The Globe and Mail found 90 per cent of respondents said the party or leader with the best plan for the Canadian economy will be more important in determining who wins than the party with the best plan to fight terrorists. Only 4 per cent said fighting terrorism is more important than the economy.

Only 4 per cent place fighting terrorism above the economy? Such results are enough to make the most ardent of war propagandists blush.

These findings come despite all of the time being spent on entering unwinnable wars and trying to convince Canadians that the only thing standing between them and ISIS is Dear Leader and legislation that would weaken our Charter Rights.

And there is even more indication that Canadians are willing to think outside of their own immediate interests, despite the best efforts of the regime:

When asked by the polling firm what the government should do with a budget surplus, building infrastructure, at 32 per cent, was the most popular response. Paying down the national debt was the second-most popular response at 30 per cent, followed by 23 per cent who said the government should invest in social programs and 14 per cent who wanted tax cuts.

These are surely encouraging signs for progressives, but such obvious failures of the well-oiled propaganda machine cannot be comforting for the Harper government.

Surely heads will roll.

Something All Canadians Need To Hear

Many thanks to The Salamander for alerting me to this video, which Richard Hughes posted on his blog, Cowichan Conversations. I am reposting it here, and encourage all progressive bloggers to consider doing the same on their sites.

This eloquent message by Sandra Harris reminds all of us of the myriad failures of the Harper cabal, and gives voice to all who are striving for regime change.

Past Hits Of A New Cabinet Minister

Lest we forget some of the past gems from newly appointed Minister for Employment and Social Development, Pierre Polievre:

Well, This Certainly Speaks For Itself

Doesn't it?



H/t The Globe and Mail

Good News For Those Who Believe Stephen Harper Is Good For Canada

As The Year Ends

... this deserves one more play. For a full review of the abysmal Harper Veterans Affairs record, check out the good work by the good folks at Press Progress.

Lest We Forget

H/t Michael Nabert

My Name Is Ozymandias

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Harper Exposed Once More

Those of us who follow politics closely and with a critical eye have long seen through the myth his handlers have perpetuated that Stephen Harper is a wise and reliable steward of the economy. Doubtless that gross mischaracterization will continue to be applied, and with greater frequency, as we move closer to next year's election. Happily, more and more people are recognizing the fallacious and fatuous nature of such claims.

In her column today, The Star's Carol Goar offers ample evidence that this emperor has no clothes by examining his 'crazy' approach to our economy and his obdurate refusal to take meaningful action against climate change:

It would be “crazy economic policy” to regulate greenhouse gases in the oil and gas sector with petroleum prices dropping, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Parliament last week. “We will not kill jobs and we will not impose the carbon tax the opposition wants to put on Canadians.”

About as crazy as putting all the nation’s eggs in one basket: Canada becoming a global “energy superpower.”

About as crazy as ignoring the boom-and-bust history of the oil and sector.

About as crazy as assuming people will allow pipelines to snake under their land, carrying bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to refineries in Texas and tankers on the Pacific coast.

About as crazy as forbidding federal scientists to say anything about climate change and threatening to revoke the charitable tax status of voluntary organizations that seek to protect the environment.

About as crazy as neglecting the price Canadians are already paying for climate change: power outages, damaged homes, spoiled food, lost productivity, higher insurance premiums, the cost of stocking up on everything from generators to non-perishable food.

About as crazy as pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent at a 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen without any plan to limit the carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide spewed into the atmosphere by the oil and gas industry.

To complicate the web of lies regularly spun by the regime, Goar points out some other inconvenient truths:

Public opinion is shifting. More than half of Canadians expressed deep concern about climate change in a poll conducted by the Environics Institute in October. Three-quarters said they were worried about the legacy they were leaving for future generations.

The provincial premiers, tired of waiting for leadership from Ottawa, have hatched their own plan to build a low-carbon economy by putting a price on pollution, developing renewable energy and capping greenhouse gases.

The central pillar of Harper’s economic strategy — being an aggressive fossil fuel exporter — has crumbled in a world awash with petroleum. Investors are cancelling their commitments. Employment in the oil and gas sector is shrinking. Government revenues are dropping.

It is to be hoped that as we move into 2015, more and more Canadians will realize that on these and so many other fronts, Stephen Harper is clearly yesterday's man.

The Folly of Harper's Economic Emphasis

While no reasonable person would suggest that Canada should immediately turn its back on it resources, the folly of self-described economist Stephen Harper is the undue weighting his regime has placed on that sector for fiscal health. Other countries have been looking toward the day when our dependence on fossil fuels will be diminished and are therefore diversifying, and a strong case can be made for the economic benefits of renewable and other green energy projects. However, our Prime Minister has continued in a full-court press as if the Alberta tarsands were the only game in town.

The folly of that approach now becomes evident with the precipitous decline in oil prices, largely due to a slowdown in growth worldwide that, ironically, may very well be the key to curbing climate change. However, even if this a temporary blip, the warning should be heeded.

An analysis by Don Pitt makes for some sobering reading:

About a year ago, I read a report forecasting this would happen. It wasn't exactly top secret, and hardly from a subversive group. Titled, The future of oil: Yesterday's fuel, it was published in the right-of-centre Economist magazine.

The Economist article suggests that this is not going to be just a blip but more of a sea change, as global oil demand plunges permanently. The article quotes a study by Citibank saying that oil use is already falling in rich countries. Most oil is burned to propel vehicles, and increasing fuel efficiency, including conversion to electric and hybrids, means we are using less for that.

It rejects the argument that growth in places like China will push oil use ever higher, saying emerging economies will see the advantage of leap-frogging to new technology and won't pass through the first world's gas-guzzling phase. In the year since that report, an explosion of solar in India, and an analysis by Lazard saying renewables had become as cheap as fossil fuels, only made the case stronger.

The implication for job losses in Canada goes well beyond employment in the oil patch.

“Canada’s economy is now very oil dominated,” economists Rory Johnston and Patricia Mohr at Scotiabank said a few months ago as the Northern Gateway project was being approved by Ottawa.

Businesses based across Canada that feed into the sector, like railroads, engineering firms, construction companies and equipment makers will also be sideswiped if the decline leads energy producers to pull back production. Twenty-five cents of every dollar invested in new business plans goes toward oil and gas projects, Scotia estimates.

If exports and investment in the energy sector take hits, experts suggest the broader economy will feel the chill and begin to slow.

It would be nice to think that these hints of things to come would have an impact on the monomania that the Harper regime is seized of. Unfortunately, past ideological performance suggests nothing will change under the current administration.

Stephen Harper's Advice: 'Don't Believe What You Sometimes Read'

That little gem was delivered by Dear Leader at a gathering of true believers outside of Hamilton the other day as he offered this confabulation:

"There are more people going to good-paying jobs today than in any other time in our history."

About the deplorable sellout he engineered in his sweetheart deal with U.S. Steel, he had this to say:

"We know there are still challenges in the labour market. We read about some today in this area. That's because we are part of a global economy."



While the party faithful applauded his words, a retired Hamilton steelworker voiced a sentiment that I think is felt by many, many Canadians :

Harper does nothing as U.S. Steel ‘shafts’ workers

I am truly shocked that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives can sit back and let foreign ownership of our industries walk all over Canadian workers and not say a word.

I worked at Stelco-U.S. Steel for 31 years. When I retired, I was told this is your pension for the rest of your life. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of our pension is deferred wages paid by employees. Our pensions are not some handout by the company.

Stelco was making a profit when U.S. Steel purchased it. The union continued to take concessions from the company and faced consecutive lockouts when they were ready and willing to sit with this company and negotiate a fair deal for all concerned.

U.S. Steel continues to shaft every Canadian worker and this federal government sits back and does nothing. We must send a message in the next federal election that Canada is not for sale under any circumstances. Harper and his cronies should start touring the soup kitchens and the missions to get a taste of what they are doing to hardworking Canadians who paid taxes all their lives only to get shafted when it's time to retire and enjoy the fruits of their labours.


John Sanislo, Hamilton

A Failed Puppet Master?

In a withering assessment of Stephen Harper, that is the conclusion Andrew Coyne seems to draw in his National Post column:

We are so heavily invested, we media types, in the notion of Harper as master strategist, able to see around corners and think seven moves ahead and what not, that we tend not to notice how many times he has been screwing up of late. The sudden and more or less complete rewriting, on the same day as the Supreme Court decision, of the colossally misjudged Fair Elections Act, after weeks of waving off any and all criticism as self-interested or partisan or both? Merely a prudent bid to cut their losses. The unusual public goading of Barack Obama (“a no brainer … won’t take no for an answer… etc”) into making a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline project, six years after it was first proposed? Either a play to the base or a wink to the Republicans or a deliberate raising of the diplomatic stakes, anything but what it looks like: a catastrophic fumbling of a key file.

Indeed, perhaps this is all evidence of a very tired government, running only on the fumes of the hatred, dissension, and division it has sewn since 2006:

Observes Coyne:

It is reckless, not in the style of governments that overread their mandate, but in an aimless, scattershot way. It is partisan, but for no purpose other than stubbornness and tribalism. It will take every fight to the limit, pick fights if none present themselves, with no thought to the consequences of either victory or defeat but seemingly out of sheer bloodlust. Like the proverbial dog chasing the car, it has no idea what it will do when it catches it.

All but the most inveterate ideologues would likely agree that it is well past time for a change.

Going, Going ....

And soon gone, would be my guess. Read this CBC report and watch the following video, both of which suggest to this observer that Eve Adams is not long for this political world:

Slip Slidin' Away

Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip sliding away
- Paul Simon

I know, by his public efforts to appear reasonably normal, that Stephen Harper is a Beatles' fan. Whether he has ever listened to or crooned any of Paul Simon's songs is less certain. Yet I couldn't help but think of Simon this morning as I read Lawrence Martin's latest piece in The Globe and Mail.

Entitled The Harper machine is in disarray, Martin reflects on the many obstacles that have emerged to obstruct what I presume is Dear Leader's destination, not only to win the next election but to become Canada's long-serving prime minister. (Put aside for the moment that he seems to have blighted our political landscape for far too long already.)

Like an aging tiger, Harper seems to be losing some of his truculence. As Martin notes,

Few expected this. The bet would have been that the Prime Minister would have gone to the wall to protect Dimitri Soudas, as he has many other loyalists after acts of folly.

But just four months after having been appointed, the Conservative Party’s executive director is out the door. He joins a lengthening list. In recent months, Stephen Harper has also lost his chief of staff, his finance minister and a Supreme Court nominee, plus several senators as a result of the expenses scandal.

Dimitri Soudas' dismissal, suggests Martin, may mark an act of Harper deference to the rank and file who are becoming increasingly restive chafing under their leader's storied iron grip on all facets of the operation. Why? Matin cites several reasons:

-His party has been trailing the Liberals in the polls.

-He presided over a scandal he claimed to know little about, but should have known a lot about.

-Rebellious caucus types have confronted him, demanding some freedom of speech.

-Former finance minister Jim Flaherty contradicted him on income-splitting, a major policy plank.

One could certainly add to this list considerably, but perhaps the most egregious example of trouble has to be the almost universal repugnance with which his current favourite puppet, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre, is being met over the misnamed Fair Elections Act. I won't be surprised if loyalist Pierre is soon invited to sit in the party ejection seat as well.

Martin points out that similar problems of resistance and bickering have beset past prime ministers as they approach the 10-year mark, including Mulroney, Chretien and Trudeau, at which point it becomes a situation of fight or flight.

However unlikely, let us hope that Stephen Harper chooses the latter option.

Rather Appropriate, Don't You Think?

H/t The Chronicle Herald