Your Morning Smile (for most of us)

And under the "methinks he doth protest too much" file, enjoy this.

More Evidence Of The Devil

If the devil is indeed to be found in the detail, then Star letter-writer Geoffrey Kemp of Mississauga has done an exorcist's job of ferreting out the wily one.

Enjoy his well-considered thoughts on an aspect of the 'Fair' Elections Act that has gotten relatively little attention owing to the grave and justifiable concern being widely expressed over its voter-suppression implications. (The bolded parts are mine):

Stephen Harper’s need to hastily do an end run around democracy is doubtless caused by the dubious actions of those he chooses to surround himself with, other examples of his poor judgment and the declining Conservative poll numbers.

If passed unchanged, Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act, will allow MPs to sit in the House while their election expenses are contested. It exposes and compounds a weakness in the Canada Elections Act, at times when a majority government may be elected with a very small plurality or the combined opposition have a small majority.

Currently, if an MP and the chief electoral officer disagree on an MP’s election expense return, the Canada Elections Act provides that the MP can no longer sit or vote in the House of Commons until the expense return is changed to the chief electoral officer ’s satisfaction, although the report is not due for several months after election day.

Bill C-23 allows the MP to continue sitting until a judge has ruled on the dispute and further states: “The removal of a democratically-elected MP reverses the decision of tens of thousands of voters. No one should have the power to reverse a democratic election without first convincing a judge.” If an MP’s election expenses are found to be non-compliant with the election act, by definition they were not democratically elected and have deprived tens of thousands of voters their representation of choice.

Peter Penashue, Dean Del Mastro, Shelly Glover and James Bezan are four of Harper’s MPs who faced exclusion from the House having failed to comply with or refused to supply information required under the Canada Elections Act.

In close minority government situations, the ability of “false MPs” to sit in the House while their validity is being questioned could be the factor deciding who forms the government and becomes PM. One seat can make the difference. Remember how important Chuck Cadman’s legitimate single vote was perceived by Harper.

Instead of slowing down the review of a candidate’s election expenses, someone who is truly interested in removing the possibility of election fraud would be making changes to speed up the validation of those expenses. Bill C-23 should be withdrawn.

Another Harper Lie Exposed

Despite assurances last year that the TFW (Temporary Foreign Workers) program was being reformed because of a myriad of reported abuses, those assurances, like so many other pronouncements and assertions coming from the Harper regime, appear to be false.

Business continues to abuse the program, with what one can only assume is the tacit permission of Employment Minister Jason Kenney. The latest offenders, as reported by CBC, are three McDonald's outlets in Victoria, British Columbia, which are currently employing 25 temporary foreign workers.

"The pattern is that the temporary foreign workers are getting more shifts and that the Canadians are getting less,” said employee Kalen Christ, a McDonald’s "team leader" who has worked at the Victoria location for four years.

And unlike the usual excuse used by business that they cannot find Canadian workers willing to do the job, McDonald's has been caught red-handed, with numerous attestations of Canadian applicants being denied jobs:

Tim Turcot is a 21-year-old local resident who said he applied to work there during the same period. He wasn’t hired, despite his four years of restaurant experience.

“I don’t know why they didn’t hire me. I told them I am available 24/7 and just never got the job,” said Turcot.

As well, those Canadians 'lucky' enough to have a position with the house that Ronald built are seeing their hours slashed, hours taken up by the temporary foreign workers, according to team leader Christ, who himself has seen his job dropped from 40 a week to 36 then 32.

Another employee, who didn’t want to be named, also said hours have been cut and people fear losing health benefits next, because they need full-time hours to qualify.

“There’s a guy with a kid who works here who is getting his hours cut. In a minimum-wage job. That isn’t right.”

Now that the problem has been exposed, the office of Jason Kenney has predictably gone into damage control. You can read it here, should you have an especial interest in Harper regime propaganda.

I Nominate Him For A Nobel Prize

The category? That's yet to be determined. Any suggestions?

Of Course We Could Ignore This

But are we willing to pay the ultimate price?

The Choices Bloggers Make

Yesterday I put up a post entitled Apocalyptic Scenes, which featured a video clip of severe storms in the U.S. The Mound of Sound, currently on hiatus from his blog, The Disaffected Lib, left a comment about the relative dearth of bloggers covering issues such as climate change. The Mound, if you have read him, has consistently provided exemplary and comprehensive coverage of what undoubtedly is the greatest threat to our species' long-term survival.

Here is what I wrote in response:

One of the many things I miss about your blog posts, Mound, is your comprehensive coverage of climate change. I do try to keep up with the topic by subscribing to Google alerts, something you suggested to me some time ago. I suspect, however, one of the reasons for the less than stellar coverage of climate change in the Canadian blogosphere is twofold and related:

Much coverage is given to the Harper regime, a topic I must confess a certain obsession with. I think because an election is coming next year, much energy is being devoted to exposing his cabal's myriad crimes and hypocrisies because we hold the very real hope of regime change. We thirst for something positive in the relative short-term, even though I am fully aware that either a Trudeau or Mulcair government would offer little or no substantive policy change.

Concomitantly, climate change, although the most pressing threat we face as a species, is such a large problem that resists mitigation. The fact is that successful amelioration would require unprecedented co-operation on a global scale, co-operation that seems highly unlikely given both our natural antipathy to ceding authority to other bodies and regulators and our endless capacity for denial and cognitive dissonance. Add to that the failure of our 'leaders' to inspire in people the willingness to make the sacrifices necessary to avoid catastrophe.

Ousting the Harper regime in the next election, by comparison, seems like child's play, and a much more realistic goal.

Rick Mercer's Solution To Voter Apathy

Sure beats the 'Fair' Elections Act: