Why Is The Harper Regime Surveilling Us?

It's a good question, but unfortunately and predictably, the government is providing us with no answers.

As reported in today's Star,

The federal privacy watchdog’s concerns over electronic snooping are being met with silence from members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet.

Interim Privacy Commissioner Chantal Bernier directly appealed to four cabinet ministers and the federal government’s chief bureaucrat to reform Ottawa’s electronic snooping practices between February and March. Only one cabinet minister, Treasury Board President Tony Clement, has responded to Bernier’s letter.

Meanwhile, a Star reader offers a pungent assessment of how our country has devolved under the Harper regime:

Re: Conservative snooping Orwellian, Letter May 5

I have been musing of late about so many events happening in our beloved country, at the speed of light it seems. One thing sits very uncomfortable with me. Communism was defeated by the progress of democracy and economics in most of the communist countries but here we are in Canada using the very same methods they used to control their citizens — every piece of personal and public information is being scrutinized and stored by threatening the people who provide us our freedom to the world via the Internet and our personal habits of buying, education, business, and so on.

What the hell happened? Democracy where are you?

Carole A. Zaza, Toronto

And finally, this brief video points out some of the things we should be thinking about as the regime continues its unwholesome, undemocratic and wholly unprecedented intrusions into our privacy:

Is Dear Leader Trending Downward?

I certainly hope so:

Digital Peeping Toms: They Don't Even Bother To Hide Anymore

That is certainly the conclusion I drew after reading this morning's latest Star revelation about our overlords in Ottawa. Entitled Ottawa is ‘creeping’ your Facebook, the article by Alex Boutilier reveals yet more unwholesome intrusions into our privacy being conducted by the Harper regime.

In a January report to Parliament, interim privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier raised concerns about accountability in data sweeps of the Internet. She has now expressed those concerns directly in a letter to Treasury Chair Tony Clement:

An "increasing number” of government institutions are collecting publicly available personal information from sites like Facebook and Twitter “without any direct relation to a program or activity.”

“We are seeing evidence that personal information is being collected by government institutions from social media sites without regard for accuracy, currency and accountability,” ...

“Should information culled from these sites be used to make administrative decisions about individuals, it is incumbent upon government institutions to ensure the accuracy of this information; it is not at all clear that this obligation is being, or could be, met.”

Of course, the federal government had a tool for the culling of accurate information. It was called the mandatory long-form census, dismissed by the regime as 'too intrusive.'

So what was Mr. Clement's cavalier responce to these concerns?

“Canadians willingly put onto social media all sorts of information, so it should not be a surprise that corporations, individuals, good guys, bad guys, and governments are collecting the freely available information they put on social media sites,” ...

“This is all publicly available information. People freely make that choice.”

Stepping up his brazen tone, he is quick to reassure us that the regime is quite aware that some of the data they obtain in their digital peeping-tom mode may not be accurate, declaring that

... the government takes into account the unreliability of the data.

“We’re aware of that, so you have to take it with a grain of salt depending on what the information is used for”.

When asked what that use might be, he could offer no concrete examples.

In a belated attempt at damage control, Orwell's Clement's office sent the following to The Star:

“The government of Canada takes the privacy of Canadians very seriously. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat is looking into this issue, in collaboration with the office of the privacy commissioner,” spokesperson Heather Domereckyj said in an email.

Doublespeak. Government Surveillance. Enemies of the State. All is in place, and in the twisted ethos of the Harper cabal, all is well. Everyone may now return to their workstations, and please, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

UPDATED: Unfit To Govern

I have to admit that even though I am now in my sixties, I have never before witnessed the kind of behaviour on the part of a Canadian government as I have of the Harper regime. Contemptuous of opposing views, ready to vilify opponents at every turn, the regime has taken even me, an inveterate cynic, by surprise in its latest salvo. In a word, Harper's the attack on the Supreme Court is unprecedented in a healthy democracy.

To say that Stephen Harper is mentally unhealthy is to state the obvious. To say that his twisted psyche sees enemies everywhere is not news. What may not be so obvious to the casual observer is the contempt he holds for Canada itself, given his most recent attack on Beverley McLachlin. As other observers have already noted, to call into question, out of mere spite, the probity of the Supreme Court's Chief Justice is to undermine Canadian's faith in our judiciary.

And of course, this follows a long Harper pattern of sowing doubt and disaffection among Canadians toward so many of our country's institutional underpinnings. Harper's disdain for Parliament is legendary, from his marginalizing the opposition to proroguing the House to avoid defeat. The robocall scandal attests to how much the notion of fair elections offends him. The 'Fair' Elections Act is itself a giant middle finger directed at democracy.

In his latest column entitled PM’s enemies list? Here comes the judge, The Globe's Lawrence Martin reflects on the strangeness of Harper's Supreme Court attack:

This is Stephen Harper’s court. He appointed a majority of the justices on it. He named five of the eight, with one more pending. Another, Beverley McLachlin, was named to the court by Tory Brian Mulroney. The Harper appointments, as could be expected, have been more conservative in their orientation than liberal.

Yet these facts have not prevented the Prime Minister from his full frontal assault on the court.

Says Martin:

The Prime Minister’s enemies list, which includes Mr. Cotler and so many others, keeps growing – and reaching higher levels. Must everyone submit to Mr. Harper’s will or face retaliation? Do we have, as his former adviser Tom Flanagan maintains, a predator as prime minister? Does he not think there will be a reckoning?

Harper's much vaunted and exaggerated strategic 'genius' does not seem to be the motivating force here, either. Martin recalls,

... interviewing David Emerson, who had a unique perspective because he served in both the cabinets of Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. There were things he preferred about the Harper operation. But one difference that alarmed Mr. Emerson was the degree of visceral contempt he saw from Mr. Harper and his top lieutenants toward those opposed to their beliefs. He’d never seen anything like it. How could they harbour, he wondered, so much venom?

What goes on in the Prime Minister's head is not realy my concern. All I know is that Stephen Harper and all of his acolytes have betrayed what should have been a sacred trust, the leadership of our country. The country I know and love cannot survive another term of his hateful, divisive and destructive rule.

UPDATE: It would seem that even Conservatives are beginning to see the truth about Mr. Harper:

Can I Get Back To You On That?

Maybe I am just angry because a progressive budget was dismissed by an allegedly progressive party.

Maybe I am fearful that an NDP-induced Ontario election could see the ascension to power of young Tim Hudak ('I've got a plan to create one million jobs!'), who clearly will never be ready for prime-time politics, fixated as he is on recreating the disastrous Harris era that he played a key role in.

Or maybe I am a bit contemptuous that even though she is the one responsible for this election, Andrea Horwath is still indulging in a meteorological assessment (aka testing the political winds) before she takes a stand on issues.

Maybe it is all three, but what set me off this morning was an article Richard Benzie, Rob Ferguson and Richard J. Brennan wrote for this morning's Star. Entitled Ontario election campaign shows lack of readiness, it makes sport of the fact that young Tim chose the wrong venue for his first official appearance, MetalWorks sound studio, where the owner, Gil Moore, avowed his support for a Liberal $45-million funding initiative introduced last year to help the music industry. It is an initiative that Tim, opposed to any such government support for industry ('Lower taxes and they will come!' avers the toothy-grinned young man), voted against.

But from my perspective, the most telling aspects of unreadiness that may or may not reflect on the leadership of Ms. Horwath, are the following:

- the New Democrats still have to appoint candidates in 39 ridings,

- they don’t have a bus for reporters covering them, as is standard

- they don’t yet have a fully formed campaign platform.

It is the latter, however, that I find most vexing and also most emblematic of the party's troubled leadership.

While visiting a Brampton convenience store, Horwath was asked the following:

Will she match the Liberals’ pledge to give $4 hourly raises to personal support workers?

Will her party set up a pension plan for the roughly 65 per cent of workers who don’t have one in the workplace?

Her non-answer essentially amounted to, "I'll have to get back to you on those issues." Refusing to answer, she promised that a full list of NDP campaign promises will emerge as the election unfolds.

Ms Horwath is adamant that the Wynne Liberals cannot be trusted with their promises; by refusing to answer direct questions, I guess the NDP leader is making sure the same cannot be said about her.

Don't Let A Culture Of Defeat Hold You Back

That's right, folks. There are untold opportunities to enhance both your gross domestic product and your wallets through the scourge gift of oil spills, as oil pipeline company Kinder Morgan recently explained. But of course, that 'leftie' Rachel Maddow looks a gift horse in the mouth as she continues to spread her dangerous ideas:

Well-Said

While I may write something of my own later today, the letters in this morning's Star are both incisive and damning of the Harper regime's penchant for insinuating itself into our lives by bribing telecoms and social media to turn over our private date at the rrate of $1 to $3 each. Enjoy:

They are watching you, April 30

Alex Boutilier makes it clear why the telcom companies are so willing, indeed delighted, to cooperate with government spy agencies and deliver up, for just the asking, our private communications for scrutiny. They get paid for it. This is part of their business model, and they profit well from it.

George Orwell, author of “1984” (in 1934), would be so smiling today.

Edward A. Collis, Burlington


You don’t suppose that the bulk of these searches are for information on people who posted Liberal or NDP signs on their lawns during the past federal election? A certain Canadian political party having nothing but an address might want to know the names and telephone numbers of these “enemies of the people” that they might be directed to the wrong polls by the famous “Demon Dialer” during the next vote.

Richard Gibbons, Hamilton


Big Brother's busy friends, Editorial May 1

I thank the Star for highlighting this latest, crucial breach of public trust, and I couldn’t agree more with your editorial. I’ve never felt so hopping mad as I do on learning of this latest, sickeningly brazen violation of the sanctity of private information.

The scale and scope of it is a clarion call to all Canadians, that if we sleep walk through this outrage, we’ll almost certainly have passed the point of no return. We will spiral ever faster downwards into a police and surveillance state, something unthinkable a generation ago. Mr. Harper is either with us or with the dictators and despots. Which is it?

If I were the Leader of the federal Opposition, I would putting this question to the Prime Minister: “Mr. Speaker, there are those among today’s conservatives who feel that if you’ve nothing to hide, you shouldn’t mind the state invading your privacy. By that token, I call on the Prime Minister to cooperate with the federal privacy commissioner and disclose what information on private citizens has been given up by the media companies — and why, and which agencies are now in possession of it — and why. If he and his government have done no wrong, then they’ll also have nothing to hide.”

Ted Nasmith, Bradford


Is it not ironic that a government that claims to be honest, transparent and accountable would lie to us, hide information from us and consistently block the release of information requested in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act?

Is it not ironic to have a majority government that was opposed by 60 per cent of the voters? Is it not ironic that this government’s “fair elections act” completely ignores the current system’s failure to represent the will of the “majority” of citizens?

Is it not ironic that a government so obsessed with its own secrecy and privacy is so anxious to violate the privacy of the public it supposedly serves? Is it not ironic to have the leader of this government present himself as a committed defender of Ukraine’s democracy?

Why would Ukrainians deserve democracy more than us?

Randy Gostlin, Oshawa

Guest Essay From The Mound Of Sound: From Star Wars Back to Verdun

I've been updating my warfare knowledge base lately with a load of independent reading and an online course from the war studies department of King's College, London.

For those who wonder if the 21st century could be as bloody as the 20th was, what with WWI and WWII and all, here's something to ponder. When WWII was over and the dust had settled and we were embarking on Middle Class bliss, the world's population was about 2.5-billion. Today we're already at 7+ billion and steamrollering toward 9-billion or more. Think we haven't got a load of dying to do? Think again.

Foreign Policy magazine has been running a contest you'll only find in magazines like that. Contestants submit essays on "The Future of War" and readers get to vote for their favourites out of the 25-best entries. Here are a few highlights.



US Marine Capt. Jesse Sloman writes that, should America get into another major war, it'll be "lights out." Sloman says an adversary (okay, China) would go straight for America's vaunted but ridiculously vulnerable "full spectrum electronic dominance."

"...on a conventional 21st century battlefield, senior officers will have to re-learn how to conduct operations with communications and intelligence capabilities reminiscent of wars fought a half-century ago. Drones will go blind and crash as their satellite links are severed. Aircraft and ships will get lost when their Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers go dead (and their crews struggle to remember the map and compass skills they were briefly exposed to in basic training). Leaders will struggle to communicate with their subordinate units, leaving perplexed junior officers alone and exposed, with no links to higher command, facing the enemy the way their forefathers did at Belleau Wood, Bastogne, or Hagaru-ri."



Actuary Matt Wilson, author of "A System Collapse Framework for Societies" argues that, from an actuarial standpoint, we're long overdue for a major power (i.e. nuclear) war.

"The future heavily builds on the past -- a positive feedback loop process. All positive feedback processes that are stabilized (not allowed to crash) will experience a very large crash at some point in time. And if a very large crash is still suppressed, then the system (society or earth) will get stuck in the middle of a phase change. When the system finally undergoes a phase change, then everything will get wiped out. What happens when you put out every forest fire? Forests follow the same positive feedback loop process too. In the meantime, the system will sit at the edge of a cliff, unable to move forward very well. This explains Japan's economy and now the U.S. economy too. It also explains the future of war: the large crash.

Time of stability is the biggest factor in determining when a system is nearing a crash state. After a long period of stability, a big problem in one area implies that big problems are lurking elsewhere. The 9/11 shock in 2001 was our first sign of trouble. The 2008 financial crisis pushed the United States into a pre-collapse state that is being suppressed. Like Japan, the United States will not be able to get going again until it allows another great depression. The next shoe to drop could be a great-power nuclear war. Look at the connection between financial crisis and war:


1. The 1907 U.S. financial crisis was followed by World War I in 1914.
2. The 1929 U.S. financial crisis was followed by World War II in 1939.
3. The 2008 U.S. financial crisis was followed by World War III in 2015-2018?

The same build-up of problems that caused a financial crisis also positioned societies for war. Those problems are a build-up of bad ideas, bad decisions, and corruption. They build up within all sectors of society at about the same rate. So the fact that the financial sector is mostly independent of the military sector is irrelevant. A big crisis in one area just tells us that time is up.

You and everyone else you know think that a great-power nuclear war is just about impossible. In fact, it just might be the future of war."



US Air Force Lt. Col. Don Manning sees future American warfighting shaped by the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan. The American people and the country's coalition allies have had their fill. In future, America will either go very small (drone warfare) or very, very big.

In the future, U.S. policymakers will continue to feel a responsibility to respond to threats, even if they cannot convincingly articulate those threats to the American people. As a result, policymakers will continue to pursue very small, very limited military interventions where possible. Drone strikes are among the smallest of these interventions, but small footprint, low press interventions such as those currently ongoing in Djibouti, Mali, and the Central African Republic will continue to be palatable.

On the other side of the coin, America could be presented with a threat so obvious and ominous that it cannot be ignored. It is impossible to out-think the irrational, but it is plausible that miscalculation or a mistake might lead to a country like North Korea taking an action sufficiently threatening American interests in the Pacific and forcing a major U.S. response. With nuclear weapons in the mix, you can bet America's most advanced weapon systems will be put to use along with thousands of troops.

America, however, will shun interventions that are neither very small nor very large as policymakers find themselves unable to convince neither the war-weary American public nor its war-weary coalition partners to take on another fight. Any intervention requiring nation- or state-building or without a direct impact on the lives of Americans will be dead on arrival.



Iraq war vet and Yale man, Adrian Bonenberger, believes America will fall victim to its own obsession with big bucks, high-tech weaponry, just like other countries that followed that same path in the past.

We've already fought the war-after-next, and lost. Called "The Millennium Challenge 2002," it was a simulated war game designed to showcase a high-tech, integrated U.S. Navy's ability to crush smaller, less sophisticated foes (widely assumed to be Iran) in the Strait of Hormuz. What happened instead was a simulated disaster: Overwhelmed by hundreds of small groups operating according to pre-established, decentralized directives and empowered to think for themselves, the U.S. side quickly lost an entire aircraft carrier support group, as well as numerous aircraft. The notional enemies used basic radar, primitive cruise missiles, rockets, motorcycle couriers, and strategic initiative to achieve total surprise, following up their initial advantage with another wave of de facto missiles -- explosives-laden motorboats that were too numerous and speedy for the lumbering Navy ships to engage effectively.

Future planners have spent a great deal of time and energy justifying platforms like the F-22, the F-35, and the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), claiming that they are necessary to win the next war -- but they've actually been developed to fight some version of World War II.

...According to Lockheed Martin, the company that produces the F-22 Raptor, 195 planes were produced for the Air Force, of which eight were test planes, for a total of 187 operational aircraft. Each plane cost an estimated $150 million. Air Force planners seem confident that these planes can deliver air dominance at "the decisive point" in an air conflict with an enemy of equal or slightly greater strength.

But what if this hypothetical enemy -- China, Russia, some unforeseen alliance from the Middle East or Africa, united under one brutal Hitler or Napoleon's fist -- is planning on sending up 20 inferior planes for each F-22, and 20 inferior tanks to each Abrams? What if we find ourselves in a position of geographical and political isolation, bereft of allies, and facing an alliance of enemies bent on our destruction? Why wouldn't they take this approach -- the very approach we used on the ground against a technologically superior Nazi Germany, sending 15 Sherman tanks against each Tiger they fielded. Why would our future-future enemy face us on equal terms when we're apparently very vulnerable to asymmetrical, low-tech attack?


Major Daniel Sukman writes that America must prepare for warfare conducted in the homeland, something the US hasn't really experienced since the War of 1812. The major sees the need not for the military to become involved in domestic law enforcement but for the law enforcement community to become more militarized.

The U.S. military must form partnerships and work with law enforcement agencies within the United States in the area of protection. This is not a future in which the United States abandons the principle of Posse Comitatus, rather it is a future where law enforcement has a larger and more proactive role in America's conflicts.

War in the homeland is a scary thought. Outside of major terrorist attacks, for the most part the homeland has been secure since the War of 1812. Although we continue to fight the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the War on the Middle Class, and the War on Christmas in the homeland, the American Way of War is to play 'away games' against other nations. If we are not careful in the way we pursue unmanned and autonomous systems, that piece of the American Way of War may change forever.



Former Australian diplomat and soldier turned security consultant, Dr. David Kilcullen, foresees a future of zombie wars - wars that we think we have ended that keep returning to life, again and again.

Irregular conflicts tend to be "zombie wars" which keep coming back to life just as we think they're over. Iraq is a case in point: By late 2009, through urban counterinsurgency, partnership with communities, and intensive reconciliation efforts, U.S. forces had severely damaged al Qaeda and brought civilian deaths to the lowest level in years: Only 89 civilians were killed across all of Iraq in December 2009, down from over 1,000 per month in mid-2008, and a shocking 3,000 per week in late 2006. But rapid and complete U.S. withdrawal in 2010 -- combined with sectarian politics and the reinvigoration of al Qaeda through the Syrian war -- pulled the rug from under local communities, reviving a conflict that a succession of U.S. leaders, on both sides of politics, have been incorrectly claiming was over ever since May of 2003. Likewise, in places like Afghanistan, Colombia, Somalia, Congo, the Central African Republic, Mali, and Sudan, current outbreaks are not new -- rather, they're revivals of generations-old conflicts that keep coming back. Colombia's FARC rebel movement, for example, turns 60 in 2014.

...as America and its allies pass -- thankfully -- away from an era of large-scale intervention in overseas counterinsurgencies, it's tempting to think that each year's crop of new irregular wars is just so much background noise that we can afford to ignore. Unfortunately, that's not true anymore, if it ever was: In an increasingly urbanized, massively connected world, where empowered individuals and non-state groups will access communications and weapons technology that used to be the preserve of nation-states and future conflicts will leap international boundaries, we ignore these conflicts at our peril.

One crystal clear lesson for future war emerges from the last decade. This is that unilateral intervention in other people's wars is not the way to go -- and neither is large-scale counterinsurgency which, though doable, is extraordinarily difficult, and far from desirable in humanitarian, financial, or political terms. Interventions, particularly counterinsurgencies, must be an absolute last resort. But ignoring future conflicts doesn't work either -- urban, zombie, irregular crime-wars, that leap national boundaries and feature non-state groups with technology and connectivity only states used to have, will spread rapidly, sucking in surrounding regions, as Syria is doing now, and as Afghanistan did before 9/11.



Finally, doctoral student and former US Army officer, Christopher Davis, says there won't be a future war for the United States, just a perpetual continuation of the war already underway.

Already, the United States has exploited these [autonmous technology] advantages to wage a war without apparent end from the sky against Islamic militants around the globe. No clear end-state can be discerned from the campaign, nor is there any official measurement of the war's progress except abstract statements about successful strikes. International borders are freely ignored and secret agreements are made with "host" governments to minimize their obstruction. These seismic changes were felt with the first generation of drones and robots. What will future generations bring?

The introduction of these weapons on a wider scale is forthcoming. Air Force enthusiasts speaking about the sixth generation of fighter aircraft speculate that it will be pilotless. Special Operations Command is pushing aggressively for new technologies to radically improve the capabilities of its operators. Combined with the insulation of the military from the general public, the relatively free hand of the president in directing foreign policy, the increasing costs of maintaining an all-volunteer military in an age of austerity, and the proliferation of threats in a globalizing multipolar world, AFMs offer the only way forward to answer the national security problems of the future.

Instead of thinking about strategy, we should be thinking about the continuation of the American way of war. This can be addressed through examining the legal and ethical implications of armies constituted in large part by autonomous fighting machines. Does shooting down a drone constitute an act of war? What about crashing it into the ground through a cyberattack? If a semi- or fully autonomous war machine commits a war crime, who is at fault? If the defined operating parameters of an AFM could lead to a war crime, is it a lawful order to program the AFM with those parameters? These questions and more touch the fundamental human component of warfare -- a feature that is increasingly distant from the battlefield.

America has already entered its last war. This war, the war unending, will be fought with ever advancing machines of all kinds. These machines will be increasingly autonomous and they will take commands from insulated bureaucracies with limited public oversight. Policymakers will be less timid about their employment. The foundations for this war have already been set in places like Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. As the last Islamist terrorist draws his final breath, against whom will these machines be pointed next?

Who's Sorry Now?

Perhaps NDP leader Andrea Horwath will be, for forcing an unnecessary Ontario election, if the results of a new Forum Research Poll hold throughout the campaign.

The survey of 1,845 people across Ontario, conducted on Friday and Saturday, yielded the following reuslts:

- 48 per cent of respondents approved of the budget. Thirty-two per cent disapproved, and 20 per cent didn’t know.

- 68 per cent approved of the income tax hike for wealthier Ontarians, with just 24 per cent disapproving and 8 per cent with no opinion.

- 39 per cent think Sousa’s spending plan will be bad for the economy while 21 per cent think it will be good, another 21 per cent feel it will have no effect and 19 per cent were unsure.

President Lorne Bozinoff says extrapolating the polling results would see the Liberals winning 49 seats in the 107-member legislature, the Conservatives taking 45, and the NDP holding 13.

Currently, the distribution is 48 Grit MPPs, including Speaker Dave Levac, 37 Tories, 21 New Democrats, and one vacancy.

In other words, the projection gives us another minority government, less seats for the NDP, and an election tab north of $80 million.

Thanks, Andrea, for nothing. Your vanity project does not seem very popular.

Ontario Politics

While I realize that the politics of Ontario is likely not a riveting subject for those living in other jurisdictions, I nonetheless offer this brief post on the election that has been called here for June 12. Given that the Wynne government presented a budget that by anyone's standards would be deemed progressive, the decision of NDP leader Andrea Horwath to 'pull the plug' on this minority government seems wrong and entirely self-serving.

A woman who has proven to be a grave disappointment as her party's leader, Horwath, given to pandering for power at the expense of principle, is voting against a budget that I daresay, based on her performance these past few years, she would be too craven to bring in were she heading the government.

As pointed out by The Star's Thomas Walkom, Wynne has promised to invest heavily in public transit. More important, she has proposed the country’s first serious retirement income scheme since the Canada Pension Plan was brought in almost half a century ago.

Should voters look to the Progressive Conservatives, Tim Hudak has made it clear that if his party wins, he will kill Wynne’s proposed Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, pull back on ambitious infrastructure proposals, and make life miserable for unionized workers.

Like Jack Layton, whose NDP helped bring down the Paul Martin Liberals, thereby paving the way for the Harper regime, will Horwath's decision prove just as fateful for the people of Ontario?

If so, the NDP, if it is to have any possibility of future rehabilitation, will need to find new and principled leadership as soon as possible.

Two Takes On Taxation

The contrast couldn't be more striking. As announced by federal Fiance Minister Joe Oliver the other day, Ottawa is well on its way to posting a $9 billion surplus, but Canadians shouldn’t expect any massive new spending programs. Instead, he plans to reduce taxes once the deficit is eliminated in the 2015-16 budget, likely next winter.

On the other hand, the Ontario government, under Premier Wynne, proposes a host of new spending and moderate tax increases under the budget it brought down yesterday.

Progressive measures include raising the wages of home care workers, more money for infrastructure, welfare hikes, new health benefits for children and a plan to hire at-risk youth in provincially funded infrastructure projects.

Perhaps the boldest proposal is an Ontario Pension Plan that will, years down the road, alleviate a good deal of the poverty faced by retirees who currently don't have company pension plans, it is the same model that the Harper regime rejected as "too risky for our fragile economy."

Two competing visions of the role of government; the federal one, which appeals to the selfishness that resides in all of us, and a provincial one which, albeit an election budget, appeals to our better natures.

Which one will prevail? Who knows? But now might be a good time to watch the following TVO podcast, taken from Alex's Blog, in which Alex Himelfarb talks with Steve Paikin about why taxes should not be considered a four-letter word:

If You Value Your Privacy

Watch. Learn. Share freely.

UPDATED:Are We Feeling Any Outrage Yet?

If we care a scintilla about privacy or any measure of aversion to government snooping into our private business, we damn well should be. As I wrote in yesterday's post, the Harper regime and its complicit agencies, intoxicated with power, have been requesting (sans warrants) and receiving data on us from the major telecoms and social media sites.

Now word comes that these Judases are being paid for their obsequious compliance by our tax dollars:

The Toronto Star reports the following:

Canadian taxpayers are footing the bill for government agencies to buy their private data from telecom companies without their knowledge.

According to parliamentary documents, government agencies pay between $1 and $3 for access to user data from telecom, Internet and social media companies.

Figures released Tuesday by Canada’s privacy watchdog indicate authorities requested that access from nine companies more than 1.19 million times a year, meaning authorities spend in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars to quietly access Canadians’ personal data.

Read that again. The telecoms et al. are not only betraying us, but they are also being paid through our taxes for that betrayal.

Compounding that sell-out is the fact that these companies are refusing the Privacy Commissioner's request for more information about this foul practice, which Thomas Mulcair yesterday described as an abomination:

Mirko Bibic, Bell Canada’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, told reporters Wednesday evening that companies are unsure how to comply with the federal privacy commissioner’s request that telecoms publicly report how often they co-operate with law enforcement and government agencies.

But Bibic refused to say how common that co-operation is, or how often information is handed over to authorities without judicial oversight.

Such truculent arrogance surely indicates the abject contempt in which they hold us, their customers.

Exactly what could the government do with the data these companies are so blithely turning over?

According to a report from the privacy commissioner, “basic subscriber information” can be used to paint a picture of online activities, including browsing history, membership with organizations, physical locations visited, online services used by the subscriber.

“This information can be sensitive in nature in that it can be used to determine a person’s leanings, with whom they associate, and where they travel, among other things,” the report reads. “What’s more, each of these pieces of information can be used to uncover further information about an individual.”

Of course, defenders of such state intrusion will doubtlessly rely on that old saw, "If you have nothing to hide, why would you worry?

Without question, the time for such innocent and naive proclamations is long past.

UPDATE: Click here if you want to see how the regime and its enablers are 'spinning' this scandal.

In Case Anyone Cares Anymore

Rob Ford has embarrassed both himself and the city he was elected to serve yet again and again.

Is It Irony, Or Is It Hypocrisy?

It may be both. The Harper regime's penchant for withholding information from the public that should be accessible is well-known and well-documented.

As pointed out in this Star article, we are persistently denied access to the information about the dangerous side effects of drugs, how much Canada Post spent on overtime to end last year's backlog, nor how Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, the company implicated in the Lac-Mégantic train disaster, assured Transport Canada it could operate a one-man crew safely.

All of that, as the article makes clear, is merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Unfortunately, the regime's penchant for keeping information concealed does not extend to Canadian citizens' right to privacy; here it is becoming increasing apparent that government wants to know far more about us than is either seemly or proper in a putatively democratic country.

As also reported in The Star,

Government agencies are asking telecoms and social media companies to turn over Canadians’ user data at “jaw-dropping” rates, with nearly 1.2 million requests in 2011 alone.

Which government and law enforcement agencies are requesting the data from the companies remains shrouded in secrecy. And the companies themselves are refusing to disclose further details, according to Canada’s privacy watchdog.

And the most worrisome aspect of this invasion is that most of these are requests, i.e., unaccompanied by warrants. Compounding the matter is that when data is turned over, the telecoms do not inform their customers:

The companies [Bell Rogers, Telus et al] say they don’t inform their customers when their information is turned over to authorities, meaning the vast majority of those customers would have no knowledge of the transaction.

Beyond that, they will not comment further, refusing requests from the Privacy Commissioner to tell her how many times they have handed over private data to the government without a warrant.

That same cone of silence seems to be enveloping the government:

The Department of Public Safety declined an interview request by the Star. Industry Minister James Moore, whose department is responsible for the telecom sector, refused to comment on the story when asked by reporters in the House of Commons.

Unfortunately, there is much worse to come:

Michael Geist, one of Canada’s leading Internet privacy experts .... warns that legislation currently before Parliament will actually expand the number of organizations that can ask telecoms and social media companies to voluntarily hand over their customers’ information, and protect those companies from civil or criminal lawsuits.

“It is a structure that allows for the massive disclosure of personal information with no court oversight whatsoever,” Geist said.

Anyone who is not disturbed by these revelations clearly places far too little value on their privacy and accords far too much faith in the benevolence of a government that has consistently proven itself inimical to the best interests of those it 'serves.'

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.

A Reading Recommendation.

I have a deep respect for Alex Himelfarb, the director of the Glendon School of International and Public Affairs and tireless proponent of responsible, progressive taxation. The latter, as one can well-imagine, likely makes him persona non grata in many circles, but those are likely the same circles that close out responsible thought or discussion on any topics that might threaten to puncture the artificial and insular world they encase themselves in.

It is, of course, easy to take the expedient route, as have politicians like Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, and Thomas Mulcair at the federal level, and, here in Ontario, Tim Hudak and Andrea Horwath, all essentially proclaiming the evils of taxation, some more stridently than others, as they promise no tax increases. Clearly, in taking such positions, they are playing to our basest impulses.

Alex Himelfarb refuses to play that game. In his latest reminder of things our political leaders would rather we not contemplate, Without a tax debate, we risk sleepwalking into the future, Alex and his son Jordan present this thesis:

Canadians have a right to know what they’re giving up before celebrating the next round of tax cuts.

The article makes reference to the Himelfarbs' book, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word, a collection of essays that explores the tax question; its central purpose is perhaps best expressed here:

In the book we do try to counter the view that taxes are simply a burden from which people must be relieved. Simply, they are the way we pay for things we have decided to do together because we cannot do them at all or as well alone. Our approach has yielded reactions both positive and negative.

And this is the crux of today's Star article as they argue that we cannot have an honest discussion about taxation because we do not have a clear understanding of the relationship between taxes and what they buy:

Two successive parliamentary budget officers, whose job it is to know, admit they cannot get the information they need to determine the costs and consequences of tax and spending cuts. So how are we expected to know? And without information about the trade-offs, how do we make informed democratic decisions?

They argue that without this basic knowledge, we as a society cannot make an informed decision on what constitutes proper taxation:

Whether we’re taxed too much or too little is a perennial debate that now needs rebalancing. It’s all well and good to say that many Canadians want smaller government but that means nothing unless it’s based on some understanding of how this will affect our ability to pursue our shared goals. We ought to know what we’re giving up before we celebrate the next round of tax cuts.

That seems to me to be the crux of the problem we face today as a society. The Harper government would have us believe that the only thing we are giving up when tax rates go down is an unwarranted intrusion of government into our lives. The Himelfarbs argue that if we look beyond the self-serving rhetoric of our political overseers, what we lose in embracing that mentality is something much different and ultimately much more costly to all of us.

This Has Gotta Hurt

Expect the Harper attack machine to ramp up its game:

And Now, A Brief Message From PROPCON

Regurgitation warning: if you have just finished eating, wait at least 30 minutes before watching this latest episode of 24/seven, brought to you by PROPCON, the Harper regime's official channel of indoctrination.

I have to admit this is the first episode I have watched; it made me nostalgic for the old Soviet cult-of-personality newsreels. It also gave me increased empathy for what the North Korean people have had to endure under their Dear Leader:




Come to think of it, perhaps our Dear Leader took some instruction from this fellow:

Less Than Meets The Eye

Were average citizens given to much political reflection, they would realize that from start to finish, the 'Fair' Elections Act has been almost exclusively about both discouraging people from voting and suppressing the vote of those who do not fit the Conservative Party's target 'audience.' Even in light of yesterday's announced amendments, that remains the case.

While the Act has provoked a flurry of steady, relentless, critical coverage, both in mainstream and social media, to view yesterday's ostensible retreat as a real victory is to misread the situation badly. Two aspects of the bill will, I think, support my thesis.

First, and less contentious in the public's mind, is the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer is still fettered when it comes to encouraging people to vote. To be sure, the amendment is less Draconian than the Harper regime originally sought:

In the original draft, Bill C-23 restricted the CEO to communicating only where, when and how to vote, raising concerns of an attempt to muzzle the independent agency.

Elections Canada advertising would still be limited to the nuts and bolts of the voting process, but the agency could continue to fund third-party education campaigns with elementary and secondary school students.

In other words, the CEO is still limited to encouraging people who can't vote (elementary and most high school students) to vote. While that may or may not bolster future civic participation, it does nothing to prompt those of voting age to attend the polls.

Secondly, the issue that received the bulk of media criticism, vouching for those without an ID with an address, continues to be a problem.

First, a slight digression. As you will recall, Pierre Poilivre et al. have consistently ruled out the use of voter information cards as an acceptable proof of address. The argument, proven repeatedly to be specious, was that it contributed to voter fraud in past elections.

But think about it for a moment. As a voter, you present valid identification, such as your birth certificate or health card, and then attempt to use a voter information card to establish your address. The card is rejected because you could be perpetrating a fraud. How? Well, even though you have proven who you are, you might have moved into another riding, but you might have also gone to your old address, either broken into your old mailbox or house to retrieve the card, with the express purpose of deceiving Elections Canada.

Sound ridiculous? Of course it does.

But not to Mr. Poilivre and the rest of the cabal.

Like a dog that is regularly beaten by its cruel owner but is ever so grateful when that master/mistress gives it a few crumbs from the table, we are supposed to be ever so thankful for the following:

“The government will not support amendments to allow voting without a piece of identity,” Poilievre said in a press conference on Parliament Hill.

“(But) if someone’s ID does not have an address on it, they will have to sign a written oath of residence. Another voter with fully proven ID will need to co-sign attesting to that voter’s address.”

In other words, the voter is infantilized because he or she, lacking proof, not of identity but of address, must be in the company of an 'adult' who has the proper accreditation. Perhaps someone can explain to me how that does not just continue, in a slightly diluted form, the process of voter suppression of the young, the elderly or the homeless who may not be able to secure the proper accompaniment to the polls.

Watch the following video, as the oleaginous Minister of Democratic Reform tap dances around the truth of this bill. Unfortunately, his interlocutor, Rosie Barton, seems more interested in playing 'gotcha' than uncovering the truth about these very weak and very disappointing amendments. Start at the 10-minute mark:

Are You A Birdbrain?

Watch this video to the end, and you will realize the question is not intended as an insult:

Everyone's A Politician

At least that might seem to be a reasonable inference to draw given people's increasing capacity not to answer questions that make them uncomfortable or expose a weakness in their position.

I have listened to Dan Kelly, President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, twice recently. Like a politician, he keeps 'on-message' with something that approaches either Pavlovian or messianic proportions. Watch the following brief clip as he talks about the virtues of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program; note how he operates when Don Martin asks what seems to be an eminently reasonable question:

Political Ambition And Public Outrage

The interesting thing about political ambition and public outrage is that sometimes they work synergistically to produce positive results. Jason Kenney, whose ambition to become the Conservative Party's next leader have been widely rumoured, announced yesterday that fast food restaurants are being suspended from participation in the Temporary Foreign Workers Program after increasingly bad publicity over its misuse, resulting in higher rates of unemployment among Canadian citizens.

The following short video discusses a report from the CD Howe Institute which uncovered this disturbing fact:

However, how much of this is simply a temporary sop to the masses remains to be seen. Although McDonald's moved just prior to Kenney's announcement to suspend its use of temporary foreign workers, as the video below shows, its Canadian CEO, John Betts, regards the entire imbroglio as 'bullshit.'

Will this ban become permanent? The cynic in me suggests it won't, given that the program as administered by the Harper regime has become yet another way of assisting its corporate friends by distorting the labour market, enabling the industry to avoid paying its employees what the market demands.

However, should both the media and the public continue to be interested in the issue, perhaps a permanent solution will emerge. A big IF.

Sammy Yatim's Accused Killer Back On The Job

While the presumption of innocence is fundamental to our justice system, common sense and public sensibilities are always unspoken elements of the equation. This is clearly seen, for example, in jury selection, a good part of which is designed to ferret out and exclude from participation those with prejudgments that could affect the rights of the accused to a fair trial.

With that preamble and proviso out of the way, what I express in the following is simply my opinion, a perspective informed by news coverage of the accused and the aforementioned common sense and public sensibilities.

I have written several past posts on Sammy Yatim and related matters of police abuse of their authority. Yatim, readers will recall, was the 18-year-old whose death at the hands of police on July 27, 2013, was captured on video. While holding a knife in an empty streetcar, presenting no immediate threat to the many police who were on scene, Yatim was shot to death by Const. James Forcillo, who was later charged with second-degree murder.

Now, incredibly, just a few days after the beginning of his preliminary hearing, word has arrived that Forcillo has been back on the job since February.

The decision to have Const. James Forcillo return to duty — after a seven-month suspension with pay — was made by Chief Bill Blair.

“The chief, using his discretion, made the decision to lift his suspension and since February he has been assigned to administrative duties here at headquarters,” spokesman Meaghan Gray confirmed Wednesday. “He is not in uniform and his job does not require any use-of-force options.”

A close Yatim family friend, Joseph Nazar, was stunned by the news:

This is a betrayal by the police chief,” Nazar said. “This officer is charged with murder and he’s working in a police station?

“If this is true, we’re not going to sit quiet about it,” he added.

Police union head Mike McCormick, “fully” supports the chief’s decision to lift Forcillo’s suspension.

“We encourage management to find meaningful work for suspended officers when possible, as long as any risk has been mitigated,” McCormack said. “And it actually happens quite frequently.”

He said it’s good for the officers, the service and taxpayers.

What McCormick failed to acknowledge is that it's not so good for the pursuit of justice, fosters the perception of a blue brotherhood with more contempt than concern for the public, and betrays an egregious disdain for a still-grieving family that will never again embrace their loved one.

More On The Temporary Foreign Workers Program

As noted yesterday, the Temporary Foreign Workers Program continues to cause both grief and outrage among Canadians. The latest publicly-identified victims, two former employees at a Weyburn Sask. eatery called Brothers Classic Grill and Pizza [previously called El Rancho], are receiving a groundswell of support both locally and across the country.

In an update on their website, CBC Saskatchewan, we learn that Sandy Nelson, a 28-year veteran waitress at the restaurant who lost her job to foreign workers, had tried to bring attention to her plight earlier:

"We tried going [the] government route. Never got a response," Nelson said. "Finally got a response today." That is, after the injustice became public.

Among those who are considered part of the Harper base, this comment was typical:

"I don't think that's fair," Weyburn resident Kyla Broomfield said. "We go there all the time and they treat customers well. I don't know why they would fire them."

"Why should they give foreigners more opportunities?" Jeremiah Broomfield said. "There's willing Canadians here to work. It's just not fair."

One can only assume that had this situation not been made public, Jason Kenney would not now be investigating it.

In today's Star, Tim Harper offers his assessment of the TFWP. Laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Harper regime, under whose auspices these abuses have proliferated, he says:

The Conservatives have now done what seems to be the impossible — cutting hours for Canadian workers, setting the stage for the ill-treatment of temporary workers, further alienating the labour movement in this country and fielding complaints from small businesses who play by the rules who say those rules are too onerous.

Harper suggests strong action is needed: the program either needs a complete overhaul, with caps put on the number of temporary workers in this country, or it should be scrapped and replaced with new immigration rules.

He adds that Jason Kenney has to start imposing real penalties, not suspensions. Without that, the abuses will continue and the program’s credibility will continue to crumble.

Ultimately, I guess it requires a careful cost benefit analysis by a government that has consistently shown itself to be so contemptuous of average Canadians and so subservient to the demands of business. Indeed, whose vote is most likely to be lost here?

Happy Earth Day

I truly wish there was something to celebrate. Take a look at my previous post and the commentary from the Mound of Sound that accompanies it; then watch this short video.

Their commonality? A rapacious industry and an economic system that disdains impediments to their profits, and a federal government (a.k.a. the Harper regime) at their compete disposal.

Words Fail Me Here

Unequivocally evil is the only phrase I can think of to describe this ecological and environmental outrage. Read the story and draw your own conclusions:

Ottawa removing North Pacific humpback whales from list of ‘threatened’ species

UPDATED: The Temporary Foreign Workers Program: Yet More Abuse And Heartbreak

Although the Temporary Foreign Workers Program predates the ascension to power of the Harper regime, there is mounting evidence that the abuses occurring under the program, none of which I am aware predate 2006, have been nurtured by the current cabal that consistently elevates the interests of business over the well being of citizens.

The latest example, as reported by CBC, comes from Saskatchewan where, in March, Sandy Nelson, who worked at Brothers Classic Grill and Pizza [previously called El Rancho] in Weyburn, Sask., for 28 years, along with her her co-workers, received the following letter:

"Due to changes in operations we are currently discharging all of our staff".

Some of them were subsequently hired back, including two waitresses who are temporary foreign workers.

But Nelson was permanently dismissed.

And Nelson was not the only victim of a program gone awry. Shaunna Jennison-Yung worked for the restaurant for 14 years before meeting the same fate:

The jobs they have aren't jobs that nobody wanted. We wanted them," Jennison-Yung explained.

She said to make matters worse, as a supervisor, she was unwittingly training her replacements.

"It's hurtful to be put aside and have people that you trained to do your job now doing your job. It's heartbreaking is what it is."

Predictably, the owners of Brothers Classic Grill and Pizza uttered the standard evasions and platitudes in response to CBC inquiries:

"All obligations to any employee are taken seriously. This includes the protection of personal information."

Additionally, they offered that "employees are a valuable asset to any business."

So valuable, apparently, that they are fungible commodities to be disposed of as the owners' agenda sees fit.

UPDATE: As occurred after a recent story emerged of Canadians suffering under the TFWP at three McDonalds's outlets in Victoria, the federal government is reacting with manufactured 'outrage' over the Weyburn misuse of the program:

Employment Minister Jason Kenney has asked his department to investigate Brothers Classic Grill and Pizza in Weyburn, Sask., a spokeswoman for the minister said Monday.

The spokeswoman added:

“Our government will not tolerate any abuse of the temporary foreign worker program. Our message to employers is clear and unequivocal — Canadians must always be first in line for available jobs.”

In an expedient moment of high dudgeon, the government warns of “serious criminal sanctions,” including fines and jail time, if employers lie on their applications about their efforts to hire Canadians.

May I make so bold as to suggest that the Harper regime's interest in this case will last about as long as the media's interest in it does?

P.S. Be sure to check out Montreal Simon's excoriating post on this topic.

Two Sentiments That Will Resonate With Many

Today's Star brings two letters, one on despotic rule and the other on electoral reform, that many would find hard to argue against:

Harper’s on a lonely road to political isolation, April 15

Aristotle once remarked that all forms of government — democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, tyranny — are inherently unstable, all political regimes are inherently transitional and that the stability of all regimes is corrupted by the corrosive power of time.

To prolong the viability of democratic form of government, his advice had been constant turnover of leaderships to renew the political process.
After eight years in power, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is clearly showing the signs of “the corrosive power of time,” as evident from the litany of problems outlined by Chantal Hebert.

He should, therefore, stand down, allowing a new leader to renew the political process. Time for change and renewal has arrived in Canada.

Mahmood Elahi, Ottawa


Why does anybody call Canada a democracy? It has taken nearly eight years for Stephen Harper’s stranglehold on his party and the country to start to loosen – and in all that time he has never enjoyed majority voter support.

We still can’t be sure Harper and Co. will be removed from office in 2015. It’s only a majority faint hope. Canadians will pay many millions to finance the federal election in 2015 — and then watch the pre-democratic voting system deliver, as usual, a House of Commons that bears no predictable relationship to what voters actually said and did. It could re-elect the Harper Conservatives with even less public support than they had last time.

The country needs new leaders who show real respect for citizens and taxpayers – by making a firm commitment to equal effective votes and proportional representation in the House of Commons. Representative democracy in Canada is 100 years overdue.

John Deverell, Pickering

Guest Post: The Mound Of Sound On Oligarchy

I am pleased to present to you this second guest post by the Mound of Sound, a.k.a. The Disaffected Lib:

When the "Greatest Democracy on Earth" closes up shop and re-opens as an oligarchy every other supposed democracy, including our own, better sit up and take notice.

The United States of America has proven that the ballot box does not guarantee the health or even the survival of democracy. Citizens can vote to their hearts' content and it doesn't matter if economic and political power resides elsewhere.

Remember that old joke about the Golden Rule? He who has the gold, rules. That's not a joke any longer. It's called "political capture", the process by which political power is taken from the electorate and vested in a group of oligarchs who, through their influence over legislators, call the shots.

It's pretty dismal when you have to realize that whether you vote or how you vote doesn't matter. The day after the election those individuals that have just been 'hired' by your vote will go to work for someone else. Thank you very much. See you in four years or six years or - well, whatever. And, remember, don't call us, we'll call you.

Thanks to a study from Princeton, we now have confirmation that the United States has transformed from democracy to oligarchy. Many of us knew it at a gut level but the study meticulously documents what we suspected. Now, here's the thing. America remains notionally a democracy, one citizen - one vote sort of thing. It has a constitution and bill of rights that reflect democracy, not some other form of political organization. What that means is that the rise of oligarchy is a subversion of democracy and powerful, prima facie evidence of a thoroughly corrupted political process. It reeks of wholesale corruption and, given its once lofty perch atop Mount Democracy, it proclaims America one of the most corrupted states on the planet.

The massive and steadily widening gap between rich and poor in America is no accident. Nor is it the natural outcome of merit-based or market forces. It is the bastard child of the incestuous bedding of the oligarchs and the political classes. Government that pledges to serve the people instead serves them up on a legislative platter to its real masters.

Now we learn, via Paul Krugman and Bill Moyers, that America's oligarchy is in the process of the next stage of its ascendancy, the establishment of a perpetual, inheritance-based aristocracy.

A Brief Programming Note

Since spring finally seems to be arriving in my place on the planet, it seems like a propitious time to take a day or two off from this blog and contemplate other matters. In the interim, I recommend the following for your perusal:

The Star's Thomas Walkom writes about democracy, voting and past democratic reform measures in his column today.

A series of thoughtful letters from Star readers provides an ample basis for some serious contemplation of climate change.

And finally, on the oligarchy that has essentially subverted supplanted democracy, the Mound of Sound recommends this interview with Thomas Krugman, who discusses a new book by French economist Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Pikey argues that modern capitalism has put the world "on the road not just to a highly unequal society, but to a society of an oligarchy—a society of inherited wealth."

See you shortly, and enjoy the long weekend.

Slamming Harper Secrecy

The Toronto Star recently revealed the following:

Health Canada is keeping secret the vast majority of the drug reviews it conducts despite a clear promise from the federal minister to publish this critical safety information.

Only 24 of 152 drug reviews completed last year by Health Canada are being considered for public release, the Toronto Star has learned. The drug safety reviews that will be open to the public are those triggered by alarms raised by foreign regulators, medical or scientific literature or Health Canada’s routine monitoring activities.

The main reason? Wholly consistent with the Harper regime's legendary secrecy and the preeminence it accords to all things corporate, is this justification:

The information is classified in part because it was provided “with the understanding that this information is proprietary,” a Health Canada spokeswoman told the Star in an email Wednesday.

In layperson's language, corporate concerns trump citizen safety. Aided and abetted by Health Canada, safety information falls under the rubric of commercial secrets - this despite some well-publicized tragedies that might very well have been avoided had the public had access to vital information about toxicity studies and drug side effects.

As usual, perspicacious Star letter-writers offer their views of this intolerable insult to all who believe that the free flow of information is one of the crucial elements of a healthy democracy:


Ottawa keeps drug reviews under wraps, April 12

The Canadian public is once again being “stonewalled” by the Harper government. The reason that I am calling this the “Harper Government” is the fact that Stephen Harper runs this government like a dictatorship. His ministers are muzzled until Harper approves of what statements they are allowed to make to the media.

He arbitrarily releases information only when he feels like doing so, not when the public has a genuine need to know the details of situations, such as rail safety measures put in place after the disaster in Quebec, and now the federal drug reviews of 151 various medications.
According to Dr. David Juurlink from Sunnybrook Hospital, “These drugs harm people and in some instances they kill people. Frankly, shame on (Ottawa) for even contemplating not publishing them.” The doctor doesn’t realize that in Ottawa there is no shame, only secrecy.

Why all of this secrecy when Ottawa has supposedly made a commitment to being more transparent? This government is as “transparent” as the heavily tinted windows in a motor vehicle.

In 1947, there was a movie starring Danny Kaye, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This movie was re-made in 2013 with Ben Stiller as the star. In Canada, it could have been made as The Secret Life of Stephen Harper, starring our Prime Minister.

Also, Harper would have been the perfect guest on the 1950s and 1960s TV show I’ve Got A Secret. He has so many secrets that the panel would never guess to which one he was referring.

Warren Dalton, Scarborough


The reason Ottawa keeps drug reviews under wraps is the same reason Transport Canada keeps under wraps the movement of toxic materials through highly populated areas. The “conservative corporate party” in Ottawa is not about to bite the hand that feeds it. Ask yourself: who is damaged by disclosure?

Nicholas Kostiak, Tottenham


Drugs that have been developed under the sole funding of the private sector may, indeed, legitimize claims to exclusive rights to such information. Where the public has funded the research and development of pharmaceuticals, however, the public has a right to the results of such research.

Canadian taxpayers have contributed billions of dollars, under a multitude of programs, to the development of pharmaceuticals. We seem to have forgotten Harper’s Economic Action Plan and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to the research and development of pharmaceuticals in the year 2009 alone. If you follow the money, you’ll discover that the public has just as many proprietary rights to the much-guarded research.

Those who wish to have exclusive rights to research results, data, analyses, outcomes or reports should also ensure their exclusive funding of such research activity rather than looking to the public purse for support. Until then, we have a right to know exactly what our money has produced.

Stella Kargiannakis, Toronto

The House That Ronald Built

... seems to be undergoing some serious perturbations these days. Earlier in the month came the story of three McDonald's outlets in British Columbia abusing the Harper regime's TFWP (Temporary Foreign Workers Program) by hiring temporary workers instead of available local people and reducing the hours of Canadian employees.

Now comes word from Edmonton of more abuse by the hamburger giant, this time of its temporary workers. CBC News reports the following:

Foreign workers recruited from Belize are accusing McDonald’s Canada of treating them like "slaves," by effectively forcing them to share an expensive apartment – then deducting almost half their take-home pay as rent.

Records from three employees show they made $11 an hour working at various McDonald’s locations and the company took $280 from their pay for rent, bi-weekly. Their remaining take-home pay for the same pay periods was roughly $350.

“[The apartment lease] contracts are signed by McDonald’s. All of our bills – utility bills – were billed [to us] under the name of McDonald’s,” said Montero.

“They brought us here and they are this big huge corporation. We felt that we didn’t have a chance to even voice our opinion to them because they had brought us here so they could ship us back whenever they wanted to," said Montero. "It was like modern day slavery."


You can read the full tawdry tale of corporate malfeasance here, and watch a video report below:

Kind of takes away your appetite for when the next 'Mac attack' happens, doesn't it?

This Has Nothing To Do With Canadian Politics

It is a tale of corporate indifference on the part of Porche, and how the 'little guy' attempts to rectify it:

Getting Their Tunics In A Twist

I was very pleased to read that Honey Maid has joined the 21st century, evidence of which can be seen in the following television commercial:

However, those mired in an earlier time are not so happy. You can click here to see why they have gotten their tunics in a twist, but I'll offer you just a hint from this excerpt:

Jennifer LeClaire, news editor at Charisma, an evangelical online magazine, wasn't amused: "Nabisco's brand is no longer wholesome," she wrote in a piece titled "Gay-Affirming Nabisco Is Shoving More Than Oreos Down Our Throats."

LeClaire pointed out that members of the conservative American Family Association's One Million Moms group were "up in arms": "The American Family Association-linked group insists Nabisco should be ashamed of itself for the cracker commercial that attempts to 'normalize sin.'"

"One Million Moms stands up for Biblical truth which is very clear in Romans 1:26-27 about this particular type of sexual perversion," the group stated. "Honey Maid is also using the hashtag #thisiswholesome. There is concern about the way this ad is pushing the LGBT agenda, but an even greater concern is the way that they are changing the meaning of the word 'wholesome.' This is truly sad. If this is what Honey Maid thinks is wholesome, then my family will no longer purchase Honey Maid or Nabisco products."

And below is how Honey Maid responded to those residing in that earlier time of absolutism and intolerance in the name of an apparently very angry and very limited deity:

CPC slogan 2015: “No grounds for criminal charges.” *

* H/t Dan Gardner

In the twisted morality of the Harper universe, it will be claimed and conveyed as a complete vindication of the Prime Minister.

That the RCMP has found no grounds upon which to lay criminal charges against Nigel Wright in the $90,000 payoff-to-Mike-Duffy-scandal does nothing to dissolve the deep and abiding suspicions about Harper's influence-peddling machinations was not lost on the At Issue panelists last night: