More on Harperland - Intolerance of Dissenting Opinion and Misuse of the RCMP

While I am a reasonably fast reader, especially when it comes to fiction, I sometimes have to slow down and digest small chunks of non-fiction that deal with the political arena, lest I do grievous harm to my blood pressure or mental state. Such was the case as I made my way through Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, dealing as it did with how the right wing exploits natural or human-made disasters to advance the cause of free-market economics, despite the damage that system can do to those upon whom it is imposed.

I am exercising similar caution with Lawrence Martin's fine political analysis, Harperland, which, as I mentioned in an earlier post, confirms our worst fears and suspicions about the Harper regime. This morning I read a couple of parts that reflect both Harper's contempt for opposing viewpoints and his authoritarian bent:

Michael Biels, a history professor at the University of Ottawa, wrote a newspaper piece opposing Harper's decision to confer nation status on Quebec. Senator Marjory Lebreton, a former Mulroney loyalist who was named Senate leader for switching her fealty to Harper, contacted the university and demanded that Biels be disciplined and forced to issue an apology. Fortunately the university resisted her demands, saying that freedom of speech is a mainstay of academic institutions. Since the implications of this incident are obvious, no further comment from me is needed.

Many will recall the next example, which occurred when the Conservatives had a caucus meeting in Charlottetown in 2007. As was the tradition P.H. (Pre-Harper), journalists gathered in the lobby of the hotel to talk to caucus members as they passed by. The Prime Minister's Office, with its Harper-directed mandate to keep media contact to a minimum, ordered the RCMP to remove the reporters from the hotel. Besides this wholly inappropriate and probably illegal use of our federal police force for political purposes, this incident made me wonder anew exactly what role Harper played in another political misuse of police authority, the widespread violation of Charter Rights that occurred during the G20 Summit in Toronto last June.

While I strongly encourage everyone to read this fine book by Lawrence Martin, I do have to post this warning: CONSUMPTION OF ITS CONTENTS MAY POSE RISKS TO YOUR PHYSICAL OR EMOTIONAL HEALTH

Last Night's CBC At Issues Panel

As I do most Thursdays, I watched last night's At Issues Panel on the CBC's National News. As usual the panelists, Allan Gregg, Chantal Hebert, and Andrew Coyne had a lively but respectful discussion, this time on the many issues undermining the credibility of the Harper Government.

Allan Gregg made a disturbing suggestion; even though the issue of Harper's contempt for Parliamentary democracy has been especially manifest this week through House Speaker Miliken's two rulings, plus the fact that the Conservatives tabled demonstrably false cost estimates for the purchase of the F-35 fighter jets, he doubted that such will resonate with the public. He opined that the concept of Parliamentary democracy, so regularly violated by the Harper Government these past few years, may not mean much to the public, since nothing the Government does seems to be reflected in public opinion poll results.

That, plus the George Carlin video posted yesterday, got me thinking about the vital role that critical thinking plays in an informed and vital democracy. In the past I wrote fairly extensively on the topic, and if anyone is interested in either my thoughts or links on the subject, they can be found on my other blog, Education and Its Discontents.

A Followup On Diana Swain's Report

My last post dealt with a disturbing investigative report done by the CBC's Diana Swain.

I am convinced that the only way to move the Ministry of Health to ensure that similar tragedies don't happen in Ontario is to spread the word of the report to as many people as possible and to subject the Ministry to a barrage of letters demanding fast action. Here is the letter that I am sending off to Deb Matthews, the Ontario Minister of Health, with copies to Premier McGuinty and my local MPP:


Dear Ms Matthews:

Having viewed Diana Swain's disturbing investigative report on the CBC about Rose McKenzie, the Ontario nurse whose negligence in California resulted in a patient's brain damage and quadriplegia, I am writing to request that the Ministry of Health take immediate action.

According to the report, Nurse McKenzie, despite having been stripped of her nursing license in California, had no trouble finding another nursing job in Ontario; she simply omitted any reference to what had happened on the self-reporting form used by the Ontario College of Nurses.

I am sure you will agree with me that, for the sake of patient safety, changes need to made with all urgency, lest a similar tragedy occur here. In this age of technology, measures to ensure the full and free exchange of pertinent personnel information internationally are undoubtedly both feasible and relatively easy to initiate.

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience as to how your Ministry plans to ensure the safety of all patients in Ontario.

Diana Swain's Disturbing Nursing Report

Last night on the CBC's National, there was a profoundly disturbing report by investigative reporter Diana Swain outlining how a nurse from Ontario, Rose Mckenzie, while working in California, was grossly negligent in her care of Spencer Sullivan, who had undergone a routine surgery for neck pain. As a result of McKenzie's negligence, Sullivan was left a quadriplegic with brain damage.

The most disturbing part of the report is the fact that although she was stripped of her nursing licence in the U.S., she is now working as a nurse in Oakville, the problem being that self-disclosure of any past problems is the only way the Ontario College of Nurses could have become aware of the loss of her licence. Obviously, McKenzie did not self-disclose.

Click here to read the whole report and see the CBC news video.

P.S. Despite the Harper Regime's hatred of the CBC, such reports amply demonstrate its value.

George Carlin's Screed

Many thanks to Orwell's Bastard for posting this video in which George Carlin talks about the 'man behind the curtain.' Although directed at an American audience, his acerbic observations about who is really in control seem equally applicable to Canada, especially under the Harper regime.

A Refresher Course in Harper's Disdain for Democracy

I am currently reading Lawrence Martin's book Harperland, which anecdotally confirms some of our worst fears and suspicions about Stephen Harper and the Harper Government (see, even I've taken to referring to our government that way), and even though I no longer subscribe to The Globe and Mail, I do check it regularly for columns by Martin.

Today's piece, entitled On the road to the Harper government's tipping point, is a reminder of the myriad abuses of democracy that the Prime Minister is responsible for. At a time when many of us despair of the possibility of any change in the next federal election, it is useful to remember that the fate of our democratic traditions and institutions ultimately does reside in our hands, no matter how much the government seeks to undermine those traditions and institutions.

Harper's Orwellian Use of Language

One of the greatest pleasures I derived as a teacher was doing a unit on language as part of the Grade 12 English course that I regularly taught. At the beginning of that unit, we read George Orwell's seminal essay, Politics and the English Language, which offered a trenchant, if at times challenging analysis of how language can be used to curb freedom and undermine free and critical thought. It was a theme that later formed the basis of his most popular novel, 1984.

After further study which included exploring fallacies of logic, I would give students an assignment requiring them to analyze the misuse of language and logic in our society today, which invariably led them to look at the pronouncements our politicians make. I was reminded of those times yesterday morning as I read Heather Mallick's amusing yet perceptive column in The Toronto Star on the Harper Government's manipulation of language. I would encourage everyone to read it.