Harper Government Identifies A New 'Enemy Of The People' - ForestEthics

Now this is just getting outrageous to the point of surrealism. The latest story in The Star reveals that the PMO has allegedly labelled an environmental group an “enemy” of Canada for opposing a proposed west coast oil pipeline and threatened retribution if its funding was not cut off, according to the affidavit of a former employee.

According to Andrew Frank, a former communications manager with ForestEthics, a group receiving funding from Tides Canada, a charitable group that funds initiatives that address poverty, climate change and social problems, senior federal officials referred to ForestEthics as an “enemy of the government of Canada” and an “enemy of the people of Canada” in a private meeting with the president of Tides Canada, Ross McMillan.

In that meeting, government officials apparently gave McMillan “a set time period … by which to ‘cut loose’ ForestEthics, or the government would ‘take down’ all of Tides’ charitable projects,” Frank said in his affidavit, which was accompanied by internal e-mail correspondence and transcripts of voice mails.

This kind of paranoid and demagogic bullying is unworthy of any democracy, even Harper's.

The Conservative Mantra: Statistics? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Statistics

The title of this post, meant to evoke the misquote of the Mexican bandits as they prepare to eliminate Fred Dobbs, the miscreant protagonist of The Treasure of the Seirra Madre played by Humphrey Bogart, seemed appropriate in light of the Harper government's contempt for the authoritative substance of statistics.

As reported in today's Star,

A new report shows that Canadian police services are using the firearms registry more than ever, relying on it more than 14,000 times a day rather than viewing it as an obsolete and unreliable database as the Conservative government claims.

Don't, of course, expect this striking data to fork any lightning with the right-wing set who, moved by reactionary ideology rather than logic, is still intent on destroying all of the information gleaned over the many years of the registry's existence.

As with the government's prohibition of government scientists speaking out without Harper's permission, as with the elimination of the mandatory long-form census, and as with the imposition of mandatory minimum jail terms and the building of expensive super-prisons at a time of declining crime, all indicators of a regime drunk on power and intent on absolute control, one can only bear witness to this dark period in Canadian history and hope that the slumber of the electorate ends soon.

Unions and Organizational Decay

As indicated in a post written last Sptember, I wholehearted support unions as the best path of resistance to the depredations inflicted by practitioners of unfettered capitalism. That support, however, doesn't mean that I ignore or accept the malfeasance and lack of true representative democracy frequently found in mature union organizations.

The latest incidence of such malfeasance was recently uncovered by The Star, in yet another example of the fine investigative work the paper does. On January 16, the newspaper reported how John Mandarino, a top Liuna executive, was rehired 13 months after having been terminated for misuse of union funds much to the consternation of many:

In a controversial comeback, trustees rehired John Mandarino last summer as the administrator for the training centre of the continent’s largest construction local, Toronto-based Labourers’ International Union of North America Local 183.

The centre’s board had unanimously dismissed him in June 2010 for breaching contract tendering rules, losing valuable government grants, regularly breaking cheque-signing policy and charging unauthorized personal expenses without proper accounting.

A few days later, The Star revealed that not only had Mandarino regained his former post, but was 'rewarded' with a second post:

The Labourers International Union of North America (LIUNA) appointed John Mandarino as director of its Canadian Tri-Fund after rehiring him to head a major training centre.

Fortunately, this sordid tale has a somewhat happy ending, in that today The Star reports that Manadarino has resigned from one of those positions, that of administrator of the Liuna Local 183 training centre, as a result of Star investigation. No word, however, about his position as director of the Tri-Fund.

While the kinds of incestuous relationships suggested by these developments are relatively common within organizations, rarely do they reek of such egregious wrongdoing and contempt for rank and file union members, who surely deserve better use of their hard-earned dues, and should not have to rely on explosive exposes by crusading journalists.

A Man Is Not A Piece of Fruit

"I put 34 years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance. You can't eat an orange and then throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit" - Willie Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

In the play, Willy Loman lives in a world of illusion, a world in which loyalty and long-term service are rewarded by one's employer. Of course, even when the play was written, that ideal was already on the wane to the point that we are now witness to the return of unfettered capitalism worldwide, where workers are yet just another disposable commodity.

In her column today, Heather Mallick writes about how all of the electronic tools that we so highly prize for both our productivity and our diversion are made in China under conditions that are eerily reminiscent of those that gave the Victorian Era such a bad name.

About Foxconn, the electronic company that makes about one-third of all of the electronic devices we use today, she writes:

Cameras watch the line workers and supervisors throughout non-stop shifts of 12 to 16 hours ... the workers wear uniforms. They are not allowed to speak to each other at work. After a recent string of suicides, Foxconn installed nets on the upper floors and made workers sign documents promising not to kill themselves.

When you work as hard as Foxconn employees do for dimes an hour, the joints in your hand disintegrate ... Workers don’t switch from job to job, as Canadian workplace standards would demand. They make the same motion hundreds of thousands of thousands of times until their hands are used up. “When you start working at 15 or 16, by the time you are 26, 27, your hands are ruined.”

And finally, in a slip that reveals much about how the workers are regarded, the head of Hon Hai (Foxconn) last week said:

“Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide . . . to manage one million animals gives me a headache.”

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, however, words are just as effective.

The Voice of Labour Roars

Although those in the embrace of neo-liberalism would have us believe that unions and worker solidarity are but a quaint historical artifact, the size of yesterday's rally in London, Ontario protesting the predatory practices of Catterpillar Inc. suggests otherwise.

In response to the company's attempt to halve the wages of its workers at Electro-Motive Canada and severely reduce pensions and other benefits,

A crowd of more than 10,000 descended upon this city’s Victoria Park to support local workers who have been locked out of their jobs since the new year. They came from all over, from Timmins, Sudbury, and Pennsylvania in scores of buses. They came to protest corporate greed and Stephen Harper.

Ken Lewenza, president of Canadian Auto Workers, offered a sobering warning to the Harper government, which permitted the sale of the company to U.S.-based Caterpillar, and now seems egregiously unconcerned about the disastrous consequences that decision has wrought:

“If the government doesn’t step in, Canada will become a low-paid workforce .... We need to protect the middle class if we want a more equal society.”

Apparently any concern for the fate of the middle class is trumped by Mr. Harper's ideology, an ideology which seems to believe that unfettered capitalism can do no wrong.

One Step Closer To The Totalitarian State: Chris Hedges On The National Defense Authorization Act

Although I have a somewhat jaundiced view of the intellectual capacity of many Americans, one who I consistently hold in high esteem is Chris Hedges. Please watch the following video in which he offers his objections to Obama's enthusiasm for the National Defense Authorization Act, a law that allows for the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of anyone suspected of terrorism. As has become the pattern for this so-called progressive President, Obama, who initially threatened to veto the bill, in that great spirit of illusory compromise, suddenly found it quite acceptable.






For accompanying text, please click here.

The G20 Beating of Adam Nobody: Toronto Constable Michael Adams and His Thuggish Colleagues

Despite the impotence of the SIU in pursuing criminal charges against the police thugs who beat Adam Nobody during the G20 Summit held in Toronto in June of 2010, The Globe and Mail reports today that upon the recommendation of an arm’s-length watchdog agency, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, five Toronto constables will face disciplinary charges under the Police Services Act for their misconduct.

The Globe reports the following:

The OIPRD report says that constables Adams, Babak Andalib-Goortani, David Donaldson, Geoffrey Fardell and Oliver Simpson committed misconduct when they tackled, punched and kneed Mr. Nobody outside the Ontario legislature.

It also discloses the following:

One of those officers whose name is now made public, Constable Michael Adams, was involved two months before the G20 protests in another controversial incident, the arrest of 18-year-old Junior Manon, who died after a struggle while officers tried to arrest him.

By law, despite his blithe earlier dismissal of Mr. Nobody's allegations, Toronto Police Chief bill Blair is now tasked with appointing someone to preside over the proceedings against the accused.

Because of the obvious conflict of interest, let's hope the Chief is forced to pick someone whose impartiality is above reproach. Somehow I'm not counting on that happening.

UPDATE: Police Union Vows To Block G20 Charges