In the NDP Quest For Votes, Nothing Is Sacred, Not Even The Canada Health Act

I am well past the age where disillusionment comes easily, so it did not really surprise me to read of Peggy Nash's willingness to abandon the principles of the Canada Health Act in her quest for Quebec support.

Just another reason to regard 'political integrity' as a contemporary oxymoron.

What Do Stephen Harper and Rob Ford Have In Common?

Both, it seems, have a constitutional aversion to being honest with the people they purport to represent. Click here for a story on Harper's folly (i.e., the F-35 fairy tale Haper Inc. is fond of spinning to benighted voters) and here for how Toronto Mayor Rob Ford tried to bury the truth about the Sheppard subway line he is so passionate about.

By the way, The Toronto Star has announced that it is raising its subscription rates by an average of seven cents a day for seven-day-a-week delivery. The above stories demonstrate the excellence of its investigative reports and overall journalism that I am happy to pay a little extra for.

Conservatives Insult Canadians' Intelligence Once Again

While the Harper government has repeatedly shown its contempt for facts and statistics as it treads its demagogic path with abandon, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has achieved a new low. In language almost identical to that of George Bush after the terrorist attacks in New York, the Harper minion has told those who fear the erosion of privacy rights through the expansion of online monitoring, ostensibly to catch child pornographers, that they are either with the government, or “with the child pornographers” prowling online.

This shocking affront to logical thinking, known as absolutism, is a tool frequently used by the right-wing to advance causes that can't withstand scrutiny. People may recall the sobriquet that Jack Layton earned (Taliban Jack) for daring to ask questions about Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, or recent rhetoric about those opposing the Gateway Pipeline as 'enemies of the people.'

Once more, these kinds of cowardly tactics amply demonstrate why the Harper government is both unfit and unworthy to govern.

G20 Toronto Police Not Paid for Overtime?

Perhaps next time they will be more selective about the number of law-abiding citizens against whom they wield their batons and arrest.

Department of National Defence Follies: $21 For A Bag Of Concrete Worth $2.67

While the Harper regime tells the rest of us that we must tighten our collective belts, its military arm, the DND, is spending, well, like drunken sailors. May I suggest that a trip to Home Depot might save about $18.50 per bag of concrete?

Why The F-35 Won't Fly

If you are interested in why the F-35 is an exceedingly poor choice for our next generation of fighter planes, read this article, where you will also see the infantile way in which Harper government toady Julian Fantino dismisses reasoned arguments against the purchase.

Conservative Ethos: Caviar for Corporations, Cake For Canadian Masses

Stephen Harper and his wrecking crew continue their agenda of altering the fundamental nature of Canadian society. By engineering an ever-dwindling supply of government revenue through corporate tax cuts that neither attract nor keep jobs in Canada, making huge expenditures on jet fighters we don't need, and building super-prisons during a time of record low crime rates, the neo-liberal cabal seems to think that it will be easy to convince us of the need to make ordinary people pay the price of their folly.

And they are probably right, unless Canadians wake up and begin critically evaluating the nonsense coming out of Ottawa in a steady stream. A good place to start might be the editorial in today's Star that lays bare the ideological underpinnings of the current Conservative assault on Old Age Security, which the Harper regime has deemed to be unaffordable in its present form, despite solid evidence from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page.