And Speaking Of Community...

May I recommend an excellent article by Murray Dobbin on how Harper's policies have been attacking our sense of community and the challenges we face in rebuilding it?

What The Extreme Right Doesn't Want Us To Think About

Although it hardly qualifies as a startling or original insight, something occurred to me this morning as I was reading my Sunday Star. Two front page items, one about the bullied bus monitor, Karen Klein, the other about five-year-old Lovely Avelus a Haitian girl rescued from the ruble of the earthquake two years ago, reminded me of a truth that is regarded as inconvenient in some quarters: we are a communal species.

While the hard right tries to get us to think only of ourselves, the better to promote its agenda of selfish isolation and rampant consumerism, the two aforementioned stories strongly help us to realize that when a face is put on human suffering, we respond with the magnanimity of a species that cares about each other.

It is a realization that our current 'government' does not want us to dwell upon as it promotes programs that largely depersonalize and objectify our fellow human beings. And it is always easier to ignore those people if they are not fully human in our minds.

Take, for example, some recent changes, either pending or already enacted:

Bill C-31, championed by Immigration Minister Jason Kennedy and coming into effect June 30, will see massive reductions in health care to refugee claimants.

SUBTEXT: Many of 'those people' are bogus claimants who are just trying to scam the system.

One of the more pernicious elements of Bill C-38, Harper's budget omnibus bill, is the change in Employment Insurance eligibility. This link from Sun News exemplifies why the government feels it can get away with these changes.

SUBTEXT: Jim Flaherty has said there are no bad jobs. Clearly, those who disagree with this program change are layabouts swilling beer and watching tv when they should be out 'pounding the pavement' like hardworking Canadians.

The changes In OAS age eligibility, far enough in the future not to affect anyone over the current age of 54, divides and conquers dissent. A sizable proportion of people will be unaffected, playing to their more selfish sides.

SUBTEXT: The government has repeatedly justified this change by saying that younger people should not be burdened with higher taxation to pay for the benefits of 'those people,' the older demographic.

So, by cultivating a mentality that thinks only in stereotypes, the Harper government is slowly but inexorably trying to convince us to abandon our traditional concern for the collective, one of the foundational values of Canada that makes it different from so many other countries.

Whether or not this agenda succeeds is really up to all of us, isn't it?

The Incomparably Incompetent Peter Kent

I have to start this brief entry by invoking an old cliche: the best defense is a strong offense. That certainly seems to be the strategy 'Environment' Minister Peter Kent is pulling out of his very limited playbook at the UN conference on the environment in Rio as he intones that Canada must stop the spread of “misinformation” on the environment by ecologists with an ideological agenda.

While the world's anger builds at Canada's abdication of its environmental responsibilities as it hastens to deepen even more the profits of resource companies, Kent's message is both predictable and preposterous. Everything is fine, nothing to see here, move along and pay no attention to those domestic ecoterrorists like David Suzuki spreading lies about the good work his government is doing on the environmental file.

Try telling that to the flora and fauna that will be destroyed thanks to the most recent depredations made possible by Bill C-38.

Prepare For The Revolution, A.K.A. Spin, Spin, And More Spin

What is the priority of organizations that are mired in embarrassing public revelations about fraudulent spending of taxpayers' money? The development of a good PR plan.

At least that is what I gleaned from Part Three of The Star's investigation of the Toronto District School Board and its relationship with the Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council run by Jimmy Hazel.

While the story details the cozy relationship that exists between Hazel and the board, including ordering his members to campaign for and donate money to the trustees and the provincial Liberals during elections, (with real consequences for those who refuse,) the most interesting aspect to me is the reaction of both the board and Hazel's organization.

At a private meeting Wednesday of school board trustees, where the Star’s investigation was discussed, [trustee Sheila] Ward told those in attendance that “trustees should be muzzled” until the TDSB has a solid communications plan in place to deal with the Star stories. Note that the response is to deal with the stories, not the problems the stories uncovered.

Not to be outdone, Jimmy Hazel appears to be following the same strategy:

Hazel, who initially unleashed a profanity-filled tirade on a Star reporter, has hired Ross Parry, a former official in the Liberal government. Hazel said Parry is helping him fine-tune his responses to the media. Parry, who was also the TDSB communications chief in the late 1990s, is helping Hazel put “all the information we collected into prose.”

None of this is the least bit surprising to me, given the cynicism I have expressed about organizational behaviour in this blog and my other one many times over the years. What does surprise me, however, is their openness in detailing how they plan to deal with the messenger, not the message.

And the wheel goes round....

The Harper Government: Abuses Of A Nixonian Character

That is the description that Lawrence Martin applies to the Harper government in his latest column for iPolitics as he reflects on the vital and valiant role journalism played in uncovering the Watergate Scandal 40 years ago.

However, while acknowledging some bright spots, Martin laments the unevenness of the contemporary Canadian journalistic landscape in holding the Harper regime to account. Especially interesting is that while lauding some efforts, he withholds any praise from his own employer, The Globe and Mail, which will not come as a surprise to those who see it as little more than an apologist for a Prime Minister drunk on his own power.

As is always the case, this latest piece by Martin is well-worth the read.

The Star Continues Its Investigation

Unless the Toronto District School Board is staffed by a raft of incompetents, it has to have known what is going on.

As I wrote in my blog post yesterday, an investigation by The Toronto Star has revealed theft on a massive scale in the form of grossly inflated charges to the board for even the simplest of routine maintenance tasks by employees under the exclusive contract enjoyed by the Maintenance & Construction Skilled Trades Council headed by Jimmy Hazel.

In Part 2 of that investigation, the newspaper reports a number of interesting aspects to this scandal, the most interesting to me being the reaction of top board officials Director Chris Spence and school superintendents and deputy operations director Penny Mustin, both of whom refused to offer any comment on this massive waste of tax dollars.

The school board is also refusing to release a copy of its internal tracking database that contains details of the annual 1.8 million hours of work the board’s electricians, carpenters, plumbers and other trades claim they perform.

Based upon my 30-year career as a teacher, having been witnesses to much cowardly political behaviour on the part of administrators, my guess is that database will never be made public, the feeble citing of 'privacy concerns' being the likely justification.

My own experience in education taught me that the last thing administrators want to do, afflicted as they are with an unquenchable thirst for advancement, is to rock the boat. It is far easier, (and certainly more politically expedient unless the truth is revealed by a crusading newspaper) to conceal or simply accept things crying out for redress. That way it doesn't get messy, and one's career-path usually continues unimpeded. (Oh, the tales I could tell.)

And so I shall end as I began. The TDSB had to have known what was going on. Wait for the next installment of this sad saga, as those in power all establish their poses of 'plausible deniability.'

I would it were otherwise.

What Is Harper Hiding In The Pacific Trade Deal Negotiations?

Given the Harper government's flagrant contempt for democracy and the Canadian people, I think we should all be worried by the implications in this story and this one regarding ongoing secret Pacific Trade Deal negotiations.