A Bit Of Anti-Union Hysteria From John Ivison

It's funny, isn't it, that the Harper regime can use our tax dollars to monitor us, manipulate us, and promulgate all kinds of propaganda, but somehow it's not right, indeed downright unholy, according to the National Post's John Ivison, when unions fight back.

Said journalist suggests Mr. Harper should consider calling an early election, not because of the dirt that will inevitably emerge from the Mike Duffy trial that could hurt the prime minster, but rather to disrupt the massive anti-Conservative advertising blitz planned by Canada’s largest private sector union.

There’s a new breed of highly politicized union in town – and they’re intent on doing to Mr. Harper what they recently did to Tim Hudak in Ontario.

Unifor was created last year from the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions, to lead the fight-back against the Harper government, according to Jerry Dias, the national president.

Apparently, the rout of the Ontario Tories this past June was largely due, not to widespread rejection of their right-wing message, but union power.

In the Senate Thursday, Senator Bob Runciman said unions spent $10-million in the recent Ontario election – all on a campaign to “Stop Hudak.”

Like fifth columnists, in

the Ontario election, the Workers’ Rights Campaign operated more like a shadow political party than a union, with its own war-room, field organizers and campaign strategy.

With that straw man firmly in place, Ivison implies that Canadians are incapable of independent thought and decision-making and will fall under the Svengali-like influence of Dias and his anti-Harper agenda. A veritable tsunami of democratic subversion is heading our way.

The peril has been recognized in federal Tory circles:

Voices inside the Conservative caucus have urged Mr. Harper to call an early election to disrupt Unifor’s pre-writ advertising buys.

Harper is said to be wary of breaking the fixed election date once more, as such a decision would appear opportunistic.

Warns the ever-prescient Ivsion,

But in sticking with that timing, he is gifting his union opponents the chance to influence a federal election in a way we have not seen in a very long time.

May God bless and protect all of us, and keep us safe from the bogeyman.

UPDATED: On Trudeau's Sun 'News' Boycott

When I wrote a brief post the other day on Ezra Levant's disgusting and puerile tirade against the Trudeaus the other day, I had no intention of revisiting the issue, but two columns calling into question the decision by Justin Trudeau to boycott the organization leads me to further comment.

Writing in The Globe, Simon Houpt, while fully agreeing that the attack was just the latest in a series of outrageous nonsense from the mouth of the perpetually angry Levant, says that

when a politician cuts off access to select media, it is an affront to everyone. Sun Media has hundreds of dedicated professionals who work hard every day on behalf of millions of readers (and a few thousand viewers of Sun News). Trudeau’s impetuous move signals a disdain for them all, and carries an implicit warning that he might bar other media outlets who run afoul of him. We already have a Prime Minister obsessed with controlling the message. Trudeau does himself, and all Canadians, a disservice.

The Star's Chantal Hebert, in today's Star, offers similar criticism of the Trudeau decision.

The temptation to shut out all Sun Media journalists in protest over Levant’s grotesque commentary was probably irresistible. From a human standpoint, it is certainly understandable. But it also sets the party on a slippery slope familiar to most veteran parliamentary correspondents.

Liberal insiders who argue that it is too much of a leap to think that an opposition party that shuts out an entire news organization over the comments of one commentator would, once in government, expand its black list based on more political criteria are whistling past a cemetery of good intentions.

She adds,

If there is a debate to be had over the Levant commentary, attributing guilt by employer-association is hardly the way to go.

Questioning whether those who run major news organizations have a social responsibility to ensure that minimal journalistic standards are maintained by their organizations would be a better place to start.

My own response to these objections is quite simple. Sun News, by virtue of its continued employment of Levant, despite the numerous times he has disgraced both himself and his employer, means that the entire organization is complicit in his slanders, his racism, and his absence of balance.

Both Houpt and Hebert's critique of Trudeau's boycott are premised on Sun News being a legitimate news organization. Based on its tolerance and encouragement of people like Levant, it is an assumption with which I suspect many thinking Canadians would profoundly disagree.

UPDATE: The National Post's Jonathan Kay breaks breaks ranks with his fellow scribes and asserts that Trudeau is morally justified in his boycott decision.

Warning! Pay No Attention To This Seditious Suggestion

A CRA Audit-Free Zone


Okay boys and girls. Please resist the impulse to manipulate the Fraser Institute's data. Really, don't do it. I mean it. There will be consequences. ;)

The Big Mac VS The Whopper

Clearly, based upon the shameful falsehoods she uttered at yesterday's U.N. climate summit about Canada being a “global clean energy leader” doing “its part” to cut carbon emissions that warm the earth, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq's preference is clear.

Some Nightmares Are Real

Sleep tight, Prime Minister Harper.

On The Further Debasement Of Parliamentary Debates

In which Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra, a loyal Harper soldier, does his utmost to discourage Canadians from watching the misnamed debates.

Do People Really Watch This Crap?

Five minutes was my limit for this video.

And apparently Justin Trudeau has reached him limit with Sun News. His decision to boycott the network, I'm sure, will send the foaming right wing into a howling frenzy.