And Now, A Word From PropCan

About two weeks ago, the Toronto Star carried a story about the Harper regime's engagement of the services of a publicity agency called News Canada Ltd.. The organization provides copyright-free material to any media outlets that wish to carry it.

The Harper government pays up to $1.5 million annually for its services, but the real story is that there is nothing in any of the video or text materials that reveal they are sponsored content. It is a propagandist's dream.

The Star reports about one of their videos that casts Health Canada and Aboriginal Affairs in a misleadingly positive light:

An undated video about the Nutrition North program available for use on the News Canada website states as fact that it has increased access to fresh foods in remote areas, leading grocery retailers to pass on the subsidy to consumers by reducing prices

A quick Internet search for any real news story about Nutrition North might turn up results about how the auditor general said the aboriginal affairs department does not actually know whether that is true.

You can access the video by clicking on the link below:

Bringing Nutrition To Canada’s North


This leads me once again to reproduce more fine letters from perspicacious Star readers, who have no trouble seeing through yet another Harper-orchestrated deception:

Re: And now the news – brought to you by the Tories, Dec. 20

The use of News Canada Ltd. by the “Harper Government” to “create and distribute government-approved news items” is compelling evidence that the Conservative Party of Canada is acutely aware that something fundamental is missing from their ability to effectively communicate with Canadians. That something is credibility.

Credibility must be earned and it must be maintained through honesty, integrity, competence, sound judgment, empathy, and fairness. The Conservatives have amply demonstrated that these values are sadly missing from their partisan culture.

Our economy is suffering because of a lack of vision and diversification. Our veterans cannot get the help they so desperately need while budgets are cut and $1.1 billion is returned to government coffers. The gap between rich and poor grows ever wider ever more rapidly. Environmental groups and left-leaning think tanks that question government policies are audited. Northern Aboriginals scavenge in the dump for food while the minister reads her newspaper and refuses to answer questions. The list goes on.

There are two ironies in the credibility crisis the “Harper Government” now faces. The first is that the Conservatives have brought this upon themselves. Years of “truthiness,” cheating, bullying, and hypocrisy have eroded their credibility with Canadians to the point that the Conservatives now believe the only viable way they have to get their messages out is through deceit.

And therein lays the second irony. This attempt to deceive Canadians will only serve to further erode what little remains of the “Harper Government’s” credibility.

Lyle J. Goodin, Bowmanville

Harper has stolen another page from Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels’ book. Harper’s advisers then created an enemies of the PM list as did field marshall Hermann Goering with his blacklist to warn Hitler of his enemies. Meanwhile Canadians receive weekly propaganda leaflets from their Tory MPs across the country telling of their accomplishments.

Bill Tuer, Cobourg

To read the rest of the missives, please click here.

Pope Francis Is On The Right Track, But Not With The Right Wing

You know that when Fox News starts howling, someone is doing something right.

The reactionary network is issuing dire warnings:

Fox News reported on Pope Francis' upcoming action on climate change by promoting climate change denial and suggesting that the pope is aligning with "extremists who favor widespread population control and wealth redistribution."

The segment exposing the Pope's 'dastardly plan'

also featured climate "skeptic" Marc Morano -- who is paid by an industry-funded group to run the climate change-denying website ClimateDepot.com -- to falsely claim that there has been "no global warming" for "almost two decades".

An Inse Suggestion

In my morning post, I reprinted the following letter from The Toronto Star:

With Stephen Harper’s Conservatives intent to push science back to medieval times, it may be time for Canadians to embrace those efforts and get with Harper Times. Issue all conservatives a bell to be worn in public. They have become pariahs of society, like the lepers of old, and should be treated as such.

How a party representing less than 40 per cent of the electorate can be allowed to systematically dismantle our democracy and scientific institutions shows the current first past the post voting system is a relic that has long passed its expiry date.

Tyler Lindsay, Niagara Falls

Inse subsequently sent me the following, which I post with thanks, clearly reflective of the spirit of Tyler Lindsay's missive:

The Fearless Pope Francis

Yesterday, The Mound of Sound had a post on the role that Pope Francis is playing in the climate change debate. Given his growing moral authority and extensive popularity throughout the world, those with vested interests in retaining the status quo that is destroying the earth, and their aiders and abettors, (Stephen Harper et alia), have, I think, much to fear.

Here is a video well-worth watching from Democracy Now! that discusses Pope Francis and the encyclical he is slated to release in March on climate change. It is so refreshing to see a pontiff who is doing what we should all be doing: comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

2015: Day Two

H/t The Toronto Star

Well, it is good to know that Star letter-writers have lost none of their edge over the holiday season. Responding to the paper's recent editorial lacerating the Harper regime's science policy ("Whatever the government’s motives, whatever it understands or does not about how science works, it has over the last eight years devastated Canadian research in a way that will be hard to reverse.") they offered the following:

Re: Canada needs a brighter science policy, Editorial Dec. 28

A lack of national science policy is fallout from the Conservative strategy of pitting one end of the nation against another, favouring pipeline-rich Alberta and shunning Ontario, for example.

There is no mechanism for uniting Canadians against this divisive, undermining approach. Stephen Harper has made clear that those who do not subscribe to his views are on his “enemies” list, and this would include scientists and other intellectuals who would challenge his free market doctrine.

The disrespect Harper has shown scientists, Statistics Canada, and others such as veterans and aboriginal peoples, is a form of contempt all Canadians should note come the next federal election.

Unlike the openness and enthusiasm for science joyfully brought forth to Canadians by Commander Chris Hadfield, Harper has silenced the dialogue about any policies Canadians value as fundamental to our democracy and impeded the future of Canada’s membership in a worldwide community of scientific research.
One has to wonder about his motives. It is time for Canadians to stand up.

Diane Sullivan, Toronto

The Harper government has taken us back several decades in our understanding of our relationship with the natural world, decades we may not be able to recover. Degrading our natural systems — wetlands, lakes, rivers, forests, wildlife, diversity of species and atmosphere — and calling the resultant increase in GDP a benefit to society is counterintuitive.

Instead of reveling in the exploitation of the sources of our water, food, air, flood protection, erosion control, soil fertility, resilience to diseases or invasive species, and protection from climate change, it would be far more productive to develop National Accounts that place a value on the assets of our natural world.

We continue to devalue the natural world of which we are a part and is essential for our existence, at our own peril.

Melanie Milanich, Toronto

With Stephen Harper’s Conservatives intent to push science back to medieval times, it may be time for Canadians to embrace those efforts and get with Harper Times. Issue all conservatives a bell to be worn in public. They have become pariahs of society, like the lepers of old, and should be treated as such.

How a party representing less than 40 per cent of the electorate can be allowed to systematically dismantle our democracy and scientific institutions shows the current first past the post voting system is a relic that has long passed its expiry date.

Tyler Lindsay, Niagara Falls

A New Year's Gift From Inse

On my previous post, Inse left a link for the following. Enjoy!

2015: Less Can Be More

While I am long past the age where personal New Year resolutions are anything other than exercises in futility, I can't help but think that a few well-placed aspirations for both Canada and the world would improve everyone's lives tremendously. Although some of the following may sound a tad sanctimonious, they are bound by a common theme: less can be more.

So, for 2015 and beyond, may we all strive for:

Less consumption of the world's resources, and more respect for the limits of the earth.

Less material pursuits, and more spiritual ones.

Less self-centredness, and more concern for the collective.

Less engagement with our technology, and more engagement with the world.

And finally, most importantly for the well-being of Canada,

Less Stephen Harper and his reactionary, divisive and vote-pandering policies, and more politics based on critical thinking, compassion and real leadership.

I end this brief post with a quote from one of my favourite poems, Tennyson's Ulysses:

Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

May 2015 be a good year for Canada and the world.