A Tireless Voice

A tireless voice for Canada and all of its iconic values, Maude Barlow urges us not to lose heart.

Her reminders of the terrible things the Harper regime has done to undermine civil society through funding cuts and tax audit witch hunts is truly sobering, and we should all be outraged, but her words should also galvanize us to stand up, defend, and fight for everything that makes Canada the unique and enviable country it is.

Otherwise, the barbarians will have won.

Stephen Harper and The Canada Revenue Agency: The Unholy Alliance Continues

I have written many times about the unholy partnership between Stephen Harper and the Canada Revenue Agency that takes the form of an auditing witch hunt of those charities that in any way offer criticism of Dear Leader's policies. The latest news offers further proof that official avowals of impartiality in selecting who will be audited are absolute lies.

The laest story involves the actions of the much-reviled and detested former premier of Ontario, Mike Harris:

A fundraising letter written by Fraser Institute senior fellow and former premier Mike Harris criticizing the Ontario government highlights a double standard in the way the Canada Revenue Agency audits charities, critics charge.

The letter takes swipes at the province for lacking a “credible plan” to balance the provincial budget within two years, and goes on to criticize Ontario’s debt and the province’s unemployment rate.

Especially troubling are the Institute's assertions that it doesn't engage in political activities, and that the Harris letter is not political.

Says its president, Niels Veldhuis:

“It’s written by a long time senior fellow of the Fraser Institute, Mike Harris. All of the data in the letter is based on Fraser Institute research..."

Progressive charities that have fallen victim to CRA audits disagree:

“It’s definitely political,”’ says Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, referring to the Fraser Institute letter.

“The Fraser Institute is clearly doing public policy work in the political sphere,” says Gray, whose environmental group is being audited by the CRA — a probe that began in 2011.

“They (Fraser Institute) should be reporting that (to Canada Revenue) and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be audited based on their compliance with that 10 per cent (political activities rule),” Gray says.

Gray adds that if they’re not being audited, then that raises the question — why not?

Two brief highlights from Harris' letter underscore the political nature of the missive (bolded areas mine):

“Credit rating agencies have further downgraded the province’s credit rating, primarily because it’s very unlikely that this government will reverse course and enact a credible plan to balance the budget within the next two years.’’

“Ontario has experienced reckless overspending by government, ballooning public sector salaries, increased red tape and more union-friendly labour laws.”

Environmental Defence director Gray asks why the Fraser Institute is not being audited. The answer, sadly, is all too obvious for anyone willing to see the pattern, and to understand the deep contempt with which the Harper regime regards anyone with the temerity to challenge its agenda.

The October election cannot come soon enough.

And Speaking of Government Cheerleaders

Yesterday, I wrote about chief Harper sycophant Pierre Poilivre's abuse of the taxpayer through his vanity productions promoting the greatness of Dear Leader under the pretext of disseminating information about government programs. A flurry of criticism of this contemptuous behaviour yielded no signs of contrition from the minister of Democratic Reform.

Second only to Poilievre in obsequiousness is Number Two Harper fan and apologist, Paul Callandra, whose shameful performances both inside and outside of the House of Commons should be required reading and viewing for all voters. Yesterday, with his usual stalwart partisanship, he tried to justify the regular theft of tax dollars for government vanity productions on Power and Politics.

Watch only until your gorge begins to rise:

UPDATED: The Abuse Never Ends

The abuse of the taxpayer by the Harper regime is shameless and relentless. That's the conclusion drawn by The Star's Tim Harper today, and it is abuse that is amply demonstrated in today's Globe.

First to Tim Harper:

The Conservatives have provided a national background Muzak of sloganeering and propaganda that aims to lull Canadians into a false sense that everything will be okay if you just vote for them.

They’re using your money to buy your vote.

The contempt for Canadians is egregious:

... this government has spent $750 million blanketing you in Tory blue.

It has advertised programs before they existed. It has appropriated “Strong. Proud. Free” as an advertising slogan, but its genesis is considered a state secret and cannot be revealed for 20 years because Conservatives have deemed the matter one of cabinet confidence.

It is spending $13.5 million to advertise its budget — not to inform, but to promote.

It uses your money for its own partisan videos, endangering Canadian soldiers in the process of burnishing the Stephen Harper image.

David McGuinty says there are 9,800 Economic Action Plan billboards in this country, costing $29 million.

“At its core, this kind of advertising undermines the rules of fair play in our democratic system,’’ he says.

“Canadians believe the government thinks they’re stupid.’’

How little the Harper regime regards the taxpayer is made even more graphic by a video that government toadie Pierre Poilievre produced at taxpayer expense:

Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre commissioned a team of public servants for overtime work on a Sunday to film him glad-handing constituents in promotion of the Conservative government’s benefits for families.

The ensuing taxpayer-funded video – and other recent ones like it – are prompting concern that the Conservatives have taken a new step in the use of public funds to produce “vanity videos.”

I have to warn you that the following video, made at a children’s clothing consignment event at a local hockey arena in Poilievre's riding, should only be watched by those who are strongly constituted:



And if that's not enough, I offer you a second video, with the same strong viewer advisory:



I can only hope that instead of being impressed by the 'largesse' of the Harper regime, people will far and wide discern its subtext, that we are regarded by our government as suckers easily manipulated by the very propaganda we are footing the bill for.

UPDATE: Not only is this government contemptuous of us, it is truculently unapologetic about its disdain. Click here to see the ugly truth.

A Reconsideration

While I have written about the importance of critical thinking many times on this blog, I have always considered it an ideal, a destination that we should strive for throughout our lives. Never is the journey complete; never are we entirely free from our cultural, political and social contexts and values, all of which act as filters through which we interpret events and ideas. It's all part of being human, and I am acutely aware of the biases through which I see things.

One of my biggest biases, of course, is political in nature. I detest the Harper regime and everything it stands for. That anything good or decent could emerge from such a fundamentally anti-democratic and contemptuous government is a notion difficult for me to entertain. And yet, after watching Rex Murphy's piece on The National last night, I realized that something I had automatically assumed to be prompted by partisan politics may have been something else entirely:


You may have deduced, after watching the clip, that the salient point for me came when he discussed Lisa Raitt's motives in escorting Elizabeth May off the stage. When it was first reported, I automatically, perhaps reflexively, assumed that her intervention was prompted, not for the reasons Murphy attributes, decency and concern for a friend, but rather to spare her boss, Stephen Harper, from any more abuse from Ms May. After watching it, I said to my wife that perhaps Murphy had a valid point (something I am not used to saying about him!), and that perhaps I should reconsider my original cynical conclusion.

In his column today, Rick Salutin seems to come to a similar conclusion:

And now ... for something completely redemptive: that parliamentary correspondents’ dinner, where Green leader Elizabeth May said some things worth saying but in a maudlin, self-pitying way. Then on came Tory cabinet minister Lisa Raitt to lovingly, maternally help her offstage. May wanted one last shot and Raitt unjudgmentally let her take it: “Omar Khadr, you’ve got more class than the entire f------ Tory cabinet.” It was complex. As a cabinet member Raitt shares that lack of class. As a human presence, she was inspirational. Isn’t there some way to bottle what happened between them and turn it into a party and voting option? Well, there should be.

I suppose that when all is said and done, we have to always keep in mind that critical thinking, as stated above, is never a fixed state nor a goal completely achieved, both a humbling and a useful insight for politically engaged people like me.

Breaking News On Omar Khadr

The Harper vendetta against Omar Khadr has suffered another defeat:

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that Omar Khadr, the former teenage al-Qaeda member freed on bail last week in Alberta, should be treated as if he were sentenced as a juvenile. The federal government had argued that he deserved to be treated more severely, as an adult.

The case centres on whether the eight-year war-crimes sentence Khadr was given by a U.S. military commission in 2010 ought to be interpreted as a youth or adult sentence.

Nonetheless, it would be naive indeed to think that the regime will leave him alone to get on with his life, not with an election in the offering.

So little time, so much hatred and division yet to foment.

The High Cost Of Integrity

In this world, remaining faithful to one's principles can be a very difficult proposition. We often hear how important it is to "go along to get along," and while we all make compromises during the daily course of living, sometimes the issues confronting us are too large to ignore, too loud to mute that voice crying from within. But acknowledging that voice can come at a cost.

Dr. John O’Connor appears to be paying the price.

The northern Alberta doctor, the on-call doctor for the residents of Fort Chipewyan, you may recall, has been an outspoken critic of the tarsands, his studies showing rare cancers occurring at extremely high rates for the residents residing downstream of the oilsands, apparently the victims of toxic emissions and effluents from the bitumen extraction taking place in their environs. His warnings have been largely ignored by both the Alberta and the federal governments.

But someone must have been listening.

O'Connor, as reported in The National Observer, has been fired.

After 15 years of committed service, his termination came on May 8 without the slightest warning.

“Please be advised that Nunee Health Board Society no longer requires your professional services to provide any patient consultation or on-call services to the staff at the Fort Chipewyan Health Center.”

And just in case that wasn’t hard-edged enough:

“In addition, you have no authority to speak to or represent the Nunee Health Board Society in any way to any other individual, party or entity (sic)”

While at this time there is no proof that his outspokenness caused his termination, the Observer offers some history that puts his dismissal into a provocative context:

Twelve years ago, he diagnosed an unusual number of cancers of the bile duct in the tiny northern hamlet of Fort Chipewyan, located downstream of the oil sands. The condition is familiar to Dr. O’Connor because his own father died from this same illness in 1993.

He also noted higher-than-average rates of other kinds of diseases, as well as persistent reports from local hunters and fishermen of unpleasant changes in the wildlife in the region – such as dead and disappearing muskrat, and fishes with strange deformities. He wondered if these circumstances had to do with the pollution from the oil sands companies.

In 2006, the CBC reporter contacted O’Connor, who said publicly, for the first time, that he felt there was a looming public health issue in the region.

Dr. John O’Connor's data was challenged by Health Canada and public health officials in Alberta, and he was threatened with loss of his license because he had raised “undue alarm”.

While he was eventually, over several years, cleared of such charges and complaints, it turned him into a tough crusader for what he considers life and death issues.

His dismissal coincides with another curious event:

About three weeks ago, renowned physician Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, who had been spending a week every month in Fort Chipewyan for the last three years, suddenly ended her service, without explaining why to the staff at the nursing station where she worked.

That a respected First Nation physician would suddenly disappear from the community, and then three weeks later Dr. O'Connor would be abruptly terminated raises important questions as to what is going on behind the scenes.

And it would seem that the impact of these losses will reverberate throughout the region he and Tailfeathers served:

John O’Connor has been supplying on-call services, 24/7, for 15 years. He has answered calls while traveling in other countries, from holiday locations, and even from the shower, walking nursing and paramedic staff in Fort Chipewyan through challenging medical emergencies whenever they occurred. On a number of occasions over the years, he offered to reduce his fees if the Nunee Health Board Society was having trouble meeting them. In fact, [he] reduced his invoice for August 2014 to February 2015 by 50 per cent at the request of Caroline Adam, the person who sent him the one-line email [of termination] on May 8.

Virtue, we are told, is its own reward. That may have to be the consolation for O'Connor, but given his capacity to fight the good fight, I very much doubt that the matter will end here.