Canada's Ted Baxter

If you are old enough, you will likely have very fond memories of the Mary Tyler Show, you know, the one set in a TV newsroom staffed with an array of memorable characters. Perhaps most memorable was the station's newsman, Ted Baxter, played by the peerless Ted Knight. His antics, both on the air and off, fueled by a less than ample intellect, ensured continual amusement.



Whenever I see former newsman Peter Kent, I cannot help but think of Ted Baxter. Also of limited intellect and ability, Kent parlayed his genetic shortcomings into a post-news career in politics, where he shone dimly in the Harper government, reaching his nadir as anti-Minister of the Environment, championing as he did the development of Alberta tarsands.

Not content to rest on his 'achievements', Kent has now decided to do his civic duty to the U.S. by alerting them to the compensation awarded to Omar Khadhr via a Wall Street Journal article.

The item began with a description of Khadr killing an American army medic, Christopher Speer, when he was 15 years old and fighting alongside al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

It explained how Khadr won a court fight in Canada, was repatriated there, released on bail and then sued the Canadian government for $20 million.

The Conservative MP criticized the Trudeau government for settling with Khadr, while the victim's family got nothing.

By Monday afternoon the issue was the No. 1 story on the Fox News website.

The Fox News item quotes Kent's op-ed under the headline: "Gitmo Lottery: Canada makes millionaire out of terrorist who killed U.S. soldier."

As reported by The Globe, Kent's mischief had its intended effect:

“This story is repulsive,” said a Fox News host. To which former pizza entrepreneur and presidential candidate Herman Cain replied: “It is a pathetic interpretation of the law. Canada basically rewarded a murderer.”

The good folks at Fox, like the ravenous dogs they are, took Kent's bait, as you will see in the link.


Personally, I don't care what the Americans think of us. What I do care about is that a simpleton like Peter Kent feels compelled to try to fight a divisive issue in the U.S., where opinion and outrage seem to matter far more than the rule of law. In doing so, he is stoking more Canadian outrage, leading more and more people into some very, very dark waters.

The Harper Regime Receives Another Judicial Rebuke

Things continue to go from bad to worse on the judicial front for the Harper regime. Funny how those pesky laws get in the way of government ideology, isn't it?

Omar Khadr should be serving his time in a provincial facility and must be transferred from federal prison, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday.

In a blistering assessment of the Harper cabal's tactics, Dennis Edney, Khadr's longtime lawyer, said that the federal government "chose to misinterpret" the international transfer of offenders law.

"We are pleased to get Omar Khadr out of the hands of the Harper government. This is a long series of judgments against this intractable, hostile government.

"It would rather pander to politics than to apply the rule of law fairly to each and every Canadian citizen," Edney said in a statement.

Harper's Jihad

The closer we come to an election, the more strident and McCarthyesque the Harper regime is becoming over 'radical Islam.' There is, of course, the political opportunism of Bill C-51, a piece of legislation designed not only to keep us in a constant state of suspicion but also to quash dissent against the overlords under whom we currently chafe. But now, new opportunities beckon to remind us that only the vigilance of Dear Leader and his apparatus can keep us safe.

First there is ongoing effort to appeal the bail release of Omar Khadr, about which I posted recently. That effort, partly fought under the pretext that his release would hurt relations with the U.S., has just been debunked, as reported in this morning's Star. And the regime's other claim, that his release could pose a threat to Canadians, is obviously without merit, given Khadr's record as a model prisoner.

Then there was the inexcusable initial refusal to issue a new Canadian passport to Mohamed Fahmy, the Canadian journalist long held in Egypt, a decision that was only recently reversed. His sin seems to be his Muslim roots. Presumably the Harper regime reversed its opposition only because the egregiously unfair nature of their refusal became obvious to far too many voters.

The latest victim of this shameless politicking/witch hunt appears to be Hamilton lawyer Hussein Hamdani, who has been suspended by the regime from his longtime position as a member of the Cross-Cultural Roundtable on National Security. You can access a video report of the story here, but essentially the pretext for his dismissal is information about his activities over 20 years ago while a student, activities that were, in fact, well-known to the Harper regime; in non-election years, the information apparently caused them no concern:

A news report by French-language network TVA of Quebec published Wednesday raised questions about written statements made by Hamdani nearly 20 years ago. The news report also made allegations suggesting Hamdani has been involved in the past with organizations that have provided funding, directly or indirectly, to groups associated with terror.

Jeremy Laurin, press secretary for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said in a statement the allegations against Hamdani are "very concerning."

"While questions surrounding this individual's links to radical ideology have circulated for some time, it was hoped that he could be a positive influence to promote Canadian values in the Muslim community," Laurin stated. "It is now becoming clear this may not have been the case."

As CHCH News reports,

None of the information is new. The government has been aware of the allegations for several years, and has either considered it insignificant, or chosen to allow Hamdani to continue his work on the security committee regardless.

The lawyer in fact had previously won praise for his efforts in combating radicalization. Says Order of Canada member Gary Warner:

“I have known Hussein for many years and have not heard or seen anything in the reports that would justify his exclusion from the national security roundtable. On the contrary I see him as someone who has worked to deflect youth from contagion by extremists.”

Indeed, as recently as this past February, The Globe and Mail highlighted his work:



Hamani is speaking out in his own defense, declaring his patriotism and love for Canada, statements neither he nor any other citizen should have to make. At the end of the raw footage, you will hear the conclusions he draws as to why this is happening, an explanation wholly consistent with the pattern established long ago by this hateful regime:



Nonetheless, extensive damage to his reputation has been done. I guess he is just collateral damage in the relentless, never-ending re-election campaign of a government that cares not a whit for anything other than the preservation of its own power.

Trudeau Town Halls: Baubles Of Distraction, Not Questions Of Substance

Prime-Minister-For-A-Day Kim Campbell is probably best remembered for saying, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues.” She might just as well have been talking about town halls, particularly the kind our Prime Minister is currently in the midst of.

Justin Trudeau's meet-and-greet will undoubtedly constitute a public-relations success. That success, however, will be thanks to two things: Trudeau's ease in front of large crowds, and the profound colloquialism and ignorance of the people attending these sessions. It is the latter I wish to address today.

In theory, town halls, being somewhat unscripted, are an opportunity to put the convener on the hot seat. Unfortunately, the topics thus far brought up have been tritely predictable and easily defused, no doubt because they are exactly what the PMO has prepared Mr. Trudeau for. Consider, for example, what was asked at his Sackville gathering. While the questions may be important to the posers, they lack, shall I say, a certain concern for national and international issues that the government is, in my view, badly fumbling. Here are two examples:

Abdoul Abdi’s sister Fatouma Alyaan asked ‘Why are you deporting my brother?...My question to you is if it was your son, would you do anything to stop this?’

And this one:

Why do we have medical doctors who come here from different countries who are unable to integrate into the system?

To be sure, he was also asked about his visit to the Aga Khan's private island retreat, for which Trudeau has been rebuked by outgoing ethics watchdog Mary Dawson, but again, this was a predictable and easily-handled question for which I am sure the Prime Minster was well-prepared.

The questions at yesterday's session in Hamilton were similarly trite and predicable:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a woman heckling him about Omar Khadr during a town hall in Hamilton that he, too, is angry about the multimillion-dollar settlement the former Guantanamo Bay inmate received from the government.

“The anger that some people feel, and that a lot of people feel about the payment the government made to Omar Khadr is real and quite frankly — this might surprise you — but I share that anger and frustration,” he said.

Score another one for good preparation.

Yet I can't help but wonder how Mr. Trudeau would respond if truly important questions were asked of him. Questions like the following:

Why does your government insist on protecting the rights of multi-nationals to sue our government over legislation that might interfere with their profits?

Known as investor-state dispute settlement, it is a mainstay of NAFTA and eagerly sought for the TPP. So far, Canada has been sued five times under NAFTA provisions for trying to protect the environment.

Another question well-worth posing would pertain to the government's continuing support for the immoral Saudi arms deal, arms that have been shown, in contravention of the deal, to have been used against Saudi citizens.

In July, after The Globe and Mail's reporting of conflict in Awamiyah, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement saying she was "deeply concerned" and announced a probe of the incident.

The Trudeau government has never released the results of this investigation nor has it explained to Canadians what happened.

These are the questions I would ask on this issue:

Why have you refused to release the report, and why is your government now trying to quash the most recent legal challenge to the deal, an attempt that a federal court judge has rejected?

Finally, I would ask about the Trudeau government' attitude toward tax cheats using offshore havens:

A dozen governments around the world say they've recovered a combined $500 million in unpaid taxes so far thanks to the Panama Papers leak of tax-haven financial records in 2016.

But not a penny of that is destined for Canadian government coffers. The Canada Revenue Agency maintains it will be at least another 2½ years before it will have an idea of how much it might recoup.

When other governments are enjoying considerable success in recovering tax money thanks to the Panama and Paradise papers, why is your government and the Canada Revenue Agency so reluctant to aggressively pursue them?

So those are some of the questions that will likely not be asked at the town halls. God forbid that this government should actually have to make an honest accounting of itself to the Canadian people.

Let Him Get On With His Life

Whenever I see Omar Khadr, I never fail to be impressed by his thoughtful reflectiveness. Despite the fact that there is a rabid element in Canada that will never see him as anything more than a terrorist, those with the ability to assess him critically and understand how his rights as a Canadian citizen were grossly violated during his time in Guantanamo will agree that it is time to let him get on with his life.

This CBC interview with Khadr deserves to be widely seen. The first two are clips from Rosemary Barton's interview with him. The third is the full interview. Even if you don't have much time, at least watch one of them:

Canadians Are Outraged

The outrage is once again stoked by Omar Khadr, but, as I wrote the other day, it is Peter Kent's shameful performance that is earning their scorn. These two letter-writers reflect that scorn:

Re: Omar Khadr payout gains traction in U.S. media after Conservative MP’s op-ed, July 17

It seems that Conservatives and their base just don’t want to let this go. And now some of Canada’s politicians are taking to American media outlets to air out their beefs.

It’s bad enough that the Conservatives have made this an issue they are going to ride until the next election. But now, Thornhill MP Peter Kent has decided to go play partisan politics in the right-wing American media. Shameful, shameful, shameful!

I find it incredibly un-Canadian that Conservatives would go anywhere abroad and sell out their own government for the sake of pandering to their hateful, racist base. The right-wing media outlets down there are, of course, going to milk this for U.S. President Donald Trump’s own base. It seems that reporting facts has long been forgotten for the sake of partisan politics.

If Kent wants to continue making this an issue, he has a seat in Parliament where he can do as part of his job. It is disgusting that he chose to put down his own country through the American right-wing media.

Phil Marambio, Oakville

Peter Kent is following in his old boss’s pen prints with his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

How is it he feels entitled as a representative of Canadian citizens to bring back his flawed journalist skills to disagree with the federal government, using an American newspaper?

How is this in the best interests of Canada, with NAFTA negotiations in full gear? Is he using his past journalist code of ethics? Did the good voters of Thornhill implore him to write it? Who paid him?

Mr. Kent is entitled to his opinion on any issue. But he is certainly not thinking about Canada, which pays him his salary.

J.L. Isopp, Nanaimo, B.C.

And speaking of village idiots, one from Alberta, Michelle Rempel, displayed her bona fides the other day on Fox. If you haven't seen the report, here is her stomach-churning Fox News debut:

Omar Khadr's Lawyer: "Mr. Harper Is A Bigot. Mr. Harper Does Not Like Muslims."

Denis Edney's stinging rebuke of Stephen Harper and his regime's contemptuous treatment of Omar Khadr over the years will resonate with all fair-mined Canadians.

Contempt For Law Invites Contempt Of Harper Government

Despite its well-oiled propaganda machine spewing out rhetoric defending its 'law-and-order-agenda', the Harper regime is so awash in its contempt for the actual rule of law and its moral underpinnings as to fill any right-thinking person with nausea.

While countless instances of this contempt abound, probably one of the most egregious is its refusal to repatriate Omar Khadr from Guantanamo, despite a pronouncement by the Supreme Court of Canada on the matter and Harper's promises to the United States to do so.

Putting aside the fact that Khadr was a child soldier at the time of his alleged crime, imbued with extreme views by a fanatical father, justice and our Charter of Rights demand his return to Canada.

That, government hate-mongering notwithstanding, is not a matter of dispute, debate, or public opinion. It is the law. To flout that law is to be a renegade regime unworthy of its citizens' respect or support.

Today's Star has an editorial on this ongoing injustice well-worth reading.

Continuing With A Theme

Well, as a new week dawns I find that I am not quite ready to turn to new topics, as Omar Khadr is still very much in the news. For a good roundup of the implications of his release on bail and his short media scrum, be sure to check out Montreal Simon's post today.

Sunday's news panels also devoted considerable time to Khadr. You may enjoy this video from The Sunday Scrum featuring Rosemary Barton, Glen McGregor and David Gray:



Last evening on The National, the discussion continued with Jonathan Kay, Tasha Kheiriddin and John Moore. Advance the following video to about the 16-minute mark to watch it:

The Sun: Demagoguery, Not Critical Thinking

As a contrast to my earlier post about the Star and critical thinking, take a look at this poll and readers' comments about Omar Khadr from Sun readers.

h/t Norm Spector

"They Didn't Get Back To Me"

For those who follow such things, I think it is well-known that when a Canadian runs into problems while abroad, the statement "Canada is providing consular support" is often a euphemism for "We really aren't doing much of anything."

Problems seem to multiply if one holds dual-citizenship. The case of Mohamed Fahmy, the Egyptian-Canadian journalist imprisoned in Egypt for seven years on bogus charges of terrorism amply attests to this, and reputable news gatherers have openly pondered this issue:

Al Jazeera, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and other media supporters ... question whether Fahmy's dual citizenship is working against him.

"The government's position at this point on this case has been shameful," Tony Burman, a journalism professor and former managing director for Al Jazeera English, said in a news conference Thursday.

"The issue of dual citizenship, the issue of perhaps Al Jazeera, any mention at all in the trumped-up charges by the Egyptian military of the Muslim Brotherhood -- these are all things that... could intimidate and inhibit government officials in this country from moving," he said.

Is it possible that those of foreign, especially Arabic origin, face not only indifference but malice from the Canadian government? There is, of course, the infamous case of Maher Arar who, with Canadian complicity, was sent to Syria to be imprisoned and tortured for non-existent crimes.

The case of Omar Khadr is in a category all of its own, but one that once again demonstrates the selectivity with which the government protects Canadians' rights, as is that of Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik, who was smeared by our government as a terrorist and imprisoned in the Sudan and then abandoned by our government for many years; it is another case that should make all Canadians ashamed.

The most recent case of government indifference/malice, and one that is ongoing, is that of eight-year-old Salma Abuzaiter. It is especially disturbing, in that it deals with threats to the life of a child. Salma and her parents have been Canadian citizens for five years, and this summer the little girl accompanied her father, an emergency room doctor specializing in pediatrics, to Gaza, a chance for the young girl to spend time with her cousins and grandparents. Unfortunately, a few weeks after their arrival the present bloodshed in Gaza began, and now the girl is trapped there.

Salma's mother, Wesam Abuzaiter, has been told by authorities the only way her daughter can leave Gaza is to travel by bus, alone, for five hours, crossing the border into Israel and Jordan. Wesam says that is impossible for such a young child. Instead, she has asked the Canadian government to make arrangements allowing a relative to escort Salma to Egypt where she would board a plane to Canada: “I just asked them to communicate with the Egyptian side and let them know about that not more than that. I didn’t ask for more than that.

The Canadian government's reaction to that request:

"They didn’t get back to me."

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.

My 15 Minutes Of Fame (Or Infamy) Gets An Unexpected Extension

Originally, I had no intention of writing about this story, since it pertains to something I became involved with over a year ago. Some readers may recall that last year, I wrote a letter of complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council about a Superior Court Justice, Toni Skarica, over a t-shirt he was wearing extolling Donald Trump. You can read the background here.

My concern was, and still is, the issue of judicial impartiality. How can a man extolling a demagogue who advocates against the Mexican, the Muslim, the transgendered and the gay be trusted to judge impartially any such individuals who may come before him in court?

In any event, last week a Star reporter called me to discuss the issue. I was surprised, given that the events unfolded over a year ago, but apparently, in response to a request by a lawyer, the Judicial Council only recently published its decision on its website, a decision that saw no sanctions against Skarica, who offered an interesting explanation for his terrible lapse in judgement.

The interview resulted in a story, which unleashed a measure of online fury and vituperation directed against me, some of which involved physical threats, but most of which offered assessments of my character, none of which were flattering.

So why am I writing this post? Primarily to show the rabid and insensate 'free-speech warriors' that their pathetic attempts to bully into silence those who hold views contrary to their own are just that - pathetic. While the issue of online bullying is not something to be dismissed lightly, it is misdirected at people who are mature adults and reasonably sure of themselves. Silence in the face of such attacks is just not in keeping with my nature, and it would send the wrong message to the intolerant that I have been coerced into submission.

This morning, I received an 'endearing' message on Facebook by one Edward Louis Guy Shea who, in response to a Star column link on Omar Khadr that I posted, wrote:

"EH LORNE GO FUCK YOURSELF". Judging by the all-caps, I would hazard a guess that Edward is mightily exercised. Edward then kindly supplied a link to Rebel Media, with which I will end this post, except for this final observation: The rabid-right, either by choice or intellectual incapacity, seem unwilling/unable to grasp the concept of judicial impartiality, as evidenced in the following video:

The Harper Attack On Canadian Values

As I have written elsewhere in this blog, for various reasons I have never believed that democratically elected governments are necessarily a reflection of the values or the will of the electorate. I have also written of my strong belief that governments do, however, have a potentially huge impact on the national ethos. By their policies, rhetoric and treatment of opposing ideas, governments can and I suspect do frequently deform the souls of nations.

The eloquent lead letter in today's print edition of The Star reminds us all of how far Harper Inc. has taken us down a road that darkly deviates from the things that our country has traditionally held dear:

Supposedly, our federal government acts in the best interests of citizens. Ample evidence proves otherwise. On matters of immigration, human rights and justice, they not only break faith, but act with an unbelievable lack of humanity and compassion.

When the Supreme Court decreed that Omar Khadr’s rights had been violated, that young man still agreed to plead guilty and face a longer sentence in order to return to Canada. The United States expected Canada to act immediately; the government has still stalled.

Only after extreme pressure from citizens has the government lived up to its obligation to give shelter to Afghan interpreter Sayed Shah Sharifi, even though his aid to Canadians was verified by the military and foreign correspondents. He has been told that he has a seat reserved on a flight to Canada on July 28. Again, the government moved with extreme reluctance.

In an unbelievably petty and cruel bureaucratic ruling, a Canadian woman who has lived here since the age of 4 and has taught generations of Canadian schoolchildren, is being denied Old Age Security because she could not supply landing papers showing the date that she arrived here from England. What absolute nonsense.

At one time, Canada had visitors from abroad to learn about our increasingly progressive prison system under Commissioner Ole Ingstrup. Sadly, we have regressed and are now considered below UN standards.

When Public Safety Minister Vic Toews passes on to the next world, I fervently pray that he is placed in a “perfectly appropriate” double-bunk situation for a minimum of one year. It will be too late to help current prisoners, but it is a sentence that I feel the minister deserves.

I resent intensely this government that to me represents ever more frequently a betrayal of Canadian values and that persists in diminishing the Canada that I love. When the next election rolls around, my vote will be ABC.

Shirley Bush, Toronto

While You Were Venting

While many Canadians continue to vent their spleen over the compensation awarded to Omar Khadr, something really important is taking place but is being given little media coverage. It is something that, if enacted, may have irreversible consequences.

Justin Trudeau and his sunny band of men and women like to portray themselves as progressives with a deep commitment to the environment. Thanks to the work of leadnow.ca and The Globe and Mail, it is evident that commitment does not extend to protecting our oceans:

The Liberal government is proposing to allow oil and gas exploration in a new marine protected area that it plans to establish where the Gulf of St. Lawrence meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Ottawa released an impact statement Friday on its Laurentian Channel protected area, a 11,619-square-kilometre stretch of ocean in which commercial activity would be limited in order to protect vulnerable marine life. The establishment of the marine protected area (MPA) is part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise to set aside 10 per cent of Canada’s coastal waters by 2020.

But some environmental groups and ocean scientists argue Ottawa is undermining the effort by allowing future oil and gas exploration in the zone. A study in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, released last week, concluded that intense acoustic signals used in oil and gas exploration cause significant damage to zooplankton populations that are critical elements of the marine food chain.

“Protected area should mean exactly that – protected,” Sabine Jessen, oceans director for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said in an interview. “These are the places [where] we’re trying to protect intact ecosystems for the long term. It’s ridiculous to continue to allow oil and gas activity in this area.”

Says David Miller, president of World Wildlife Fund Canada:

“Our view is marine protected areas should not have extractive industries in them, particularly oil and gas because of the ecological impacts,” Mr. Miller said. “If you allow industry in, it’s not really protected; it’s just a line on a map.”

Fortunately, activist group leadnow.ca has set up a page that those who are actually concerned about the environment might want to visit:

The good news is that plan isn’t final and together we can stop it. LeBlanc set up a special email inbox for the public to comment on his plan. He’s barely advertised it because he knows a huge public outcry will force him to backpedal. We’re counting on you to help blow the whistle —and we’ve got a simple tool that lets thousands of us flood the inbox with messages.

Don’t let Minister LeBlanc sell out our oceans to help out his friends in Big Oil. Will you send a message to LeBlanc calling on him to ban oil exploration in the Laurentian Channel MPA ? The inbox closes next week, so we have to act fast.

You can send a prewritten letter to LeBlanc. Click here to go to the relevant page.

LeBlanc's inbox closes next week, so there is no time to lose.

For Your Sunday Reading Pleasure

While progressives in general, and bloggers in particular, are largely aware of the grave threat that the Harper regime poses to traditional democracy, I am always pleased when that message is conveyed to a larger audience, in this case readers of The Star. In the lead letter, Edward Carson of Toronto sounds the alarm:

Re: PM can't escape effects of Senate spending storm, June 6
Re: Harper’s cold shrug, Editorial June 5

A disturbing and unsettling habit of the Harper government is one of allowing a broad range of right-leaning ideological positions to triumph over historical evidence, empirical data and common sense in many of its strategic social, political, and economic plans.

When ideology is made into an operational weapon, or set into a global context, it begins by exploiting the vulnerabilities of those least likely to be able to defend themselves, in addition to overtly attacking those who oppose its doctrines and philosophies.

Throughout its years in power, the Harper government has embraced an ideology dedicated to a gradual, but carefully managed redefinition of Canada’s democratic values and freedoms. Characterized by a resolute, personal control over messaging, coupled with a singular management of policy and operational decisions, Harper’s autocratic style has over time incorporated a range of positions such as: wilful suppression or “re-interpretation” of information; attacks on the media and a devotion to a culture of fear, intimidation and secrecy; repudiation of common ground participation or reasoned compromise with its opponents; and control, misrepresentation, narrowing and elimination of scientific, social and financial researched facts and statistical data through targeted budgetary cutbacks, access limitations, security-inspired censorship and reductions in regulatory oversight.

“Majoritarian democracies,” as recently described by Milton Friedman, are democratically elected ruling parties who “interpret their election as a writ to do whatever they want in office, including ignoring the opposition, trampling privacy rights, choking the news media and otherwise behaving in imperious or corrupt ways, as if democracy is only about the right to vote, not rights in general and especially minority rights.” While referencing far-away politics in places like Egypt and Brazil, Russia and Turkey, that description of democratic rule should nevertheless resonate with many Canadians.

Democracy is at best a temporary gift to those given access to its power. Today, the real accumulating damage to our democracy under the Harper government is that the community of Canada is less and less about a collective “we” and more about a narrowing, ideologically driven realm of limited rights and freedoms, ideas and reforms.

No, we are not yet ruled by the autocratically and often tyrannical “majoritarian” rulers like those found in Egypt and Brazil, Russia and Turkey, but the qualitative differences are closer to those of degree, not of kind. The more we define ourselves through our newly “Harper-managed” democracy, any right we might claim to its moral or ethical high ground is at best a dream we once had, and now must search for once again.

Meanwhile, Keith R. Leckie of Toronto offers this concise assessment of Mr. Harper:

Harper has suggested Omar Khadr is a threat to Canada. Harper has scrapped the Health Accord, ratified FIPA, curtailed civil liberties, audited charities, muzzled scientists, abandoned Kyoto, punished refugees, ordered minimum criminal sentences, ordered super prisons, sold arms to repressive regimes, cancelled census to keep Canadians in the dark, had CRTC slash Canadian content rules, passed Bill C51.

Who is the bigger threat to the Canada we love?

Finally, a young person, A.J. Recana of Whitby, warns us about one of our greatest afflictions, apathy:

Indeed there are diseases in the world that can take away human life in the blink of an eye. But many fail to acknowledge the deadliest disease mankind has ignored: apathy.
We live in a culture where people are more offended by “swear” words than by famine, warfare and environmental destruction. Because of mass corporations and grand media conglomerates, their influence on the human population is substantial.

The saturation of media shapes how humans view the world and comprehend it. Kids today are socialized to be narcissistic when faced with societal, political and environmental issues and therefore have no interest in civic responsibility. Human unity, and the sacredness of the human person have been abolished by exposure to mass media, which has stimulated rates of obesity, depression and anxiety to skyrocket and still grow today.

Imagine if every human being chose one issue he or she cared about the most, and did something about it to eradicate the problem. It is time that we, as young, charismatic generations, turn to political reformation. It is time to take control of our environment, it is time to create our futures, and it is time to wake up.

So Many Possible Labels, None Of Them Positive

There are many labels one could affix to the Conservative Party of Canada: opportunistic, divisive, demagogic, dishonest and principleless are but five that readily come to mind. However, perhaps the most immediately appropriate and withering is hypocritical.

Hypocrisy is to be found in political parties of all stripes, but it appears that the others are mere pretenders to the crown worn by the Conservatives. Cloaking themselves in the self-righteous garment sported by the morally weak, it is surely only the untutored mind that fails to see through their shameful dissembling.

Take, for example, the recent displays of Peter Kent and Michelle Rempel, pretending to channel Canadian outrage over the Khadr settlement as they practised their own political opportunism through American media.

That, according to the Star's Tim Harper, is a damning indictment of their seemingly endless capacity to speak out of both sides of their mouths.

Citing the time that Tom Mulcair went south to express his opposition to the Keystone pipeline, Harper reminds us of the Conservative fury that met his return:

A senior minister of the day, John Baird, accused Mulcair of “trash talking” and “badmouthing” Canada. Another former minister, Joe Oliver, marched to the microphones in the Commons foyer to denounce Mulcair for not leaving politics at the border. He also took to the keyboard for the Globe and Mail to tell the country “a responsible politician would not travel to a foreign capital to score cheap political points.”

You can see where this is going, of course.

Speaking specifically of the quisling-like behaviour of both Rempel and Kent, Harper says,

Both Kent and Rempel have ignored an old, time-honoured dictum which has now been repeatedly discredited — you stash your partisan politics on this side of the border.

For years, Canadian prime ministers did not take partisan shots at opponents back home while travelling abroad because they were representing Canada, not the Liberals or the Conservatives.

Rempel didn’t need to fly to the U.S. to tell Tucker Carlson on Fox that Canadians were outraged. Kent didn’t need to write an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to be, as he said, “honest” with our allies and inform them.

Yes, this is the same Kent who, as Harper’s environment minister, attacked two NDP MPs, Megan Leslie and Claude Gravelle, for speaking about Keystone in Washington — yes, that issue again.

According to Kent, they were taking “the treacherous course of leaving the domestic debate and heading abroad to attack a legitimate Canadian resource which is being responsibly developed and regulated.”

Perhaps the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. They are, after all, only doing what their former leader and master, Stephen Harper, did:

As leader of the Canadian Alliance, he and Stockwell Day took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal in 2003 to assure Americans Jean Chrétien had made a mistake in staying out of George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” invading Iraq, and to tell them Canadians stood with them. (They didn’t.)

When he represented Canada at the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, Harper couldn’t wait until his plane landed in Canada to take a poke at Trudeau over the then squeaky new Liberal leader’s comments about “root causes” of terrorism in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

No one in the press pack asked him about Trudeau’s comments. Harper raised them unsolicited.

Those who follow politics closely are not likely to be surprised by any of this, given that faux outrage and deceit are two of the black arts practised so adeptly by the Conservative Party of Canada. However, even the uninitiated and the cultishly Con Party faithful should at least occasionally put on their underutilized critical-thinking caps to see the massive and shameless manipulation being perpetrated on them.

It beats being mindless mouthpieces for a party that hardly has their best interests at heart.