Democracy in decline?

As my small cadre of regular readers will know I have been writing about our Canadian democracy for nearly 10 years much of that time spent documenting the Harper Regimes disdain for the democratic process. Although I now have less inclination to write the need to continue to keep those who would subvert said democratic process feet to the fire continues, most recently highlighted by the actions of the Ford Regime here in Ontario. I am not sure that I have the fortitude to extend my commentary to the same extend that I did a few years ago, certainly not to the extent and depth previously made on these pages, I am pleased however to see that a number of other bloggers are taking notice of the decline both here and elsewhere.

This last while I have seen a number of articles which have highlighted the writers concern about the state of democracy across the world some of which I will provide a brief synopsis and a link to here. Keep up the good work guys for I am getting tired of beating my head against that particular wall! Most of the following are linked from recent posts at http://progressivebloggers.ca/?s=democracy

The Disaffected Lib: What Happens When We Take Democracy for Granted?

Canadians take our democracy for granted. Most rarely think of it at all........

Excited Delirium: To Fix Transit, We Must Fix Democracy First

What is the root cause of transit issues in North America?

Babel-on-the-Bay: Defectors define democracy.

One of the critical strengths of our Canadian democracy is that we elect people in each electoral district to represent us in parliament........

The Disaffected Lib: There’s More Than Liberal Democracy in Peril from Right-Wing Populism. They’re Also Out to Derail Action on Climate Change.

Paul Krugman had it right when he denounced climate change denialists as “depraved.” And the depraved, also known as right-wing populists, will be out in force.........

Politics and its Discontents: Democracy’s Fragility

To be sure, the elevation of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario to government redounds to everyone’s shame. Led by a buffoonish thug, Doug Ford........,

Babel-on-the-Bay: Restoring democracy in Toronto.

If you are not being sued by the Ford government in Ontario, you might already be suing it or hoping to sue..........

And here are a few further random posts on the subject.......

http://theconversation.com/australians-trust-in-politicians-and-democracy-hits-an-all-time-low-new-research-108161

We continue to find compelling evidence of an increasing trust divide between government and citizens. This is reflected in the decline of democratic satisfaction and receding trust in politicians.......

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/mbyp74/republicans-have-decided-democracy-is-not-good-for-them

From Michigan to North Carolina, GOP legislators are proving they care more about clinging to power than the will of the voters.......

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/21/british-democracy-voting-establishment-power-manipulation

One hundred years on from efforts to make British democracy somewhat fairer, the government likes to claim it cares about equality – but it has its sights on making it more difficult for people to cast their ballots.

http://www.democraticaudit.com/2018/11/15/the-uks-democracy-is-in-danger-of-backsliding-but-current-policy-proposals-are-not-the-right-fix/

The UK’s democracy is in danger of backsliding – but current policy proposals are not the right fix..........

https://democracyunderfire.blogspot.com/2010/11/defending-democracy.html

How can our system of law enforcement (or government) survive, as other than an arm of a dictatorship, if there are no repercussions for those responsible for upholding the rules.......

https://democracyunderfire.blogspot.com/2012/11/democracy-charter-and-ontario-teachers.html

Here in Ontario there is currently a 'dispute' between the teachers and the government as to what the teachers unions want and what the taxpayers can afford,....... (how little thing have changed in 6 years!)

At least we are still able to talk about it, in some parts of the world the very mention of such things could be considered blasphemous!

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Democracy Under Ford?

This blog was started back in 2009 to highlight what I and my then blogging partner viewed as the declining respect for democracy by the then recently elected federal leader , one Stephen Harper. I now find myself appalled to see a similar mind set being displayed by the freshly elected Ontario leader Doug Ford who less than a month into his mandate is arbitrarily and with little or no consultation shutting down many long standing programs.

Whilst the specific programs and initiatives being discontinued are in my view more in need of a tweak or two than elimination it is the manner in which such changes are being announced or made that bothers me more. I doubt very much that the dozens of 'new' MPPs are even up to speed yet and I suspect that even those who are members of the Con inner circle have not been 'consulted' on any of the sudden and fundamental changes being almost daily announced by Ford. The announcement regarding the composition of Toronto council just as the election nomination process closed being one such example.

The Ontario legislature is somewhat different from the federal one which is where my focus was for nearly 10 years, it having no secondary chamber of checks and balances and with a majority government in power effectively has no limits upon legislation it can pass. Even it would seem being able to dictate to municipalities the composition of their councils without further debate, at least in the case of Toronto who discontinued their association with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario some years ago.

Even those smaller municipalities who are members of the AMO could in theory be dictated to by the province (i.e. Ford) in that they only have a Memorandum Of Understanding with the province who can override their wishes any time they wish (as happened during 'amalgamation). The AMO should be 'consulted' but has no recourse in law.....

“The objective of consultation with AMO is to receive input on proposals and to identify impacts that would arise from a proposed statutory or regulatory change and its implementation.

In the spirit of fairness, openness and good faith, any proposed change in legislation or regulations that, in Ontario’s opinion, will have a significant financial impact on the current municipal budget year or on the current municipal budget planning cycle will be accompanied by prior consultation.

….....Failure of the parties to comply with this Memorandum does not affect the validity of any action taken by the parties or give rise to any rights or remedies by the parties.

In short it seems that a majority Ontario government can dictate to any and all municipalities the structure and composition of their councils should they be so inclined. Under the current 'leader' and his minions that thought is very scary given his recent announcements and promised actions.

Less you think that such thoughts are alarmists you may wish to review a few of the actions of the Harper government before they really got rolling with their undemocratic agenda by viewing our early posts in the lists to the right.

 

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Mixed Scientific Message's

After nearly a decade our federal scientists are now free to speak about their research and findings to the public without censure.
Scientists working for the Canadian government have successfully negotiated a clause in their new contract that guarantees their right to speak to the public and the media about science and their research, without needing approval from their managers.
“Employees shall have the right to express themselves on science and their research, while respecting the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector … without being designated as an official media spokesperson,” the new clause states. The ethics code says that while federal employees may talk about their own work, they should not publicly criticize government policy.

Thats the good news but is the government listening? The approval of the pipeline and LNG projects out west has some questioning the 'science' provided by the companies involved and the lack of 'independent' data considered.

Proposed for the Flora Bank estuary, a unique eelgrass bed that provides resting grounds for hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon from the Skeena watershed, the LNG terminal’s proposed site clashed hard with biologists and members of the conservation community who say, when it comes to salmon, a worse location simply couldn’t have been selected.
The federal environmental assessment of the LNG terminal — which concluded destroyed salmon habitat could simply be rebuilt elsewhere — was so fraught with problems members of the scientific community penned an open letter to Trudeau and his cabinet, pleading with them to reject the project’s review.
In that letter, scientists detailed a fundamentally flawed assessment process in which peer-reviewed science was ignored, basic principles of scientific investigation were violated and research paid for by the project’s proponent, Malaysian-owned Petronas, was given primacy.
The federal government ignored those pleas from the scientific community and on a September evening environment and climate minister Catherine McKenna announced the project’s approval.
“This project was subject to a rigorous environmental assessment and today’s announcement reflects this commitment,” she said.
Hearing those words, many scientists in B.C. were simply perplexed.

Meanwhile south of the border in a move that should seem strangely familiar to our Canadian scientists environmental scientists are scrambling to save years of carefully collected data to independent private servers fir fear of a Trump purge of facts (and possibly scientists) he does not like.


The Washington Post reports that

Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.

And
The Department of Energy said Tuesday it will reject the request by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to name staffers who worked on climate change programs.
Energy spokesman Eben Burnhan-Snyder said the agency received “significant feedback” from workers regarding a questionnaire from the transition team that leaked last week.
“Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled,” Snyder said.

Somehow I doubt that their letter to Trump will have much impact upon him and his team of right wing ideologues

More than 2,300 scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners, have issued an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump and the 115th Congress, urging them to “adhere to high standards of scientific integrity and independence in responding to current and emerging public health and environmental health threats.”
The letter underscores the extent to which many scientists, who have worked with the Obama administration to address climate change, pandemics and other major policy issues, are worried about whether Trump and his deputies will slash science funding and overhaul the way several federal agencies operate.

Is anyone listening must be the question the scientific community must ask themselves daily.

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Fair Elections Act Updated

This week the Liberals introduced a bill to reverse many of the more egregious changes brought in with the Conservative “fair” elections act, the summary of this legislation says......
This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to
(a) remove limitations on public education and information activities conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer;
(b) establish a Register of Future Electors in which Canadian citizens 14 to 17 years of age may consent to be included;
(c) authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information about permanent residents and foreign nationals for the purpose of updating the Register of Electors;
(d) remove the prohibition on the Chief Electoral Officer authorizing the notice of confirmation of registration (commonly known as a “voter information card”) as identification;
(e) replace, in the context of voter identification, the option of attestation for residence with an option of vouching for identity and residence;
(f) remove two limitations on voting by non-resident electors: the requirement that they have been residing outside Canada for less than five consecutive years, and the requirement that they intend to return to Canada to resume residence in the future; and
(g) relocate the Commissioner of Canada Elections to within the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, and provide that the Commissioner is to be appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, after consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions, for a non-renewable term of 10 years.


In addition, the enactment contains transitional provisions and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=8626914


All in all a positive move that removes some of the voter suppression tactics introduced by the Harper Regime in their “fair” elections act, there should be little objection to this bill but it will be interesting to see how the 'old school' conservative MPs react to it! I will say that whilst I do agree with a citizen being a citizen for life no matter where he or she lives. I do have a few reservations about clause (f).
if a citizen has left Canada and not returned in 5 years and says he or she has no intention of returning then I find it difficult to say that they should be able to influence to future of those that actually live here. I am still a British citizen (AND a Canadian one) after some 45 years in Canada, should I then be able to vote in the Brexit debacle or for a representative for British Parliament.....I dont think so.
The pre-registration of younger voters is a big step forward and the reinstatement of Elections Canada’s mandate to educate and encourage voters is so obviously right that no further comment should be required. The updating of the voters list (and hopefully the resources to do so) is long overdue, an inordinately large portion of the problems at the polls was the discrepancy between the voter list and the reality on the ground, particularly in rural ridings where addressing norms are often far different from urban norms (which the database appears to be set up to accommodate).


These small but important changes will no doubt get totally lost in the discussions that are about to explode about the Electoral Reform Committees report about to be released and which I fear will simply create further division particularly with the call for a referendum which it is rumoured to contain in order to achieve some kind of consensus with the conservative contingent on the committee.


Its going to be interesting to see where this all goes and is, I suspect, a no win situation for the Liberals, but never forget that had they not come to power there would be no debate and we would be heading in the other direction, as it would seem are our neighbours to the south.

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A Political Party Sans Politics

A guest post by Pamela Mac Neil
Conservatives are looking for a new leader and in doing that, the conservatives may have to make an important decision. Harper and his CONs have, particularly in the last 4 yrs governed for only for 1/3rd of Canadians. They've governed only for their base. Much of the policies created by Harper not only appeased his base, but also satisfied his neoliberal agenda. Harpers continued exclusion of the Canadian majority throughout the last 4 yrs, was because he knew Canadians would not agree with his neoliberal/fascist/evangelical policies. Every avenue, to hide what he was doing from the Canadian public, that Harper could take, he took. From omnibus bills, to signing trade deals and announcing policy changes outside the country, to just plain doing things in secrecy. This exclusion of the Canadian public even carried over to the election by instituting an invitation only attendance at Harpers campaign stops. What is truly amazing is that the MSM has never exposed that Harper was governing only for his base and how he was doing that. So what will the new leader do? Will he/she focus primarily on their base, or will they include the rest of Canada in their future plans? Will they reach out to all Canadians? The MSM and people within the conservative party are talking about what has to be changed. Many are saying it's the tone that has to change. That's like saying that a rabid dogs problem is not that he has rabies, but that he barks to loud. Harper after being PM is staying on as an MP. Anyone think that he is doing this because he cares about the people in his riding? Harper wants to be able to influence who the new leader will be, the more malleable the better. He thinks if the conservatives get to govern again, the chosen leader will continue on with his neoliberal agenda. It is important to understand though that Harper and many people in the conservative party are living in their own self made bubble. While they were in power, they remained in that self made bubble, that is how they governed and that is why, essentially, they lost the election. Living in a bubble does not stop them from making plans for the future. They know they need the people outside of their bubble, but they have to figure out the best way to communicate with them without offending their base.

Whoever the new leader is, I think he/she will continue with the same strategy of pandering to the conservative base, because, apart from wanting to give this base a political platform, their base are also the ones with the money . If they wanted to change from having a conservative base to having an actual Conservative Political Party they would have to allow in red and progressive tories. They would have to stop being primarily a right wing, christian fundamentalist party. This is who they are. They are not really a political party. They are a group of people who have no political philosophy, but are connected together by a shared belief in christian fundamentalism and neoliberalism. Low taxes, austerity, small government and being born again does not a political party make.We must never forget that this group of people, call them what you want, a cabal, a cult, a sect, were our government for 9 years and we must never forget that the man at the helm of that government, Harper, wanted to make Canada into a fascist police state, then feed us to the Global Neoliberal Sharks. It will be a long time before the christian fundamentalist, neoliberal conservatives, if ever, get back into power. In the meantime they will find a new leader and will continue to operate in their self made bubble, becoming over time, a mere appendage of the Canadian political landscape. And Harper? He will become the forgotten man of Canadian politics.

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Last Chance .........

Tomorrow will be the last chance to have your say as to who you want to represent you in parliament and, although we currently vote for individuals, this election has been all about which party is best positioned to replace the Harper Regime, With a minority government very much a probability we can only hope that whichever party get the most seats will work with ALL MPs to undo some of the antidemocratic practices that the Conservative have made common practice, and that opposition MPs from other partys put aside partisan games to ensure that this happens. That the remaining conservatives in both the House and the Senate will mostly be obstructionists in this regard is a given so its even more important that the remaining MPs work together for the good of Canada.


Even this faint hope will disappear if Harper get back in, and if the Libs and the NDP are to be believed will result in a 'hung parliament' that does NOT have the confidence of the majority and given Harpers past performance would result in a 'constitutional crisis'!
So if you have not voted already, which almost 4 million citizens have done, then please ensure that you do get out and vote and please vote for change......
And do not forger that the millions being spend on those almost continuous adverts, telling us that if you vote for anyone but Harper yes men the world will end, will be reimbursed at around 60% from the taxpayers pocket, the upper limit of which has basically doubled due to the long election and Con legislation! So much for lower taxes eh.
If you are reading this you have no doubt already decided that Harper and his 'election team' are a bunch of lieing, scheming, anti democratic, would be dictators with no morals and who will do and say ANYTHING to retain power, so I am preaching to the converted but I will leave you with these thoughts from Kibycairo who sums up my thoughts with remarkable accuracy.....


“Some on the left might argue that the Liberal Party is just a 'kinder gentler' group that is going to screw the weak and the vulnerable. And there is a sense in which that is true. But here's the thing - when you eliminate the rule of law (as Harper is doing), when you eliminate the ability for people to protect themselves against the arbitrary power of government (as Harper is doing), when you make the House of Commons entirely unaccountable (as Harper has done), when you gut Elections Canada and make Election Fraud de facto legal (which Harper is doing), when you destroy the freedom of information system (as Harper has done), when muzzle scientists and eliminate fact-based policy efforts, when you do all these things then it really doesn't matter what you believe because you really can't change anything. And this is the trap that Harper represents..............


The Liberals may not become the progressive government many of us were hoping for, but HarperCons are a threat to the very system itself, to a system in which we can meaningfully fight for justice and equality. Harper represents a dark, American-like (Pottersville) sort of future where the justice system is a pawn of the government, where the police and the Army are an extension of a political party, where racism is institutionalized, where guns are everywhere, where the Charter of Rights is distant memory, and eduction and healthcare is reserved for the rich. Justin Trudeau may not be a progressive wonder-boy, but I will take a man and a party that represents the possibility of change than one who represents a dark, goose-stepping future any day of the week.
Amen to that!




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Say it with Song

After six and a half years of writing about our failing democracy under the Harper Regime there is little more that I can say that I have not already said at some point. So many Progressive Bloggers have joined the battle in recent years (and a few notable writers proceeded my efforts) that, with just a week to go before the future of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy is decided, no one who is active on line can profess ignorance as to the danger of reelecting Harper. Before we start view the first minute or so of this clip from Globals 'The West Block' wherein Tom Clark explains why Harper did not appear on the show and how he attempted to control the message.
http://globalnews.ca/video/2270583/unpacking-the-politics-3


Now here for a change are a few opinions from some other folks, both musical and not..... (sorry no imbedded content, just follow the links!)


First up, Marg Delahunty aka Mary Walsh
http://richardhughes.ca/marg-delahunty-adores-stephen-harper/


Global's Dr. Samir Gupta tells us why health care should be a major focus when determining your vote in this federal election.
http://globalnews.ca/video/2264961/why-health-care-should-be-top-priority-on-voting-day


Blue Rodeo tells us that Harper is 'Stealin’ All My Dreams,'
https://youtu.be/y3C1SWVquXA


Danny Williams of all people says that we just cant trust Harper...
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/danny-williams-voters-can-t-trust-harper-on-tpp-1.2598136


A band with the curious name of Enid Penis sings...
“Stevie Harper’s on a mission to kill, Kill democracy on Parliament Hill'
https://youtu.be/TFY2a0Y4I2A


In an interview Rick Mercer tells it like it is, as always...
https://youtu.be/Y457DhdDNv0
Then there is this weeks 'rant'....
https://youtu.be/U3mb6KdV90Y


Canadian bands Hey Rosetta! and Yukon Blonde teamed up to sing about the “Land You Love.”
https://youtu.be/ZnU8V7gsjok


This quote from an open letter signed by 587 Canadian academics highlights the efforts of the Harper Regime to create special rules for those who he deems unfit to be Canadian. Beware it could be you!
“By conjuring up a phantom menace to the country and implying that some immigrants and religious minorities are enemies, the Conservatives hope to pit Canadians against one another. Like many sophisticated forms of vicious propaganda, the invocation of barbarism is meant to create fear and anxiety rather than to identify a real problem.
We enjoy the rule of law in Canada and it requires the equal application of the law. Those who break the law should be treated within a common system of criminal justice.”


And finally this band clearly makes our wishes known and says “Vote that Fucker Out!'
https://youtu.be/Brs6Xr9yzOY


A tip of the hat to the Ottawa Citizen and various Progressive Bloggers for drawing my attention to these Videos.


I will leave you with this assessment from former Conservative caucus member Brent Rathgeber :-
“Junior staffers concocting schemes, micromanaging legislators, providing bogus stories covered by flimsy talking points, and all with a haphazard respect for truth, are all indicative of a Prime Minister’s Office run with a malfunctioning moral compass,”




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Do Not Be Muzzled.

Do not be muzzled Oct 19th, get out and have your say on who you wish to represent you in parliament, bearing in mind that many of the promises are just that and may either be a long time coming or reduced or eliminated once in power. Particularly should the winning party get a majority!


I believe that the best indication of future behaviour is past behaviour hence my listing of the Conservatives attacks upon our democracy over the past 10 years. Another indication is more subtle and that is how open and accountable (remember that phrase) those vieing for power have been. In that regard here are a few recent indications of how the Conservatives deal with requests for information fundamental to our evaluating their performance.


The Canadian Press filed the access to information request (regarding the Duffy affair) to the Privy Council Office (PCO), the secretariat of the federal cabinet, which is headed by Harper, in August, 2013. But the PCO withheld almost all of the records requested.
“The PCO identified 28 pages of responsive records, but withheld 27 of those pages, releasing just two emails in which its staff discussed similar access-to-information requests,” The Canadian Press reported Tuesday (September 15, 2015) . “PCO claimed every single word on every single one of those 27 pages might jeopardize solicitor-client privilege, or reveal personal information, or third-party information, or details on secret deliberations.”
The Canadian Press lodged a complaint with the information commissioner’s office. The Commissioner investigated and concluded that the PCO was unjustified in withholding the records. The Commissioner recommended that Harper fully comply with The Canadian Press‘ request and the PCO, “on behalf of the Prime Minister, declined to implement the recommendation.”


A potentially explosive parliamentary investigation into the Harper government's so-called "muzzling" of government scientists shows no signs of being released before the federal election on Oct.19, despite Canada's Information Commissioner digging into it for more than two and a half years.
“Voters need to know what the result of that investigation has been,” said law professor Calvin Sandborn, with the University of Victoria's Environmental Law Centre. “I think the public needs to know the extent of the muzzling… Our submission is that it runs very deep in government."
In February 2013, the university law group, together with Democracy Watch, filed a formal complaint to Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, alleging federally employed scientists, with expertise from fisheries to fracking, are under a gag order from sharing their taxpayer-paid expertise and scientific findings with the press or public. Two months later, in April 2013, Legault agreed to investigate the Harper government information restrictions as possible violations of Access to Information laws. She pledged to look into complaints at seven different government insitutions:
National Observer has been writing the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada for months, asking: 'Will this report come out before the election? Why has it taken more than two and a half years? Is the office understaffed? Is the report itself being muzzled by the Conservative government?'



And then there is our recent hero, Harperman’s composer, Tony Turner, was told to stay at home from his job at Environment Canada in July after his employers told him they were investigating whether he had breached the public service’s code of ethics. Now, in his first interview since he was sidelined by Environment Canada eight weeks ago, Turner has said he will end his seclusion and take his protest song on the campaign trail ahead of the country’s general election on 19 October.


Turner officially quit his job on Thursday evening, after his employers said the song breached protocol calling on public servants to remain impartial. Turner and his union vigorously dispute the finding. The songwriting public servant had been scheduled to retire in November.


Can we believe anything that those who would hide, suppress information in this way, say? Can we trust, and vote for, those who attempt to intimidate citizens who criticize their actions past and present? I think not!


Finally we have the much touted TPP 'agreement which we are told is 'good for Canada' but whose detailed script we will not see till after the election.....
“Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promised long-term funding to help the auto industry adjust to the newly-signed Pacific Rim trade deal and said automakers would have been worse off if Canada had not signed the 12-nation pact. ......... If re-elected, the Conservatives would provide $1 billion over 10 years beginning in 2018, when a current Automotive Innovation Fund expires, to help the auto industry deal with the reduction of protective tariffs under the TPP.”



If its such a good deal how is it that Harper has promised millions to help the auto industry and dairy farmers deal with the fall out from it, before the ink on it is barely dry never mind available for public scrutiny .... and how many other areas of our economy will need “helping”, what other things that effect our sovereignty have been agreed to?


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Special Forces for National 'Emergency’s'

Call me paranoid, perhaps I have been following Harpers attacks upon our democracy too long, but I fail to understand why we need to expand our 'Special Forces' (at an annual cost of $50 million) “to respond to varied, and sometimes multiple, national and international emergencies." We do have almost 2000 of these specially trained combat solders on our payroll already and we hardly need special military training to respond to 'national emergency’s' like floods, forest fires, or ice storms, not that our federal government has been quick to offer that kind of help in the past. Are our police and emergency services so underfunded that we need 'special forces' deployed within our borders/


Conservative candidate Jason Kenney says a re-elected Conservative government will expand the ranks of Canada's special forces by 35 per cent over the next seven years.
"A re-elected Conservative government will provide the Canadian Armed Forces with an expanded Special Forces capability “


Should the Conservatives get reelected or be in a minority position and ignore a vote of non confidence perhaps they will need a fast reaction force to subdue the thousands of citizens that will object to living in a police state.


The Canadian Armed Forces Special Operations Command (CANSOFCOM) is currently composed of five main units made up of just over 1,900 personnel. The government is looking to add some 665 members by 2022.
The plan would cost about $75 million over the next four years. The Conservatives would commit $10 million in 2016-17, increasing to $30 million in 2019-20. When the expansion is complete, it would cost the government about $50 million per year to maintain.


Naturaly the Minister continues to insist that we are under imminent danger of attack by those 'terrorists' who are flooding across our borders past our secure border agents with those dreaded refugee immigrants!


"Expansion of the Special Forces units will ensure that our Armed Forces are prepared to respond to the terror threat posed by groups such as the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)," Kenney said.
.....and help us keep those home built democratic zealots in line.......


Bottom line I can think of MANY better uses for 50 million a year, even within military budgets! But Harper seems determined to make war not peace with his aggressive stance on almost anything and with the current state of our military equipment perhaps he sees the best use of our military to enforce his domestic policies because he sure is not doing much to enhance our reputation overseas. An internal Foreign Affairs briefing document stamped "Secret" warns that "despite Canada's reputation as an active player on the world stage, by many measures, its relative influence has declined or is under threat." -


A venerable collection of Canada’s foreign affairs community released a series of scathing essays slamming the government’s disengagement from the ‘community of nations.’  The essays, published Sept 2014 by the World Federalist movement, a non-profit research organization that studies and advocates for global governance reforms and democratization.  The University of Ottawa’s John Trent, who edited the project, says that the Harper government’s foreign policy positions have been starkly different than any other government in Canadian history.


While Canada once contributed as many as 3,000 military personnel to peacekeeping, it currently provides only 34 – not enough to fill a school bus. While the United Nations currently (July 2014) deploys an all-time high of over 80,000 military personnel in the field, Canada has kept its numbers at historical lows since 2006.

Walter Dorn from the Canadian Military College

The reality is that the present government openly and with forethought doesn’t want to engage with the UN in any meaningful way. In fact, it’s not particularly interested in any kind of multilateral, collaborative, ‘internationalist’ engagement.

Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy

But then $50 million is a paltry amount compared with what he wants to spend on those useless and untested F35s.........

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Ottawa’s war on data

Macleans recently published an article outlining the failure of the Harper regime to not only collect information on the true state of Canada's citys, towns and villages and economy but failure to KEEP historical data. Whilst touting better access to information by digatalizing information and 'centralizing' and combining various websites the precise opposite has been happening. Much historical information both in print and online has been destroyed in the name of 'efficiency' and 'cost savings' to the point where authors of scientific, social and financial papers cannot even access their own work let alone find new data to counter or confirm assertions by the various political spinmasters.

The article is a long one and clearly lays out how vulnerable we and our democracy are to to such historical revisionism and information suppression and I will not attempt to summarize it here but simply publish a few 'teasers from the piece and urge you to go read it all.



The Census
According to Sask Trends Monitor, the high non-response rate in the province resulted in “no socioeconomic statistics about the populations in about one-half of Saskatchewan communities.” Nationally, we’re missing similar data on 20 per cent of StatsCan’s 4,556 “census subdivisions,” making a fifth of Canada’s recognized communities statistical dead zones.

Lost Data
Physicist Raymond Hoff, who published more than 50 reports on air pollution in transport and toxic chemicals in the Great Lakes—including pioneering work on acid rain—at Environment Canada between 1975 and 1999, doesn’t seem to exist, either. “Nothing comes up when I type my name into the search engine on [Environment Canada’s] website,” says Hoff, now a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland. Also gone are internal reports on the oil sands experiments of the 1970s. “That research was paid for by the taxpayer. Now, the people who need to protect Canada’s environment can’t get access.”

Destroyed Data
Protecting Canadians’ access to data is why Sam-Chin Li, a government information librarian at the University of Toronto, worked late into the night with colleagues in February 2013, frantically trying to archive the federal Aboriginal Canada portal before it disappeared on Feb. 12. The decision to kill the site, which had thousands of links to resources for Aboriginal people, had been announced quietly weeks before; the librarians had only days to train with web-harvesting software.

That Centralized website
The need for such efforts (to privately save data) has taken on new urgency since 2014, says Li, when some 1,500 websites were centralized into one, with more than 60 per cent of content shed. Now that reporting has switched from print to digital only, government information can be altered or deleted without notice, she says.


Accountability & decision making
Isla Jordan and Ulla de Stricker describe a country “without access to large parts of its institutional memory, and leaders without access to the information needed for strategic decision-making.” Toni Samek, a professor at the school of library and information studies at the University of Alberta, puts it more succinctly. Canada is facing a “national amnesia,” she says, a condition that will block its ability to keep government accountable, remember its past and plan its future.


Garbage in, garbage out
” Voluntary surveys also create biased data, says Sheikh: Response rates from the very rich, the very poor, rural areas, immigrants and Aboriginal communities tend to be far lower—so these groups are not well-represented. “People who do not respond well to a voluntary survey are the very people social policy tries to help,” he says. “So if you were to base policy on data received, you’d say, ‘Gee, we don’t have a poverty problem in this country.’ ”

Financial comparisons lost
Gordon expresses alarm that 20 years of data history between 1960 and 1980 vanished in 2012 due to changes in the way national accounts, GDP and other data were compiled: “It’s now impossible to have a clear picture of the Canadian economy since the Second World War,”

Operating in the dark
Government, too, is operating in the dark, as evidenced last year when StatsCan was unable to provide auditor general Michael Ferguson with job data during the contentious debate over proposed reforms of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The Department of Finance was relying on data from the online classified service Kijiji to back its position.
As a result, economic decision-making is compromised, as a July ScotiaBank report points out. It claimed it would be “ill-advised” for the Bank of Canada to make rate-cut decisions based on StatsCan data, because it’s “stale”:

LOCKSS
The vanishing of Canada has created a counterinsurgency—scientists, researchers, economists, civil rights groups, librarians and artists marshalling resources and their own time to monitor, expose, protest and create a new literature of knowledge loss. Li, for one, has taken preservation of national records into private hands by spearheading an effort with universities across the country dubbed LOCKSS—“Lots of copies, keep stuff safe”—to archive federal websites, an exercise not unlike trapping fireflies in a jar: “Without that or a print record, there’s no way of tracking change.”


Bottom line, if you find data on a government website that reflects poorly on the Harper regime or positively on former non conservative governments save it for it may be gone tomorrow. If you want information on the environment, scientific research, the state of the economy past or present etc etc, you had best rely upon private sources, for much of the data on government websites is now unreliable or missing!


A tip of the hat to Montreal Simon for this one


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Voices for Democracy

Voices-Voix is a non-partisan coalition of Canadians and Canadian organizations committed to defending our collective and individual rights to dissent, advocacy and democratic space. They have documented attacks against organizations, individuals and institutions that have raised their voices, to show the pattern of government silencing those who exercise their right to dissent.
They have a membership of over 200 organizations and “encourage Canadians to raise their voices so that governments meet their core responsibilities to respect the equality, transparency and diversity of voices that make a democracy thrive.''
They recently released a report (1 MB PDF) titled “Dismantling Democracy” which documents in great detail the actions of the Harper Regimes in silencing both those within government and outside of it who have been critical of this regimes policies.


In their opening statement they outline the failure of the Harper Regime to foster the Open and Accountable atmosphere promised when they were first elected that has now become the antitheses of their actions and policies.

Rather than consistently promoting a robust democracy,

Canadian governments have often deployed a range of

methods to limit dissent, public debate and democratic

participation in Canada. But since 2006 there has been

an unprecedented intensification of the use of these

silencing tactics, particularly by the federal government.

Deliberate funding cuts have affected the public and

charitable sectors; audits are targeting organizations

critical of the government; parliamentary processes

are being abused to undermine accountability, and

critics of the government are being harassed and

vilified. All aspects of Canadian democracy are being

targeted, including the institutions and processes

of parliamentary democracy; the development and

dissemination of knowledge; the voices of marginalized

communities, and respect for human rights.

An inclusive and robust democracy requires that

governments foster rights to free expression, free

association, peaceful assembly and equality. To thrive,

civil society must be adequately resourced, able to operate

free from interference, and free to engage meaningfully

with government. By failing to promote an enabling

environment or foster the human rights that are critical

to democracy, the government denies Canadians the

dynamic, innovative society they aspire to build.

The introduction to the Undermining Democracy section clearly spells out their concerns (and mine) with the many and ongoing actions by the Harper Regime that diminish and threaten to destroy our democracy.


“Dissenting and diverse voices within the public sector are being silenced. Parliamentary processes are being misused and abused. Omnibus budget bills are introducing sweeping changes to federal legislation, curtailing political debate. Parliamentarians and civil servants are being vilified or fired for publicly disagreeing with government policy.
Independent advice from the public service is being ignored or eliminated. Oversight
mechanisms are being undermined through government control and interference.

Compounding these failures in Canadian governance is the federal government’s attack on knowledge. Independent research institutions, government research programs, and libraries and archives have been systematically defunded. The brunt of these cuts are borne by departments, programs, or projects seen as inconsistent with government policy. Public sector scientists and researchers are being prevented from speaking publicly, and non-government organizations working to promote knowledge are seeing their funding cut and their records audited. Curtailing knowledge jeopardizes the government’s ability to consider options and alternatives and develop sound, evidence based policy that responds to the public’s various needs.

Marginalized communities have been especially penalized in the government’s zeal to
silence dissent. Funding for organizations working to protect and advance the rights
of all Canadians is increasingly under threat, and audits have been used to intimidate
and muzzle the charitable sector. This has affected organizations providing services for and conducting advocacy on behalf of women, Indigenous peoples, veterans, and the economically marginalized, making it harder for them to organize effectively, express their concerns, and hold government to account.

The federal government has invoked national security, foreign policy and ‘border
protection’ to silence accountability and limit transparency for its own human rights
infringements, eroding the ability of everyone to participate equally in democracy.
The impact of these tactics is devastating for debate, dissent, diversity and ultimately,
Canada’s democracy.”


23 case studies of instances of silencing the public sector where individuals or departments have been “Fired, forced removal or not re-appointed” or subject to “Funding cuts and restrictive internal policies “ are linked to in the report and are available on their web site. All information is fully supported with references to source material. There is far to much information contained in this report to even summarize here and it is a long read but I encourage all those who want to see a documented outline of what the Harper Regime has and continues to do to our democracy and in particular to those non profit and charitable organizations who speak out against such action to take the time to read it.


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Harper History, Part 5B - G20, Census Axed, Contempt.

June 2010 – Mar 2011

In this the second half of part 5 of the ongoing Harper History series intended to remind our citizens exactly how little respect the Harper Regime has for our Democracy we touch upon the G20 fiasco, the killing of the census and the inability of the PBO to get information as to how the 'stimulus' funds were spent. Parliament continued to be 'dysfunctional' with the opposition seeming unable to hold Harper to account despite his refusal to release the information necessary for them to make informed decisions for fear of precipitating an election they were not prepared for, whist Harper almost daily dared them to do so.

On 26-& 27 June 2010 Harper hosted the G20 Leaders Summit in Toronto and had been under fire for months for the avalanche of funding around the Muskoka region where the leader were to be accommodated. It was revealed that besides the $50 million in G8 summit funds, Ottawa had funnelled another $50 million into the riding held by Industry minister Tony Clements in the past few years.
With summits in London, England and Pittsburgh, USA costing $30 million and $12.2 million (US) respectively the bill for this summit held whilst Canada was still in deep recession was estimated at $1.1 BILLION. Extravagant expenditures included the construction of a 'fake lake' just meters from the real Lake Ontario and $274,850 for a bandshell and new public washrooms in Baysville, 31 kms from the summit site.

Thousands of people gathered in Toronto to protest the summit and when a handfull of 'anarchists' destroyed property and smashed windows on the first day whilst police stood by and watched hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were illegally arrested and detained on the second day. It has never been revealed who authorized these arrests and no senior officers have been held to account. It remains unclear exactly who was realty in control of the 'security operation. The area where the leaders actually met in downtown Toronto was declared a security zone and laws were quietly changed to make it illegal to approach the area.
For more on the security zone see On that controversial “regulation”

On July 12 2010 The Conservative government defeated changes the Liberals and three of the four independents wanted in the Budget by a vote of 48 to 44. Seven Liberal senators failed to show up to vote giving Harper's Conservatives the slight majority. The 800+ page budget sailed through unscathed thus avoiding (for now) a showdown in the House of Commons and a possible election call.
Also in July the Long form census eliminated and the Canadian Press learned that “Employees were told a little over a year ago that there would be less emphasis on analysis. A highly praised survey on immigrants to Canada, for example, has been axed. Other analytical jobs, in areas such as business and trade statistics, and the aging population, have been eliminated.”

In August Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada, announced his resignation over this issue saying "I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion. This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census,"
"It cannot," he said. "Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the prime minister."For more on this please see Letter to the Prime-minister.
By this time numerous other key personnel had quit, been fired or been forced out of their government positions.
Also In August Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page reported that he could not tell with any accuracy how or indeed if all the Economic Action Plan funds had been spent saying “it is impossible to draw authoritative conclusions about the program performance at this time. Parliamentary monitoring of program performance would be better served by a more consistent reporting regime, with appropriate incentives to ensure timely and accurate progress reporting.” For more on this see One to watch

On Oct 12 2010 , The Conservatives further demonstrated their contempt for Parliament by delivering their 'Economic Update' not in parliament but at a carefully staged and expensive special event in Mississauga this while parliament was recessed and the country was still deep in recession and they were preaching 'fiscal restraint'. This practice of making major announcements traditionally first revealed in parliament before their peers was to become the 'norm' for Harper who rarely if ever spoke publicly except in carefully controlled and stage managed events.

In November it was revealed that Conservative Senators were quietly using taxpayer-funded literature to target opposition ridings with a partisan crime message as the party gears up for the next election.

On November 16th In a late night surprise vote and without any debate the Conservatives used their clout in the Senate stacked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to kill an NDP climate change bill that was passed by a majority of the House of Commons. The absence of more than 15 Liberals from the Senate for the surprise vote allowed the bill to be defeated. This was the first time in at least 70 years that the Senate has killed legislation from the Commons without a hearing, according to parliamentary experts.Harper then told the Commons that the bill which established greenhouse gas emissions targets for a period beyond that mandated by the Kyoto Protocol that it was “a completely irresponsible bill.” For more on this see Senate Shananikins.
During Oct & Nov 2010 the first official government announcements show up with titles proclaiming “The Harper Government” rather than the correct “The Government of Canada”. A few months later this was proclaimed by the regime to be the way all such documents should be titled. During this entire period thousands of dollars were spent bombarding us with those “Economic Action Plan” ads that told us nothing but promoted the Harper Regime on almost a daily basis.

In January 2011 and with the probability of an election in the near future and speculation about a coalition in the news Gov. Gen. David Johnston was busy brushing up on constitutional rules and said that “he sees nothing wrong or illegitimate with coalition governments and recognizes that “any governor general who has that role in a constitutional system like ours, from time to time will be confronted with questions where there is an element of discretion,”
However Liberal leader Micheal Ignatieff had been unequivocal in his rejection of a coalition and thus played right into Harper’s framing of a coalition as illegitimate and this may well have had some effect on the election to come.

In February Green Party Leader Elizabeth May clearly voiced the concerns that a number of noted historians and constitutional experts also said when she wrote:-
“I am no fan of hyperbole. The notion that democracy in a safe, successful, wealthy country like Canada, constitutionally dedicated to “peace, order, and good government,” could be “in peril” may strike some readers as over the top. Nevertheless, there is a power struggle in Ottawa that, in earlier days, could have been viewed as a constitutional crisis. ” Some constitutional experts were wondering out loud if our prime minister should be referred to as “King Stephen I of Canada.”.
Also in February PBO officer Kevin Page in his appearance before the Commons Finance Committee when he appeared before committee Tuesday said that in his 25 years in the public service, no government has used the umbrella of “cabinet confidence” to hide tax data or justice legislation costs, and reiterated that this lack of data means that Parliamentarians are losing their control over the finances of the nation.
“There is genuine concern that Parliament is losing control of its fiduciary responsibilities of approving financial authorities of public monies as afforded in the Constitution. In the recent past, Parliament was asked to approve changes to crime legislation without financial information or knowledge of monies set aside in the fiscal framework. “
For more on these two items and similar opinion please see Democracy in Peril?
On February 24, 2011, 4 senior Conservative Party members were charged in the In and Out Scandal under the Elections Canada Act with overspending over $1 million in the 2006 election including allegations that Conservative election expense documents submitted to Elections Canada were "false or misleading" and attempted to fraudulently gain almost $1 million in refunds from taxpayers. Over a year later the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal which saw the Conservative Party plead guilty over the 'In and Out' scandal, agreeing to repay $230,198.00 (or less than 25% of the moneys obtained by the fraud) for its role in the scheme.

On March 9th, 2011, the Harper administration was found to be in contempt of Canadian parliament for for its ongoing refusal to meet opposition requests for details of proposed bills and their cost estimates. This was the first time in the history of any commonwealth government that this had happened. Errol Mendes, a University of Ottawa professor and constitutional expert had said this before the committee requesting the documents:-
"The executive is really placing itself above Parliament. For the first time that I know in Canadian history, the executive is saying we are superior to Parliament,"
"This is nothing more than an open defiance of Parliament. Nothing more, nothing less," he said. "The refusal to release the uncensored documents is a violation of the Canadian Constitution. This is the equivalent to a defiance of a judicial subpoena,"
On March 25th, 2011, The Speaker of the House of Commons having ruled three times that "the Harper government" appeared to breach parliamentary privilege and the Harper administration being found to be in contempt of Canadian parliament for its refusal to share information that opposition members said they needed to properly assess legislation put before them a vote of non confidence was held which was supported by all opposition parties resulting in the government falling and an election being called..


Early Friday afternoon, 156 opposition MPs – all of the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloquistes present in the House of Commons – rose to support a motion of no-confidence.

It was also a motion that declared the government to be in contempt of Parliament for its refusal to share information that opposition members said they needed to properly assess legislation put before them.

This was not the first nor was it to be the last instance of the Harper Regime showing its utter contempt for our Parliamentary Democracy rules and conventions. We were about to see their contempt for election rules and for Elections Canada, the arms length body charged with ensuring that our election were untainted by illegal activities.

The 2011 election and the controversy around election fraud and robo-calls will be covered separately in the next article.




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“Strong, Proud, Free”

The above is apparently the 'branding' that the Conservatives are now going to be inundating us with for the foreseeable future, it remains to be seen if we finally see the end of the “Economic Action Plan” Ads that have plagued us for years in attempting to persuade us that they actually had one. We know that these Ads are designed to promote the Conservative Regime and actually provide very minimal real information about government services but now with an election in the offing and Harper being spun as the great protector of Canadians and with our getting increasingly involved in various wars abroad this slogan is being pimped.
Its the same as with most things from this regime, if you say it enough times it must be true despite the reality being nothing of the kind..

Strong? We had all better remain strong if we are to survive the levels of BS that is about to bombard us from not only the Cons (much of it on our dime) but from the other parties (on their own dime) and if we are to protect our parliamentary democracy from further erosion. .
Proud? I am certainly not proud of my Federal Governments lack of action on the environmental file and their obstructionist attitude in global climate talks. I am not proud of the hoops the Feds are making our Vets jump through to receive compensation for injuries received. I am not proud of the PM lecturing various other countries on woman’s rights, democracy, economics etc etc whist doing little about such things at home.
Free? Next thing you know they will be telling us that scientists, department spokespersons, Con MPs etc........ are free to speak to the public without having an 'approved' script. They will also tell us that their new Secret Police Bill that enables detention for having an 'unapproved' opinion is to protect our freedom and that charities are free to express such opinions without being targeted by auditors.

It seems that you are not free to see the rationale behind this latest branding as “A request under the Access to Information Act seeking any background rationale for the tagline, which is being used to punctuate all the latest taxpayer-funded advertising, has come up empty. That’s because a 149-page Treasury Board submission on advertising has been deemed advice to cabinet, placing it behind a lead sheet of secrecy that even the federal information commissioner can’t penetrate.”
They are so proud of their efforts to spend our tax money on this branding that “No minister or department will claim responsibility for the whole-of-government marketing campaign, and requests for comment from the Prime Minister’s Office were returned by the Privy Council, which co-ordinates the development of government advertising.”


You are free to decide for yourself if in fact the Conservative Regime is in fact in compliance with the rules as they say.
“Section 23 of the communications policy of the government of Canada states that institutions must not use public funds to purchase advertising in support of a political party,” Privy Council Office spokesman Raymond Rivet said in an e-mail.
“All government of Canada advertising is designed to comply with the guidance set out in the policy.”

But as with most things in Ottawa nowadays the rules are not clear and there is no oversight and no penalties for bending the few rules that do exist.
“The Conservatives have come under repeated criticism for spending tens of millions of dollars annually on government advertising that is often indistinguishable from the partisan branding of the party. The marketing exercise extends to departmental Web design (now a uniform Tory blue, with cross-pollinating links to popular Conservative initiatives such as family tax cuts) and even departmental press releases, often heralding local “Harper government” expenditures.”

I suppose we should be grateful that they did not decide upon Open, Honest, Principled!



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Balanced-Budget Law, fiscal or political?

With Canadians still waiting to see whats in the much delayed budget Finance Minister Joe Oliver has just announced plans for a balanced-budget law (as promised by the Conservatives in the 2013 throne speech). Call me a cynic but after having inherited a 13.8 Billion surplus from the Liberals and having then spent it all BEFORE the recession hit and then produced 7 consecutive budget deficits is this more about handcuffing any incoming government from fixing their mess than concern about the national debt?

"The only acceptable deficit would be one that responds to a recession or to an 'extraordinary' circumstance -- that is war or a natural disaster with a cost exceeding $3 billion in one year," Oliver told the Economic Club.........
Cabinet ministers would see their pay docked five per cent if the federal government fails to balance its books under proposed legislation critics denounced Wednesday as symbolic at best, hypocrisy at worst.

Given the difficulty experienced by the Parliamentary Budget Officer and others in determining the true state of this government finances and expenditures one must wonder if the much flaunted 'balanced budget' that we have yet to see is factual or just creative accounting. When they are tossed from power will the incoming government find that in actual fact after all the tax breaks, mostly for the more affluent, and the spending commitments spread over future years that without severe cuts to services they are already in debt before they start.

"The proposed bill would acknowledge the potential need for deficits to counter economic decline." In addition to the ministerial pay cut, a deficit would spark an automatic operating freeze, Oliver said. Observers, however, suggested the Tories were looking to score political points by appealing to their constituents.

It will be difficult for opposition partys to vote against this legislation is it, as is almost all of the Con Regimes legislation, a political trap and being proposed at this moment purely for political reasons? Balanced budgets should indeed be a priority of all governments and hitting them in the pocket book may give them some incentive, possibly to hit US in the pocket book instead, but the timing of this is deeply suspect.

Both Opposition parties were scornful of what they called a death-bed repentance from a government that has racked up seven straight budget deficits since Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised in 2008 he would never run a shortfall.

The Liberal leader, who refused to say whether his party would oppose the legislation, called it "fairly ridiculous" the government would now be talking about balanced budgets -- five years after the recession and just before an election.

Watch for this to be rammed through quickly with limited debate (as is now the norm for all such legislation) so that the incoming government is backed in a corner ..... and if, God help us, the Cons get back in watch them ignore it and / or lie about expenditures and income!

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A Study in Tyranny (Part 1)

"Message Control and Vetting"

A guest post by Pamela Mac NeilCanadians for the first time in our history must confront the menacing truth, that our Prime Minister is a dictator and the Conservative Government for the most part are enabling him in turning Canada into a dictatorship, incremental or otherwise. There are some who are aware of Harpers authoritarian agenda and some who have even written and written well about it. What many Canadians tend to do though when talking about his desire for power and the extreme control that he executes over his government, the media and policy making , to name a few areas, is to judge his tight fisted control as , more of a personal governing style, a way in which he gets things done. We don't seem to see that his pursuit of power is all pervasive, implicit in everything that he does, the fundamental modus operandi that drives him. Power is his core value, central to his identity and the exercise of that power is what he lives for day in and day out.
Sometimes in our families, sometimes in our work or even in our everyday dealings in society most of us have had experience with dictatorial people. If someone grows up in a home with an authoritarian culture created by dictatorial parents they will be obedient rather than independent , fearful instead of confident, develop insecurity in the place of self-esteem and use their minds to survive the authoritarianism instead of for thinking and learning. They will learn how to survive, instead of learning how to live and if they go to a school with a dictatorial culture their growth is doubly threatened. Watching these people up close, seeing when and how they control others, we can also see how much damage they cause. So too with a democratic country. What happens in a country like Canada when citizens find they have voted a man, who becomes their Prime Minister and has now shown himself to be a dictator? What do we do? I think we must first understand how we got to this point by understanding how Harper has acquired his power.

In Lawrence Martins book "Harperland" one of the controls instituted across the board for everyone in Harpers government is message control and vetting. Martin goes on to explain " The new regime called for all public pronouncements by civil servants, diplomats, the military, cabinet members and Conservative MPs to be approved by PMO or the PCO." If a government official or a caucus member wanted to say something publicly, he or she would have to fill out a Message Event Proposal (MEP) and submit it to central command. This form has sections with such titles as Desired Headline, Strategic Objective, Desired Sound Bite and the like. It also has areas for supplying details on the speakers backdrop, the ideal event photograph and even the speakers wardrobe." Once submitted the MEP is studied by the PMO/PCO for approval or not and this is not done in a timely fashion. Under Harper, departments exercising such freedom as creating their own news releases and scheduling events for ministers is not allowed. No matter how minor the occurence or event, ALL government communications are to be approved by one of Harpers censors. This is how, as one example, the government scientists were muzzled. Controlling the message was implemented incrementally starting with the Prime Ministers events and then gradually expanded throughout the government.
By doing things incrementally, a Harper strategy, neither the media nor the public will notice and by the time when and if they do notice, the new policy of message control and vetting will have been in place and operational. This policy also applies to the media and to the controlling of the access-to-information requests a crucial tool made available to citizens in a democracy like Canada. Also, implicit in controlling the message is Harpers silencing of dissent. This is not just a management tool, put in place to make government communications more efficient. This control and vetting system gives the Prime Minister, PMO, PCO and government the power to decide what information, after it has been vetted, will be told to the Canadian public. This is the beginning of the breaching of one of our most important democratic freedoms, the right to know. Not to know a rewritten, censored, talking point, sanitized truth, but to know the truth period. Harper and Company have not set up this all inclusive government communication system so that at the end of the day they can tell Canadians the truth. They have set it up so that at the end of the day they can control the truth and than decide what they will tell us. Controlling the truth usually means hiding the truth and putting a partial or complete lie in its place. Studying how this communication policy is created, than implemented, more importantly, reveals a concrete example of how Harper and his cons go about acquiring and taking power.

Everyone knows of Harpers ignoring and sidelining of the main stream media the reason is said to be because he believes the media to be biased toward the liberals, but that's not the real reason he avoids talking to the press. Everything with Harper is calculated and choreographed, right down to the most minute detail. Press conferences are spontaneous, the questions can't be controlled. Answering questions spontaneously shows Canadians whether their Prime Minister can think on his feet or not. It's also much harder for Harper to lie when he has a group of journalist monitoring his answers, therefore press conferences are out and also sit down interviews except for the select few where all is choreographed beforehand including what questions can be asked. Harper is terrified of having to discuss the policies, trade deals or legislation that are created behind closed doors, in secrecy. All unplanned communications are strictly banned. So the cons have come up with another way to bypass the MSM and have Canadians focus on Harper, by creating an entire TV network called 24 Seven, devoted to Harpers life and paid for by Canadians. I held my nose and went to review the 24 Seven website so I would know what I was talking about. This is what I found. It opens by playing a few bars of "The Maple Leaf Forever", while showing Harper, door open , ready to climb into the backseat of an SUV. The site is comprised of videos about Harper's daily and/or weekly time spent in showing the various events that a PM attends and various announcements about legislation or policy, like a bill of victims rights, legislation about "life means life" where the accused once sentenced to life, will never get out of jail. There are various videos covering various topics that Harper and government are working on like free trade, law and order, taxation etc. In these videos Harper announces his new policies, programs, and legislation, but he keeps the announcement of them very limited no discussions allowed.
Then there are the videos that say? "Rhona Ambrose Minister of Health 24 questions," where the same woman who narrates all the videos asks the questions. Questions like: "What's your favorite gadget"? " What's the last movie you watched"?, "What's your favorite meal"? The same type of questions are repeated in other videos with other various cabinet ministers . I kid you not! Something I also noticed is that the word Exclusive is used on all video descriptions, including the intro, stating 24 Seven Exclusive as if other TV networks are competing for this information about Harper and 24 Seven was the only network that got the exclusive. This format though is exactly what Harper wants. Canadians have to go to him and he and his staff are controlling only what they want Canadians to see . The words and images are completely controlled by Harper and his staff. This is not communication this is manipulation! Manipulation is Harper and his regimes favorite form of communication. It is used almost every time they have something to tell the Canadian people. Harper and the PMO through information control and vetting, controls every facet of government including the press, it is the most important tool in Harpers arsenal of tools used for acquiring power. And what is Harper and his cons ultimate goal in their pursuit of power? Why taking away Canadians personal freedoms and turning Canada into a Fascist Dictatorship of course. And if he gets 4 more years, this time, he won't be taking incremental steps. He'll go straight for the prize running by leaps and bounds.

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