We all know that when backed into a corner Harper will do almost
anything to avoid any negative information about his regime from
emerging from his
$65 million plus a year PMO spin machine and
that this is particularly true of bad economic news. We know in the
past he prorogued parliament in order to avoid what could have been a
negative vote on his 2008 fiscal update, whilst not quite as
controversial the question must be asked is the delaying
of the 2015 budget till April or beyond more of
the same?
Given the difficulty that Parliamentarians and the Parliamentary
Budget Officer have experienced in the past in getting the true
numbers from this regimes finance department in order to understand
what they were voting upon is it any surprise that the budget is
being pushed closer to the summer recess and fall election date.
Will the promised budget surplus be a reality or just yet another
bit of pre-election spin purely designed to fool large swaths of
voters that the Conservatives are great fiscal managers. With
millions going out daily to support the “war” on terrorism in the
Middle East, their plans for the great Canadian Oil Economy sinking
back under the sands and more jobs disappearing daily it sure does
not look rosy to me. But then I am not an 'economist' ...... but I
can add and subtract........ and can remember that “we will not go
into recession” speech when touting his 2008 budget.
Bottom line, we need the true state of the economy put before us
in order to make an informed decision in October. Will that happen
given the Harper Regimes obsession with controlling the message and
hiding bad news, not a chance in hell! Oh Kevin Page how we miss you.
Democracy requires access to accurate information in order to make
informed decisions, not an item that’s exactly high on Mr Harpers
or Mr Olivers to do list!
Tip of the hat to Montreal
Simon for this one.
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Harper History, Part 1 - The Early Years
This is the first of a series of monthly articles examining the
actions of Stephen Harper and his Party colleagues both before and
after his rise to power with particular emphasis upon words and
actions that effect our democracy. The 2015 Federal Election will
undoubtedly be critical to to whether or not our Parliamentary
Democracy survives or degrades further into the abyss of an elected
dictatorship. It is I believe important that we remember the actions
of this Regime over the last 15 years or so that have moved us so
close to this situation. It is these things that I hope to highlight
during the coming months.
Its hard to know where to start but in order to 'set the stage' and with the above in mind, let us start with Harpers view of our democracy just after he had resigned his (Reform Party) parliamentary seat on January 14, 1997 to join the National Citizens Coalition. He and Tom Flanagan coauthored an article entitled "Our benign dictatorship" in which they bemoan the “concentrated power structure” of the government and the “winner take all” election system and praise the “sharing of power” and coalition governments.
This is, of course the exact opposite of their polices once they come to power, it has become in fact more of A Malignant Dictatorship.
It was during this period that he delivered a speech to the Council for National Policy, a conservative American think tank during which he called Canada "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it" and other disparaging remarks. He was also involved in an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle against federal election laws restricting third-party advertising and several campaigns against the Canadian Wheat Board,
After the Canadian Alliance's poor showing in the 2000 election, Harper coauthored the infamous "firewall letter" which called on the provincial government to "build firewalls around Alberta" in order to stop the federal government from redistributing its wealth to less affluent regions, and replace the Canada Pension Plan with a provincial plan! He also launched a constitutional challenge against the 2002 Canada Elections Act regarding the limits that it set upon 3rd party spending The court found that, though the spending limits infringe upon section 2b of the Charter, the law is reasonable and is justified in light of section 1. The majority concluded that the objective of the spending limits is electoral fairness. The law has an effect in creating "a level playing field for those who wish to engage in the electoral discourse, enabling voters to be better informed". (We note that the Harper Regimes recent “Fair Elections Act” has increased the spending limits considerably)
In a 2001 article in The Report magazine, Harper expressed his support for a 'presidential' system and cast aspersions on the calibre of elected representatives showing a preference for forming cabinet from non elected individuals.
"[T]he superiority of Congress over Parliament pales beside a comparison of the executive branches in our systems. The difference between the calibre and experience of the Bush cabinet - or even the worst American cabinet in recent years - to any Canadian equivalent is embarrassing to us. The consistency with which the American executive system recruits top people compared to our 'fused' system, in which cabinet members are chosen from among MPs, is one reason why the United States has made the long climb from peripheral outpost to the world's sole superpower."
After a very hostile leadership campaign in 2002 Harper defeated Stockwell Day to become leader of the Alliance Party and took the seat vacated by Prestom Manning in a by election, where both the Liberaials and the Conservatives did not run a candidate following a parliamentary tradition of allowing opposition leaders to enter the House of Commons unopposed.
Tom Flanagan in spelling out how the Harper camp used the membership lists and a phone and mail out campaign to promote Harper in this race, has this to say:-
“It is fitting that database technology helped revive the party, because the Reform Party from the beginning had always been based on database technology....... The single database has sustained the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance, in good times and bad, by allowing the national office to conduct a unified program of internal communications and fundraising within the membership. Founded in 1987 when the new era of communications technology was just starting to come into its own, the Reform Party (and the Canadian Alliance as its successor) is truly a database party. “ As indeed the Conservative Party of Canada was to become and who quickly learned how to use and abuse such systems to their own ends.
Shortly thereafter Harper said that the Atlantic Provinces were trapped in "a culture of defeat" and that much of Canada was trapped by the same "can't-do" attitude. These remarks were widely condemned by both Federal and Provincial politicians. In 2003 Harper and Stockwell Day co-wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal in which they condemned the Canadian government's unwillingness to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq
“In the great wars of the last century -- against authoritarianism, fascism, and communism -- Canada did not merely stand with the Americans, more often than not we led the way. We did so for freedom, for democracy, for civilization itself. “
Standing against authoritarianism & for democracy does not now seem to be his focus!
On January 12, 2004, Harper announced his resignation as Leader of the Opposition, in order to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. He ran against Belinda Stronach and Tony Clement, Peter McKay did not run but was named as deputy leader afterwards. Harper was elected the first leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada on March 20, 2004 in his speech to the convention he said:-
“I stand before you on my record. It is a record of uniting people and uniting organizations. It is a record of tearing down walls and of building bridges. It is a record of representing conservative ideals, of putting forward conservative policies, of fighting for conservative values.”
It is true that he was fundamentally responsible for 'uniting the right' but went on to become one of the most divisive Prime Ministers in Canadian history and aggressively partisan in HIS view of 'conservative values'.
Next up 2004-2006 Conservatives in opposition.
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
Its hard to know where to start but in order to 'set the stage' and with the above in mind, let us start with Harpers view of our democracy just after he had resigned his (Reform Party) parliamentary seat on January 14, 1997 to join the National Citizens Coalition. He and Tom Flanagan coauthored an article entitled "Our benign dictatorship" in which they bemoan the “concentrated power structure” of the government and the “winner take all” election system and praise the “sharing of power” and coalition governments.
This is, of course the exact opposite of their polices once they come to power, it has become in fact more of A Malignant Dictatorship.
It was during this period that he delivered a speech to the Council for National Policy, a conservative American think tank during which he called Canada "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it" and other disparaging remarks. He was also involved in an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle against federal election laws restricting third-party advertising and several campaigns against the Canadian Wheat Board,
After the Canadian Alliance's poor showing in the 2000 election, Harper coauthored the infamous "firewall letter" which called on the provincial government to "build firewalls around Alberta" in order to stop the federal government from redistributing its wealth to less affluent regions, and replace the Canada Pension Plan with a provincial plan! He also launched a constitutional challenge against the 2002 Canada Elections Act regarding the limits that it set upon 3rd party spending The court found that, though the spending limits infringe upon section 2b of the Charter, the law is reasonable and is justified in light of section 1. The majority concluded that the objective of the spending limits is electoral fairness. The law has an effect in creating "a level playing field for those who wish to engage in the electoral discourse, enabling voters to be better informed". (We note that the Harper Regimes recent “Fair Elections Act” has increased the spending limits considerably)
In a 2001 article in The Report magazine, Harper expressed his support for a 'presidential' system and cast aspersions on the calibre of elected representatives showing a preference for forming cabinet from non elected individuals.
"[T]he superiority of Congress over Parliament pales beside a comparison of the executive branches in our systems. The difference between the calibre and experience of the Bush cabinet - or even the worst American cabinet in recent years - to any Canadian equivalent is embarrassing to us. The consistency with which the American executive system recruits top people compared to our 'fused' system, in which cabinet members are chosen from among MPs, is one reason why the United States has made the long climb from peripheral outpost to the world's sole superpower."
After a very hostile leadership campaign in 2002 Harper defeated Stockwell Day to become leader of the Alliance Party and took the seat vacated by Prestom Manning in a by election, where both the Liberaials and the Conservatives did not run a candidate following a parliamentary tradition of allowing opposition leaders to enter the House of Commons unopposed.
Tom Flanagan in spelling out how the Harper camp used the membership lists and a phone and mail out campaign to promote Harper in this race, has this to say:-
“It is fitting that database technology helped revive the party, because the Reform Party from the beginning had always been based on database technology....... The single database has sustained the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance, in good times and bad, by allowing the national office to conduct a unified program of internal communications and fundraising within the membership. Founded in 1987 when the new era of communications technology was just starting to come into its own, the Reform Party (and the Canadian Alliance as its successor) is truly a database party. “ As indeed the Conservative Party of Canada was to become and who quickly learned how to use and abuse such systems to their own ends.
Shortly thereafter Harper said that the Atlantic Provinces were trapped in "a culture of defeat" and that much of Canada was trapped by the same "can't-do" attitude. These remarks were widely condemned by both Federal and Provincial politicians. In 2003 Harper and Stockwell Day co-wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal in which they condemned the Canadian government's unwillingness to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq
“In the great wars of the last century -- against authoritarianism, fascism, and communism -- Canada did not merely stand with the Americans, more often than not we led the way. We did so for freedom, for democracy, for civilization itself. “
Standing against authoritarianism & for democracy does not now seem to be his focus!
On January 12, 2004, Harper announced his resignation as Leader of the Opposition, in order to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. He ran against Belinda Stronach and Tony Clement, Peter McKay did not run but was named as deputy leader afterwards. Harper was elected the first leader of the new Conservative Party of Canada on March 20, 2004 in his speech to the convention he said:-
“I stand before you on my record. It is a record of uniting people and uniting organizations. It is a record of tearing down walls and of building bridges. It is a record of representing conservative ideals, of putting forward conservative policies, of fighting for conservative values.”
It is true that he was fundamentally responsible for 'uniting the right' but went on to become one of the most divisive Prime Ministers in Canadian history and aggressively partisan in HIS view of 'conservative values'.
Next up 2004-2006 Conservatives in opposition.
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
Sunday, January 4, 2015
“Nature Deficit Disorder”
At first glance this would seem to have little to do with our
central theme here at Democracy Under Fire but when we look at the
actions of the Harper Regime in creating legislation to cover
protection of The Rouge Valley Park should it be transferred from the
Province to Parks Canada then the link becomes clear.
The Rouge Park, a 40-square-kilometre swath of forested valleys and farmland at the eastern ends of Scarborough and Markham. The proposal is for the province to transfer ownership of it to the federal government so it can add another 10 square kilometres, linking it to the Oak Ridges Moraine and creating Canada’s first national, urban park.
The province created Rouge Park in 1990 and has established a suite of management plans and guidelines for permitted activities and development. In agreeing in prinicipal to transfer ownership to the Feds it stipulated that Parks Canada would have to “meet or exceed” the ecological protection currently in place.
Bill C-40, the classification’s new legislation, says only
that management must “take into consideration the protection of
[the park’s] natural ecosystems.”
And our federal Environment
Minister Leona Aglukkaq says that prioritizing ecological
integrity is “simply unachievable in an urban setting,” arguing
it would lead to the eviction of farmers. Conservative MP Peter Kent
told Parliament that prioritizing ecological integrity would mean
letting wildfires, pest outbreaks and erosion proceed unchecked. This
despite the fact that such protections are already in place, and have
been for some time, under provincial management.
Now we come to the antidemocratic bit ..........
On Nov. 5, the Conservative MPs on the environment and
sustainable development committee voted down all 18 amendments the
opposition had proposed.
Environment and Sustainable Development Committee eh, perhaps it should be renamed the Destruction of Parks Protections Committee?
We have seen this time and time again where various committees dominated by Conservative MPs have voted down EVERY proposed amendment aimed at improving a bill or seeking to find some consensus on the legislation. I find it hard to believe that all of the amendments proposed for this bill are without merit to the point where they would not be considered. It is simply yet another example of the “we are right, you are wrong” mentality of the Harper Regime whereby nothing anyone outside of the PMO says is even considered.
Ontario Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid is holding firm. “Ecological integrity is crucial. Our concern is how these lands are passed on to future generations. I can’t, in good faith, recommend a transfer until they address the concerns ignored at the parliamentary committee.”
Some observers use the term “nature deficit disorder” to describe a growing affliction among urban kids. Mr. Robb (The manager of Friends of the Rouge Watershed ) says in the 25-plus years he’s been introducing people to the Rouge Valley he’s witnessed a growing disassociation between kids and the outdoor world. The Rouge, he says, is perfectly placed to help bridge that gap. “Kids can get here on public transit,” he says. “And when they do, we can show them a good-news story about healing and setting the balance back right.”
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
The Rouge Park, a 40-square-kilometre swath of forested valleys and farmland at the eastern ends of Scarborough and Markham. The proposal is for the province to transfer ownership of it to the federal government so it can add another 10 square kilometres, linking it to the Oak Ridges Moraine and creating Canada’s first national, urban park.
The province created Rouge Park in 1990 and has established a suite of management plans and guidelines for permitted activities and development. In agreeing in prinicipal to transfer ownership to the Feds it stipulated that Parks Canada would have to “meet or exceed” the ecological protection currently in place.
Now we come to the antidemocratic bit ..........
Environment and Sustainable Development Committee eh, perhaps it should be renamed the Destruction of Parks Protections Committee?
We have seen this time and time again where various committees dominated by Conservative MPs have voted down EVERY proposed amendment aimed at improving a bill or seeking to find some consensus on the legislation. I find it hard to believe that all of the amendments proposed for this bill are without merit to the point where they would not be considered. It is simply yet another example of the “we are right, you are wrong” mentality of the Harper Regime whereby nothing anyone outside of the PMO says is even considered.
Ontario Infrastructure Minister Brad Duguid is holding firm. “Ecological integrity is crucial. Our concern is how these lands are passed on to future generations. I can’t, in good faith, recommend a transfer until they address the concerns ignored at the parliamentary committee.”
Some observers use the term “nature deficit disorder” to describe a growing affliction among urban kids. Mr. Robb (The manager of Friends of the Rouge Watershed ) says in the 25-plus years he’s been introducing people to the Rouge Valley he’s witnessed a growing disassociation between kids and the outdoor world. The Rouge, he says, is perfectly placed to help bridge that gap. “Kids can get here on public transit,” he says. “And when they do, we can show them a good-news story about healing and setting the balance back right.”
It would seems to me that not only
do the Cons have Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD) but also Democracy
Deficit Disorder (DDD)
Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
