Tony Clement Says I Don't Give a Damn What Canadians Want. Now Kiss My Ring!

Despite advice to the contrary and anger from both the Evangelical and Jewish communities, Pope Clement is going ahead with his plans to cancel the keeping of stats.

He won't need them once the neoconservative agenda goes into play. The only message is "don't blink". He'll see the hardships first hand and has already ordered front row seats to the beatings of protesters.

He wanted floor seats but Guy Girono got them all. King Harper will be on the balcony.

Oh, and by the way it's going to cost us to clear the way for them blow up Canada's social safety net. Neoconservatism doesn't come cheap.

...and because more forms will be sent out, the cost of the census will go up substantially. Back when Tony Clement was in the Mike Harris government, they liked to use the slogan "Doing more with less!" This is like that. Except it's "Doing less with more!"

Harris left us with a six billion dollar deficit buried in the sale of our assets, courtesy of a man by the name of Jim Flaherty. You may have heard of him. They will not budge.

They’ve been in power for four long years, but Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have found a way to cast themselves as anti-government populists once more. The Tories are refusing to reverse a decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census questionnaire – even in the face of broadening opposition – calling it an unwarranted intrusion into Canadians’ personal lives. The controversy has morphed into a culture war skirmish between the Harper government and critics, one that allows the Tories – despite running record deficits – to paint themselves as anti-Ottawa for the red-meat Conservative political base vital to winning elections.

Who exactly is this "political base" and would I want to meet them in a dark alley?

Not to worry though, the Fraser Institute is coming to the rescue. For those who don't know the Fraser is a bogus "think tank" that is short on thinking but long on corporate funding. Jason Kenney and Rob Anders are both from there. When Stephen Harper was working to launch the Reform Party he went to the Fraser for help and they've been in his back pocket ever since.

Oddly, the MSM never mention that when they quote them.

In his videotaped address to the 30th-anniversary crowd, Harper showed off his $45 Fraser Institute silk Adam Smith tie and confirmed he was a big fan of the institute. Like the Fraser, he is dedicated to the ideas of Friedrich Hayek, leader of the Austrian School of economics. Margaret Thatcher was an outspoken Hayek devotee. Hayek urged reducing government intervention in people's social and economic lives to a bare minimum. No social programs, no environmental or consumer regulation. In Hayek's world, government officials do not serve the public. Instead, they are self-serving empire builders.

... Harper studied Hayek as an undergraduate at the University of Calgary and developed his free-market philosophy while working with his long-time political mentor, Tom Flanagan, a U of C political scientist, head of the so-called Calgary School of right-wing academics, Fraser Institute fellow, and Conservative campaign manager in the 2004 election.

Just a year after the Fraser's anniversary, Harper was prime minister and it was payback time. Buried in his first budget was a provision to exempt from capital gains tax donations of stock to charity. Adding this new exemption to the existing tax credit for donations to charities means that the donor pays only 40 percent of the dollars he donates. Taxpayers pick up the rest.

It's all over but the crying. Or in the case of Clement, Giorno and Harper - the hearty belly busters. We've been punked.