Do All Conservative Ministers Live Under a Rock?

Next to "I'm sorry", the most common phrase used by Conservatives, is "I didn't get the memo".

I swear. It's like they have no idea what is going on under their noses.

That's if you believe them, which I don't.

Hackers who attacked two of Canada's federal departments stole classified information before being discovered last January, CBC News has learned. The revelation comes from documents obtained under Access to Information laws, and contradicts what the minister in charge said at the time.

Six months ago, hackers launched an unprecedented cyber attack on the federal government. In January, the government's computer system came under attack ...
"Indications are that data has been exfiltrated and that privileged accounts have been compromised," said a memo written Jan. 31, 2011.

Former Treasury Board president Stockwell Day said he was never told that any classified information was stolen from government computers. "Certainly, on the information that I got, I had full confidence that the systems had moved quickly to shut down, that significant information had not in fact been carried away, and that the ongoing assessment of that by the technicians continues," he told CBC News on Thursday.

I find it hard to believe that he was kept in the dark about something this important.

Harper awards $16 Billion Untendered Contract to Lockheed Martin. Where is the Money Coming From?

If we're already in a deficit and in hock up to our eyeballs, why Is Stephen Harper awarding an American weapons manufacturer an untendered contract for 16 billion dollars?

I thought he was preaching austerity?

Oh, yeah. I forgot. He never practices what he preaches.

The Harper Conservatives are wasting taxpayer funds by hastily forging ahead with a sole-sourced military aircraft contract worth up to $16 billion - without a shred of accountability to the people of Canada, Liberal National Defence Critic Ujjal Dosanjh said today. "This wasteful government is giving away $16 billion in taxpayer money without a transparent bidding process," said Mr. Dosanjh. “It's outrageous, particularly from a government that has already racked up a record $54-billion deficit and blew more than $1 billion on a 72-hour G8/G20 meeting.”

Last month it was revealed that the government was planning to use an Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) to advise the public that it intends to contract with one particular supplier, since National Defence officials only want the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters made by Lockheed Martin. At that time, the estimated cost of the contract was upwards of $9 billion, not including maintenance costs. Media reports are now pegging the total cost with maintenance at up to $16 billion.

UPDATE: The Ottawa Citizen has picked up the story.

The Harper government is gearing up for more multibillion-dollar announcements on military equipment spending: one for a controversial purchase of new fighter aircraft, the other a re-announcement of a project that was derailed two years ago.

Department of National Defence officials are preparing for an announcement next Friday on a new fighter aircraft, a project estimated to cost $16 billion. Sources say since the purchase and its price tag are seen as potentially controversial, the government planned the announcement when Parliament wasn’t sitting and public interest would be at its lowest because of summer holidays.

More On Flaherty's Gambling Addiction and Harper's Fraud

As I posted a few days ago, on how Jim Flaherty had gambled away our future, many others are sounding the alarm about the financial mess that he and his enabler Stephen Harper (aka: Guy Giorno) have gotten us into.

It's too bad God deserted Jim Flaherty's friend, Charles McVety years ago, because clearly that man is going to need a prayer soon.

As for Canada, I doubt we even have a prayer at all that can now save us.

Frances Russel for the Winnipeg Free Press calls it all smoke and mirrors.

That $57,000 Muskoka "lake" in the $1.9 million "Experience Canada" media centre isn't all that's fake about Canada's image as host country for the G8 and G20 summits. The real charade is Canada's preaching to the world about the strengths of Canada's banking system -- and using that "strength" to lead the opposition to an international bank tax -- while giving Canada's banks a massive bailout.

The financial media have virtually ignored Ottawa's $200-billion low-interest line of credit to help Canada's banks weather the recession and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.'s $125-billion purchase of questionable mortgages and other rotten paper held by the banks when the crash came in the fall of 2008. Both were part of the 2009 federal budget.

Neither has stopped Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty from touring world capitals to boast that Canada, alone, never had to loan or guarantee one red cent for its banks and would mount the barricades to protect Canada's solid and prudent financial institutions from being gouged to save the "reckless" banking systems and taxpayers of other countries.

She calls it smoke and mirrors. I call it lying.

Of course I lived in Ontario when Jim Flaherty was our provincial finance minister, and lying was actually part of their party platform.

Ralph Surette for the Chronicle Herald is also well aware of the fraud that has not only been played on the Canadian people but all members of the G20 Nations:

The banks were actually "bailed out" to the tune of $125 billion just before and after the 2008 election — in the form of a massive purchase of questionable mortgages and other "rotten paper," in the words of one economist, held by them. This was done through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a federal agency. The taxpayer is now on the hook for these mortgages, 40 per cent of which are considered at risk, with more to come if interest rates rise and the economy dips again.

But the kicker is this: Hardly anybody noticed. It wasn’t an issue in the election, and the financial press said nothing. A few tried, and are still trying, to raise the alarm. Michel Chossudovsky, a retired University of Ottawa economist and head of the Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalization, pointed out that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had announced a $2.3-billion surplus in the offing before the election, then quickly changed it to a $64-billion deficit. He argues that the entire deficit was for the first installments of the bailout, which the prime minister described as "not a bailout" but a "market transaction."

... As for the banks, here’s the rest of the story. Bank profits have boomed after the "not a bailout." The Big Six have made some $5 billion in each of the last two quarters. Last year, the banks gave their top dudes over $8 billion in bonuses. This year, they’ve put away $5 billion so far for this exercise in legalized theft. Meanwhile, the Harper tax cuts — which will have Canada with the lowest corporate tax rates in the G7 by 2012 — is giving the banks a gift of some $200 million per quarter at present rates of profit. Voices in the wilderness call for banks to be regulated like a public utility, which is what they are, in order to stop this "wealth by stealth" operation. Others call on the federal government to resume borrowing, on its own behalf and that of the provinces and municipalities, from the Bank of Canada, bypassing commercial rates — as it did before 1974. With Harper in power and nobody noticing anything, good luck with that.

Wake up media, or this country is going to be in serious trouble, since Harper has made our economy almost completely contingent on the Americans.

Signs are mounting that the U.S. economic recovery is losing steam as stimulus measures fade and companies remain reluctant to hire. A collection of readings Thursday from diverse areas of the economy – housing, manufacturing, employment and construction – all reinforced the sense that the expansion of the world’s largest economy is decelerating in the face of considerable headwinds.

And with Flaherty touting derivatives, a high octane, high risk form of trading, we're hanging by our fingernails. Germany is smartening up. I'd be happy if this government just did something smart.

German lawmakers on Friday approved a government bill that would cement in law and extend curbs on speculative trading practices following the country's abrupt imposition of restrictions in May. The bill — which the government said is aimed at speeding agreement on stronger European rules, but the opposition denounced as ineffective — passed parliament's lower house with the votes of Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition.

Wake up people and start demanding some answers. This is your money and your children's future that they are blowing.