Harper's Legacy of Attack Ads are Part of His Legacy of Hate

During the 1993 federal election campaign, when Kim Campbell was heading up the now defunct Progressive Conservative Party, a decision was made to launch an attack on Jean Chretien's face (video below). It was subtle, but the message was clear.

Did he look like he could run a country when he had such a "deformity"?

The backlash was immediate. Even many of her own candidates denounced the ads and made a public apology to the Liberal leader. The ads were pulled but the damage was done.

What was interesting, was the public's reaction. As it states in the news clip below, we weren't used to that kind of thing. Attack ads were nothing new, but the attacks were always on policy, never personal. How things have changed.

Stephen Harper has allowed his visceral hatred for anything "L"iberal or "l"iberal, to consume him. You can see it in the House, when he has to respond to a criticism from across the floor. At times he's teary, struggling to keep his composure. It's not normal.

And as we look back at his five years in office, the nature of his attack ads are certainly part of his legacy, and his potential undoing. They have been almost non-stop.

There was a piece on the Sudbury Star community pages, asking the question: Are Conservative Party Attack Ads Backfiring for Stephen Harper?

Are the Conservative Party of Canada’s recently unveiled attack ads backfiring for Stephen Harper? Given what’s been written about the controversy these ads are creating, versus the substance of the actual ads, I think that it may be fair to answer that question in the affirmative.

....And that’s the problem with these ads. Just what the heck are they? Some have suggested that they are clearly election ads. However, there isn’t an election underway that I’m aware of. So, ok, then they’re pre-election ads by the Conservative Party. Sure, ok, but Stephen Harper keeps telling everybody that he doesn’t want an election. Some are suggesting then, that this is Harper’s way of bargaining with the opposition parties from a position of strength: he’s showing them that if they choose to bring the government down, this is the sort of campaign that they’re in for, so hopefully one of the opposition parties will side with government come budget time. Well, that’s an interesting way to seek co-operation amongst political parties, as Jack Layton, Leader of the NDP, noted. It’s seeking co-operation by hitting the opposition leaders over the head with a two-by-four.

And Harper's lack of control was again evident in responding to the new Liberal ads, that attack two key policy errors. Sixteen billion for fighter jets (to attack the Russians) and an additional six billion for corporate tax cuts. He says that the Liberals are attacking "job creators" and the aerospace workers.

He's nuts. I'm sorry but I can't think of any better way of putting that. We all know that corporate tax cuts never, never, never, create jobs. They are only, as Bill Maher and countless others suggest, a transfer of money from those who need it, to those who don't. And Canada's aerospace workers are not guaranteed jobs because their companies can only tender for the maintenance contracts, which will be extensive. But they are up against the U.S. and Mexico, among others in Harper's aggressive trade deals.

Their chance of ever getting a piece of the pie are slim to none.

What is bothering Harper right now is that the other parties are ready for an election. He's headed up his corporate backed movement for too long, knowing that he has a steady money tap. But money isn't everything and personal assaults are getting boring.

You have to give us something, and so far, we have gotten nothing from this government but deficit and debt.

It's time to pull the plug.

An Attempt to Remove All Reminders of Stephen Harper's War

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

On June 3, 2008; Canada's then Ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, was interviewed on a U.S. radio program via telephone.

What the morning talk show host, Renee Montagne, wanted to know was why Canada was suffering a disproportionate number of losses in the war. The highest ratio of all NATO forces.

Whenever you hear that a NATO soldier has been killed in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, it's probably a Canadian soldier. Canada only has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan but they are fighting in one of the most dangerous regions of the country. So while Canadian troops make up only a small fraction of NATO forces, they've suffered the highest number of fatalities proportionately. (1)

Soon after being elected in January of 2006, Stephen Harper made Afghanistan his first official visit anywhere as prime minister. There he gave his now infamous "cut and run" speech, which was simply a scaled down version of one that George Bush had presented at the U.S. Naval Academy* a year before.

"You can't lead from the bleachers. I want Canada to be a leader," Harper told about 1,000 troops at the Kandahar airfield base the day after he arrived on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. "Your work is about more than just defending Canada's national interests. Your work is also about demonstrating an international leadership role for our country."

"There will be some who want to cut and run, but cutting and running is not my way and it's not the Canadian way," he said, to a round of applause. "We don't make a commitment and then run away at the first sign of trouble. We don't and we will not, as long as I'm leading this country." (2)

Up to that time, 10 Canadian soldiers and a diplomat had been killed, and 26 Canadian soldiers had been injured. But that was about to change. To impress George Bush, Stephen Harper sent our men and women into the most dangerous areas of battle. According to Rick Hillier: "It was Stephen Harper's decision to move Canadian troops from Kabul and reposition them in southern Kandahar province, where they are now at much more danger of being killed by roadside bombs." (3)

And speeches were not the only thing Harper borrowed from his mentor. He also made the decision to discontinue flying the flag at half mast as a show of respect to fallen soldiers, and forbid the media from capturing for history, the images of flag draped coffins.

"Look, don't bring the Airbus in, or if you bring the plane in, turn it away from the cameras so that people can't see the bodies coming off, or do it after dark, or do it down behind the hangars, or just bar everybody from it," Hillier quotes the PMO staffers as saying. "They clearly didn't want that picture of the flag-draped coffin on the news."It is Canadian military policy that every Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan will be honoured as a war hero. Harper's disrespect for soldiers was the last straw for Hillier and prompted his early retirement at the age of 53. (4)

Harper expected backlash for this decision, from the media that he had already silenced, but was unprepared for the reaction of Canadians, especially from military families.

Nothing "casual" About Our Losses

Last week Canada revealed itself once again as a truly unique nation. In a world where dead warriors are commonplace and taken for granted, this country stopped, paid attention, lowered the flags and gave full military honours to four soldiers, who died inexplicably and tragically at the hands of our allies. (Lesley Hughes, April 2002)

Hughes was referring to the "friendly fire" deaths of four Canadian soldiers, the first reports of our country's losses in this war. And a nation mourned. Bill Leger, the father of Sgt. Marc Leger, spoke in reference to Stephen Harper's 2006 decision to ban the media from covering the flag draped coffins of fallen soldiers:

"... in 2002 it was a great thing for us to have the media there. It was something that we felt at that time, and still feel the same way, that it was a Canadian thing. It was something that we wanted to show all Canadians what the cost of their liberty is. It's nothing else but that. And it's still heart-warming to see the faces and everything else when people were lined up on the 401, in 2002, all the way from Trenton to Toronto. They wanted to be there. They had to be there. I was told that often, over and over again. And those are the memories that I have, and those are the things that I carry with me all my life." (5)

And Leger's mother was interviewed more recently:

Ask Claire Leger what the past decade has meant to her, and she'll tell you a story of abiding sorrow ... After the tragedy, Leger and her husband Richard planted four small Canadian flags in the garden of their home near Ottawa, in memory of Marc and his comrades, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 24; Pte. Richard Green, 21 and Pte. Nathan Smith, 26.

Seven years later, the Legers haven't sought ''closure'' from their grief. As the war years have ticked by they've maintained a steady vigil, dutifully marking the death of every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. ''Every time I have to go put a little flag in our garden, it feels like I'm burying our son all over again,'' she says. ''I send a card to every family that loses a soldier and I often get a card back, with a picture of their son or daughter.''''There's less and less attention paid to those who are killed and it's heartbreaking to me,'' says Leger. ''I wish I could share with other families the support we had when Marc died. We were embraced by Canadians. That's what kept me going - I felt people actually cared.''Leger is a fierce critic of what she considers an unwinnable war, and says Canada's participation has made us ''puppets'' of the Americans. (6)

Stephen Harper then did an about face, finding a way to make himself look good, and with the help of the ad firm Hill and Knowlton, quickly turned the war into a giant photo-op. Canada had not witnessed a propaganda campaign of this magnitude since the last world war. But it was not about "King and Country" this time, it was about Stephen Harper and ... well ... Stephen Harper.

His first defense minister, Gordon O'Connor had been an employee of H&K, lobbying for military contracts. In the United States, the ad firm was well known for using dirty tricks to sell wars:

Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait," a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. (7)

Canadians were no longer going to oppose the war. Belligerent nationalism would reign supreme, and they were going to instead cheer from the bleachers. Rah, rah, rah!

And what did they use to whip us into a frenzy?

Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign [my emphasis] to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S. (8)

So in Canada, H & K not only had one of their own (O'Connor) as Minister of Defense, deciding which of their clients got what military contracts; they were also able to sell a yellow ribbon campaign that had been mothballed, to a country not known for outward displays of such aggression.

And to make sure that everyone stayed on message, Stephen Harper completely controlled the media, by completely controlling that message.

The Harper government used a pervasive message-control tool to persuade Canadians their foremost purpose in Afghanistan was building schools and fostering democracy rather than waging a war that was turning bloodier by the day.

An investigation by The Canadian Press shows the Conservatives systematically drafted “Message Event Proposals” as part of a quiet campaign to persuade Canadians their country was primarily engaged in development work to rebuild a shattered nation rather than hunting down and killing an emboldened insurgency.The government used MEPs literally to script the words it wanted to hear from the mouths of its top diplomats, aid workers and cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 to divert public attention from the soaring double-digit death toll of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. (9)

And when reports began to surface as early as 2007, that Canadians could be charged with war crimes:

WASHINGTON–Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office used a "6,000-mile screwdriver" to oversee the denial of reports of Afghan detainee abuse when the scandal first erupted in 2007, according to a former senior NATO public affairs official who was then based in Kabul. The former official, speaking on condition his name not be used, told the Toronto Star that Harper's office in Ottawa "scripted and fed" the precise wording NATO officials in Kabul used to repudiate allegations of abuse "at a time when it was privately and generally acknowledged in our office that the chances of good treatment at the hands of Afghan security forces were almost zero."

"It was highly unusual. I was told this was the titanic issue for Prime Minister Harper and that every single statement that went out needed to be cleared by him personally ... [my emphasis]" (10)

In February, the Hill Times reported on the suffering of our men and women who saw service in Afghanistan:

More than 6,000 Canadian Forces members and discharged veterans who are receiving physical or psychiatric disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada have either served in Afghanistan or have a disability that has been related to their service in Afghanistan, the department says. The majority of the soldiers receiving benefits are likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or war-related psychiatric conditions, according to global figures the department and the Canadian Forces provided The Hill Times. They also do not appear to be included in Afghanistan combat or non-combat casualty figures the Canadian Forces compiled, even though the veterans and serving members who have psychiatric conditions likely have them as a result of serving in the Afghan war. (11)

And when this report came out, Harper's head media cheerleader, Jane Taber, turned it into a hyper-partisan sideshow. I have never been so ashamed.

So given Stephen Harper's callous disregard for human life, and anal control of the media, should we be surprised to learn that he is now attacking our veterans? Should we be surprised to learn that he has fired the man advocating for them? Or should we be surprised to learn that he has forbidden our broken soldiers from telling their stories?

A half dozen Afghan war veterans who wanted to talk about how their injuries affected their lives were told by senior military staff they were not to attend a press conference held earlier this week by Veterans Ombudsman Pat Stogran. The instructions come as the debate over how injured veterans are being treated reached a highpoint in Ottawa earlier this week, when Stogran held a news conference and criticized Veterans Affairs Canada and the government for not doing enough for the country's injured military personnel. Other veterans, no longer serving in the Canadian Forces, also spoke out at the conference about the failure of government to provide for them. (12)

Are you mad yet? Are you ashamed? Are you Canadian?

This may have been Stephen Harper's War when he changed our direction from Peacekeepers to Peacemakers, but this is now our war, as we go into battle against a government who would allow our veterans to be treated like this.

Are you in?

Footnotes:

George Bush (April 2005): "Some are calling for a deadline for withdrawal. Many advocating an artificial timetable for withdrawing our troops are sincere — but I believe they're sincerely wrong. Pulling our troops out before they've achieved their purpose is not a plan for victory. Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would send a signal to our enemies — that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run and abandon its friends... To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)"

Sources:

1. Canada Bears Brunt of Fighting in South Afghanistan, Interview with Arif Lalani, National Public Radio, June 3, 2008

2. Canada committed to Afghan mission, Harper tells troops, CBC News, March 13, 2006

3. A Soldier First, By Rick Hillier, Harper Collins Publishers, 2009, ISBN - 13:9781554684915

4. General Rick Hillier criticizes Stephen Harper, Lilith News, October 20, 2009

5. Canadian Government Imitates Bush Regime: Dishonors Their War Dead Too, Afraid To Let The Public See The Cost Of Empire, Associated Press, April 26, 2006

6. Afghanistan war: Canada's defining event of past decade, By Richard Foot, Canwest News, 2009

7. How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf, Center for Media and Democracy

8. How Bush Sr. Sold The Bombing Of Iraq, by Mitchel Cohen, December 28, 2002

9. Ottawa’s Afghanistan message: It’s development, not war, Government scripts told top diplomats how to frame the mission, Mike Blanchfield and Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press, June 7, 2010

10. PMO issued instructions on denying abuse in '07: Former NATO official says response to reports was 'scripted' in Ottawa, By Mitch Potter Washington Bureau, November 22, 2009

11. Afghanistan veterans on disability now 6,000 Forces, Veterans Affairs reluctant to disclose casualty records after eight years of war, By Tim Naumetz, the Hill Times, February 8, 2010

12. Wounded vets claim they were muzzled by brass: Soldiers were willing to discuss injuries, but steered away from ombudsman's press conference, By David Pugliese, The Ottawa Citizen, August 21, 2010

Michael Ignatieff and the Man from Shawinigan

I have to be honest, I never voted for Jean Chretien or Paul Martin. I guess as a long time PC supporter, I still held onto the old prejudices, somehow believing that they were the enemy.

But since then I have come to respect Mr. Chretien as a statesman, and recognize his contribution to our country.

I've also realized that things are not always as they seem, and as Joe Clark once said about Stephen Harper, and the PC's fall from grace; that for those who didn't want to stick it out and rebuild the party, the "alternative was frightening".

And we are now learning just how "frightening" the alternative really is.

I called my blog Pushed to the Left and Loving it, because when I felt that there was no longer a party in the centre, only an extreme right-wing neoconservative option, and I lost my home; I discovered that the other side of the fence wasn't so bad after all.

For decades the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives battled for that coveted centre position because that's where most Canadians hang out. But once elected they worked toward consensus building.

But neoconservatism is the exact opposite. They don't want to build a consensus, they just want everyone to get out of their way.

Stephen Harper's former campaign manager, Tom Flanagan, once suggested that their biggest challenge was convincing Canadians that they were moving to the centre, when they were not. Harper even managed to fool us for awhile, but his latest actions in regards to the G-20, the 16 billion dollar military jet contract, closing the prison farms, Fox News North, the census debacle and his "white's only" hiring options, have blown his cover.

He's still the same right-wing extremist that defined him in his Reform Party days.

So despite all the rumours, Michael Ignatieff's visit with Mr. Chretien was a hit. I knew it would be. Both man are intelligent and genuinely care about this country.

My journey to the place where I now promote Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party, was not an easy one. I inherited the gift (curse?) of skepticism from my dad, who always reminded me to question everything, to arrive at my own truth.

The best example of this was in high school, when we were given an assignment to write a political essay, choosing from democracy, monarchy, communism, etc.

I chose communism because I thought it would be easy, given the headlines in the middle of a the Cold War. But when I completed my first draft, my dad handed it back and said that it was not an essay based on anything other than rhetoric, and to be fair I had to at least learn what communism really was. (he was certainly not a sympathiser, but a life long Liberal)

So every day I headed to the library and asked for the Communist Manifesto. It was not allowed to be out on the shelves at the time, and I felt like an adolescent boy asking the druggist for condoms.

But I worked my way through it, and while I decided that I preferred democracy, I reached that decision based on fact. My paper was more balanced, showing the pros and cons, rather than just falling back on the popular opinion of the day, that everything was a "commie plot".

Michael Ignatieff is no communist either, but also drew his own conclusions about political and social structure.

From his Massey lecture series ( The Rights Revolution, 2000, Anansi, Pg. 19-20):

"... some civil inequalities between men and women, between gays and straights, between Quebecois and English Canadians, have been addressed by rights talk. But what about inequalities between rich and poor? One of the strange features of rights talk has been that it makes visible some inequalities — sexual and linguistic inequalities, for example — while obscuring others — such as those based on class and income. I'm no Marxist, but I am astonished that social and economic inequality, the focus of so much socialist passion when I was a student, has simply disappeared from the political agenda in Canada and most other capitalist societies.

This disappearance has something to do with rights talk. It can capture civil and political inequalities, but it can't capture more basic economic inequalities, such as the ways in which the economy rewards owners and investors at the expense of workers. The economic system may not infringe anybody's individual rights, but the whole machine ends up reproducing enduring types of social inequality. Rights talk not only fails to capture this kind of inequality, but also diverts the attention of the political system from it"

So in the past thirty years, we've talked about women, aboriginals, gays, and lesbians. But what about the workers? What about the way their union rights have been eroded? What about the economic insecurity of our poorest fellow citizens? Why can't our politics address this? It can't be because everyone has shared the fruits of our recent economic boom. It can't be because the poor don't exist. It must be because they have become invisible.

He wrote that in 2000, without a political agenda, and it was after reading the Rights Revolution that I realized that we share common ground. I'm no Marxist either, but I know that our current system isn't working and neoconservatism is only making it worse.

The gap between rich and poor is growing and unfortunately our most vulnerable citizens are still "invisible".

I am not anti-corporation and recognize that we need a healthy business structure if there is any hope for success. But I don't believe they should be pandered to in the way that this government is pandering to them. Massive corporate tax cuts, while they are telling the rest of us that we have to suck up the recession, caused by the greed of the corporate sector in the first place.

The rights of the workers must be considered. A neocon vision is low wages and a free market. But what they fail to consider is that the reason businesses are doing well is because of good union jobs, that create buying power. If everyone is making minimum wage, who will be left to purchase anything other than essentials?

We need someone with a vision that encompasses all citizens, and I really believe that Michael Ignatieff is that person. And I also believe that he has the best team, that he will not silence and keep chained.

And I know in my heart that my skeptical dad would have voted for him, and that's good enough for me.

Will the Reformers Bar Jean Chretien From Anniversary of Park he Helped to Create?

In yet another move to put partisanship above the common good, the Harperites appear to be excluding Jean Chretien from the anniversary celebrations for a park that he helped to create.

He might have created the national park near his hometown but Jean Chrétien shouldn’t necessarily count on an invitation to its 40th anniversary party. The Conservative government won’t offer any guarantees that the three-term former prime minister will be on the guest list for the anniversary event near Shawinigan.

Chrétien helped inaugurate Mauricie National Park in 1970, while he was still a young cabinet minister in Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s government. The birthday bash is scheduled for next month. Environment Minister Jim Prentice’s office can’t say for certain whether the Liberal prime minister will be invited. It says the event-planning is still in its initial stages. That the attendance of Shawinigan’s favourite son should even be in doubt has angered local supporters, who detect a Tory conspiracy afoot.

I'm sure residents will be thrilled that Jim "I don't have time to act on the environment because I'm too busy doing my hair" Prentice will be there.

How Did we Get Here From There? The Afghanistan Call to Arms

International law, as set out in the United Nations Charter, is very specific in defining scenarios under which war can legally be waged .... There are basically only two scenarios that legitimize war.

First, if a country is directly attacked, and there is no non-violent remedy, it can respond with military force in self-defence. The only other scenario—when the collective interest of international peace and security is at stake—requires the authorization of the UN Security Council. [Michael] Mandel, author of How America Gets Away with Murder, notes that self-defence does not apply in the case of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, since the U.S. launched wars against both Iraq and Afghanistan, even though it was not attacked by either country.

Washington also failed to secure UN Security Council authorization. In the case of Iraq, Washington tried to get such authorization but failed, and so decided to proceed with its invasion anyway. In the case of Afghanistan, Washington never even tried for Security Council authorization.' Thus, says Mandel, both the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions were illegal under international law.

The illegality of the invasion of Iraq was more clear-cut and obvious, since no connection has ever been established between the 9/11 attack and Iraq ... But the war in Afghanistan has long been considered more complicated and nuanced, since the ruling Taliban apparently allowed the al Qaeda terrorists who carried out 9/11 to use Afghanistan as a base. It might seem then, that the U.S. could reasonably argue that it was attacking Afghanistan in self-defence, since Afghanistan had harboured a group that had attacked America.

No matter how compelling the U.S. case against bin Laden was, Washington did not have the right under international law to invade Afghanistan in order to pursue him. "One is not allowed to invade a country to effect an arrest," notes Mandel.' (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 89-90)

Once the Karzai government was elected, the war did become legitimized, but that still leaves the question, was it legitimate to invade a country without actual proof that they were behind the terrorist attacks? Recent videos apparently from Bin Laden with an admission of guilt, are believed to be forgeries, and it's seems more plausible that he has been dead for several years.

He was suffering from acute kidney failure and could not have roamed around in the mountains for long undetected.

But this isn't about conspiracy theories, or who was behind the attacks, but our own involvement in the Afghan war. I'm using this page as a starting point for postings to show the chronology of 'the mission' and why I think we need to get out now. We can go back when the fighting stops and help rebuild, since we helped to destroy, but no more killing.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced on October 7, 2001; that 'Canada would contribute forces to the international force being formed to conduct a campaign against terrorism', but the original commitment was only to last to October 2003.

So why are we still there and what are we doing exactly? We're not fighting for democracy. Hell, we don't even have that here.

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A Background to Afghanistan. A Nation in Perpetual Conflict

The Shah of Iran and the Birth of Terrorists

Truth May be the First Casualty of War, But in 2002 There Was Nothing Casual About Afghanistan

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

Military Spending and Other Costs Associated With the Invasion

More on the Financial Burdens of This Damn War

Selling the War Invoked a Buying Frenzy But Was the Product Shoddy?

The Manley Report Gave New Direction But Fails to Answer the Question: Why Are We There?

The Conservatives Do Poor Job of Supporting Troops

When Canada Was a Democracy we Were Able to Ask Questions

Dawson Bayliss Gives us One More Reason to Rethink Afghanistan

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Conservatives Sit Down For Canada and Leave National Portrait Gallery Homeless

Paul Dewar of the NDP worked very hard to get the Reform Conservatives to stick to Jean Chretien's plan to keep the National Portrait Gallery in the Nation's capital. Instead after flitting about, they gave the contract to Calgary. Calgary? A NATIONAL gallery in Calgary? Why were we not surprised?

However, as it turned out, the whole fiasco was a lesson in futility, wrought with lies; and we are no further ahead than we were when the campaign first started. Our gallery remains homeless and Conservative incompetence has hurt taxpayers again. When are they going to start taking an interest in Canadian culture? But then Harper doesn't believe Canada has a culture but is simply part of a larger Anglo culture, so what hope is there? Our treasures remain in a warehouse until we can elect a government that gives a damn.

Portrait gallery panel chafes at choice restrictions: documents
By Dean Beeby (CP)
November 15, 2009

OTTAWA — Members of a blue-ribbon panel created to find a home for the Portrait Gallery of Canada felt handcuffed because the federal government forbade them from examining key cost and tourism issues, says a newly released report.

The five-member panel was also misinformed at its crucial selection meeting that all five of the private-sector bids it was evaluating fully complied with federal rules - learning only months later that two did not.

The turmoil behind closed doors may help explain why the highly politicized search for a private-sector home for the portrait collection ended in a shambles a year ago, with no winning bid and the government abandoning the idea.

The Canadian Press obtained formerly secret accounts of deliberations, through requests under the Access to Information Act, after federal officials reneged on a promise to proactively release the materials.

In early 2007, the Conservative government ditched a plan by Jean Chretien's Liberal government to display the venerable portrait collection in the abandoned American embassy building on Wellington Street, facing Parliament Hill.

About $11.4 million had been spent on the project by that point, though some funds were used to remove asbestos and carry out other renovations that were needed no matter what the future use of the building. Total costs of the new gallery facility were projected in 2005 at $44.6 million.

The Tories instead announced that nine Canadian cities were eligible as a potential homes for the collection and invited private-sector bids, to encourage a public-private partnership and possibly place a cultural institution outside Ottawa.

A panel of five experts, including Canada's chief librarian and archivist Ian Wilson, was struck to evaluate bids and make recommendations. Initial expressions of interest came from 132 firms, including some in Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto.

The deadline for submissions was changed twice, after federal officials failed to provide timely answers to basic questions from interested parties.

By May 16 last year, five formal proposals had arrived along with their $1-million deposits - from developers in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary and two in Edmonton.

But panel members soon chafed when told they could not consider the costs of operating a new gallery at a distance from the storage facility in nearby Gatineau, Que., where the main collection resides.

A 2006 internal Canadian Heritage memo estimated the remote-location costs would add about $2.5 million to the $5.5-million annual operating bill of any new gallery located far from Ottawa. But this financial information was deemed non-relevant to the bid evaluations.

Panel members were also told they could not consider whether any of the five bids had strong potential for tourism growth.

Members expressed "dissatisfaction with some of the constraints," says a report by Jim Lynes, an independent consultant hired by government to monitor the process.

"There was no way to favour cities with a better potential to generate visitors for the PGC (Portrait Gallery of Canada)," says a censored version of the document.

"There was no opportunity to take the costs of a decentralized facility into consideration."

Federal officials told the panel those "constraints" could not be changed because they reflected "policy direction" from government.

A spokeswoman for Library and Archives Canada, which manages the portrait gallery, said in an interview that tourism had already been considered in creating the nine-city short list. Isabelle Vigneault also said any remaining cost issues would have been dealt with in a "second phase" of the bidding process.

Panel members held an intense selection meeting over two days in July 2008, complaining that some vital information had been provided only at the last minute. They were also given erroneous information on scoring, which cause confusion.

"Members were also concerned that they were not being given enough time to read the five submissions," says Lynes' report, which notes that all bids were officially deemed compliant with the requirements of the tender.

The panel eventually endorsed one bid (the identity is censored in the released material) on condition the government ask the developer to drop some provisions that tilted the deal too far in favour of the private-sector.

The provisions were "unacceptable in that they limited the Crown's rights and ability to act and increased the level of risk for the Crown, while at the same time limiting the risks for the developer."

Lynes' report of the deliberations added that some developers "seemed to fail to recognize that the Portrait Gallery of Canada is a national institution" - the very fear raised by some critics of the process.

The process unravelled in early November when federal lawyers deemed two of the bids - including the favoured one - non-compliant, contrary to assurances the panel was given more than three months earlier.

Lynes' final report, dated Dec. 15, 2008, concluded the bid-and-evaluation process that ultimately failed to produce a winner was technically fair and open, though had only "limited" transparency.

"Although transparency has, to this point, been limited, the planned release of the reports of the evaluation committee and the IRM (independent review monitor) will ensure that the process has been transparent," he wrote.

But the government appears to have had no such plan to proactively release the reports.

Internal Canadian Heritage media lines say the reports "will be made available through access to information," a formal procedure available to anyone wanting to access any government document.

The Canadian Press obtained heavily redacted versions of both reports through the Access to Information Act after months-long delays.

Lynes declined an interview, citing confidentiality agreements. Ian Wilson, who has since retired as librarian and archivist, also declined immediate comment.

"I continue to be bound by the post-employment code and my obligations as a former senior official," he said in an email.

The aborted bid-evaluation process cost taxpayers about $1.9 million, according to the documents.

The Portrait Gallery of Canada remains without a home, residing in the Gatineau warehouse, on a federal website and in occasional exhibitions around the country. The federal government has budgeted $3.5 million annually for the program.

When Canada Was a Leader Our Initiatives Saved Lives

I feel a little guilty sometimes when I see Jean Chretien now. I never voted for Mr. Chretien but his statesmanship has humbled me. I also felt extremely proud the day he said that Canada would not be joining the Iraq invasion. Once again we stood our ground. Canada was a leader then, we are just followers now.

I think I took a lot for granted. All federal leaders before Stephen Harper put this country first. All federal leaders before Stephen Harper put Canadians first.

We are no longer leaders and the ad campaign painting Mr. Ignatieff as un-Canadian, has given us little reason to feel proud of the many great Canadians who helped to establish our international reputation. They are 'icky' now. "Just visiting".

Dig up Canada's Walk of Fame, because it's paved with the names of people like Mr. Ignatieff. Just as with women, peace-activists, environmentalists, scientists; they have all been marginalized and have no place in Harper's Canada.

But every now and then I get a glimpse of a memory of a once proud country, that punched above it's weight, and this story is very inspiring. Knowing that under Jean Chretien, Canada led the initiative against landmines is a wonderful memory. What will we remember now?

Canadian landmine initiative saved thousands of lives: report
By Chris Cobb,
Canwest News Service
November 15, 2009

OTTAWA — The Canadian-led treaty to rid the world of landmines has saved thousands of lives and significantly reduced production and use of the devastating, anti-personnel weapons, according to a new international report.

The Ottawa Treaty, which was implemented 10 years ago, made the use and production of landmines illegal in 156 countries that ratified the accord.

According to the 10-year review in Landmines Monitor, unexploded weapons have been cleared from at least 3,200 square kilometres of land in more than 90 countries.

In the past decade, 2.2 million landmines have been removed, along with 250,000 anti-vehicle mines and 17 million explosive remnants of war shells.

De-mining is painstaking and dangerous work usually done by men using simple hand tools.

The majority of landmine victims are civilians living with children in rural areas.

Typically, they step on landmines long after battles and wars have ended.

The international Mine Ban Treaty, signed in Ottawa in December 1997 and enacted as international law in March 1999, is seen internationally as one of Canada’s most significant diplomatic accomplishments.

But the new report, published by the umbrella group International Campaign to Ban Landmines warns that the treaty is still “a success in progress” with 5,200 people killed or wounded by landmines last year and 39 countries, including China, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States, still not part of the agreement.

Russia and Myanmar are the only states known to still be using anti-personnel landmines but many rebel or terrorist groups still possess the weapons.

About a dozen countries are still producing landmines but, according to the report, the production is at an all-time low.

Paul Hannon, executive director of the Ottawa-based Mines Action Canada, said the study confirms “the wisdom of Canada leading the world to ban landmines.”

“This report documents clearly the progress that has been made and shows we continue to get closer to a world free of anti-personnel landmines” he said.

Michael Ignatieff Made a Wise Move in His Recent Hiring

Good news today, that Mr. Ignatieff has hired Peter Donolo, former communications director Jean Chrétien, to act as his chief of staff. He recently named Marc Garneau as Quebec lieutenant and these two moves should help in Quebec.

I know everyone has an opinion of the Cauchon/Coderre incident, but the Liberal leader was caught between a rock and a hard place. Maybe we can now finally move forward and put that whole nonsense behind us.

Ignatieff hires ex-Chrétien PR man as chief of staff
October 27, 2009
CBC News

Michael Ignatieff has hired veteran political strategist Peter Donolo to take over as the Liberal leader's chief of staff.

Donolo, who will be leaving his post at the Strategic Counsel, a Toronto polling firm, will replace Ian Davey, a longtime Ignatieff supporter.

Donolo was a communications director for former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien.

"Peter will be given carte blanche to clean house and do whatever he needs to do," one source, who asked not to be identified, told CBC News.

After CBC News reported the story, Ignatieff released a statement confirming the staff changes, saying Donolo "brings a wealth of experience to this role."

"Ian Davey has my gratitude for his enormous service in building this OLO team, and I am grateful for his continuing counsel. I know that we are a stronger Liberal Party because of his contribution and leadership," Ignatieff said.

Sources also say the party's next director of communications will be a francophone.

The changes come as Liberals continue to struggle in the polls and recover from the fallout over the internal dispute over who should get the party nomination in the Quebec riding of Outremont.

Denis Coderre, Ignatieff's former Quebec lieutenant, left his post over the dispute and accused Ignatieff of listening to advisers in Toronto who "know nothing about Quebec."

Ignatieff had initially supported Coderre's choice of Nathalie Le Prohon for the riding but then changed his mind and cleared the way for former cabinet minister Martin Cauchon, whom Coderre opposed, to get the nomination.