Climate Change Deniers Get Caught With Their Carbons Down

Heartland Institute is an oil industry front group, devoted to dispelling the science of climate change.  The bulk of their funding comes from Exxon and the Koch brothers.  The same Koch brothers that Stephen Harper is using our tax dollars to build a pipeline for, so that they no longer have to pay decent Canadian wages.  The jobs will instead be outsourced to Texas.

Recently, Heartland got caught with their carbons down, when sensitive material was leaked to the press.

Astonishingly this leak required no espionage or hacking.  Someone simply contacted the institute for a copy of their budget, and got exactly what they asked for, by a careless (ex?) employee.

Maybe we should try this with the National Citizens Coalition.

But now that names have been named, can Heartland survive?  Several so-called socially conscious corporations are a little red-faced, and may not renew their tax-exempt donations, including General Motors and Microsoft.

Heartland are amateurs though.  Why simply rely on tax-exempt status and court corporations?  In Canada, Stephen Harper found a way to fund similar groups with our money.  Case in point, Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, once run by his former chief of staff Kory Teneckye.

After several of us bloggers blew the whistle on their 2005-06 annual report, filled with images of conservatives from Rhona Ambrose to Gerry Ritz, they pulled it from the internet.  I have a hard copy in my files that I keep meaning to get out and scan.  There is a photo of Harper that I'm sure was photo-shopped.  They probably bought in online as they do with many of their "official" images.

CRFA also tried to use a televised ad that included a speech by Stephen Harper during a campaign stop.

For their efforts, Jim Flaherty's 2007 budget included a two billion dollar grant for research into using Green Giant creamed corn to run your Hummers.  Or something else just as ridiculous.  It's not like they actually research anything.

Another 32 million was given for an ethanol plant in Collingwood, that never did go anywhere.

Stephen Harper even brazenly gave a Senate post to another CRFA employee, JoAnne Buth.  Nice to see that cronyism is alive and well and living inside the conservative bubble.

From Friends of Science to CRFA to the Heartland Institute.  It's all about money, money and more money.  Our money.

Gag the scientists but pay the fuel industry to spout nonsense.

This one's for Larry Miller:

"Our national policies will not be revoked or modified, even for scientists." Adolf Hitler

Kory Teneycke Reveals That the Harper Government is Lying

Another university professor has gone public with fears that he has been blacklisted by the 'Harper' government, because of his commitment to peace, and criticism of Harper himself.

A Canadian political scientist, whose peace proposals won national and international awards, believes his criticism of the Harper government was the final straw that led the conservative-minded University of Western Ontario to drop his courses and land him on a blacklist.

As difficult as it is to believe that something like this could happen in Canada, I've actually investigated this before it was brought to the attention of the media.

Working with an American journalist, we discovered that liberal minded educators are being not only blacklisted, but for many, their careers have come to an abrupt end. Naturally Harper's people are denying it.

American David Horowitz wrote a book The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America which has served as a "list" of university professors who must be purged from Academia.

The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built: The Cases of Margo Ramlal Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao, and Loretta Capeheart, By Dana Cloud, April 29, 2009

But perhaps the best evidence that this is taking place in Canada comes from Kory Teneycke.

This former spokesperson of Harper's, and longtime Reform movement activist, is reported to be trying to start a witch hunt against liberal academics … At a conference, he was heard telling a student, "If you have a teacher or examples of teachers who are trying to jam lefty philosophy down your throat, please send me an email … I’d love to make them famous."

These are not isolated incidents:

Heather MacIvor, a professor at the University of Windsor and a longtime researcher and commentator on the Conservative party, said she believes that there is a concerted effort to put a “chill” on academic critics of the Harper government, especially from the hard-right partisans who appear to see campuses as hotbeds of left-wing dissent. “This government has a hostility toward people who think for a living or people who write for a living,” MacIvor said, noting that Ignatieff’s academic past has made him an object of Conservative ridicule, too.

We have to start paying attention. This not only reeks of McCarthyism, but is eerily reminiscent of Germany in the 1920s and 30's, when Academia was being "purged" by a group of brown shirts.

This is not normal and this not Canada.

Poltergeist IV: Poor Carol Anne. Its Back!

Just when we thought we were rid of the horror that is Kory Teneycke, we learn that Sun has brought him back to scribe more frightening tales of neocon exploits.

I'm chewing my nails already.

Kory Teneycke, the prime minister's former director of communications, is returning to his posting at Sun TV News just months after he abruptly resigned, according to a report from the Globe and Mail. Teneycke, who was the Quebecor Media vice-president and a main advocate behind the proposed Sun TV News Channel, announced his resignation in September. He is expected to resume working at the new cable news network in days ...

But then, who reads the Sun? With the exception of Warren Kinsella, their columnists are all Reform Party rejects.

A Preview of Fox News North Proving That it Will Make Canadians Stupid

As Canada is poised to get it's own Fox News, courtesy of Stephen Harper and Canadian tax dollars, there's a story from the U.S. that we should pay attention to.

A study from the University of Maryland has revealed that Extended exposure to Fox News makes voters stupid.

Fox News is simply an extension of the Republican party and they flog ridiculous conspiracy theories, designed to convince the American people of things that are absolutely false.

The troublesome record of spin by conservative television station Fox News has long been a cause for concern to many Americans, who frequently allege that the nation's most viewed "news" network has the effect of dumbing down voters. Turns out, they were right.

A University of Maryland study (PDF) published earlier this month found that people in the survey who had the most exposure to Fox News were more likely to believe falsehoods and rumors about national and world affairs when compared to those who paid attention to other news outlets.

I can hardly wait.

Police Won't Pursue Charges Against Fox News North

Despite the fact that adding fraudulent names to a petition is "a criminal act", the police have decided not to pursue the matter, of an alleged criminal act perpetrated by Fox News North.

Maybe Canadians need to go to the new Harper website where you can report being a victim of crime, because this was a direct attack on our democracy.

But there is some justice. Kory Teneycke was was forced to resign.

Of course he's now lobbing for the Australian takeover of our Potash industry.

What's with that guy and billionaires from down under? He just can't quit them.

I love the closing statement though:

"... supporters of the Sun TV bid, who complained bitterly that the Avaaz petition was designed to silence a new, right-wing voice in the Canadian news media."

A new right-wing voice? That's all we have now. How much more right-wing do they want the media to get?

We have not one single voice for Canada now. Not one.

Kory Teneycke Wins as Biggest Loser. I am so Proud

I'm not talking about the weight loss show but Kory Teneycke has won a coveted spot in Canadian Business magazine, as one of their biggest losers.

Yah think?

Kory Tenecyke is Canadian Business magazine’s “Big Loser” in its Oct. 11 edition, the latest in a media pile-on of the former Harper communications chief. The 36-year-old, who was an ethanol lobbyist before joining the Prime Minister’s Office, is featured prominently on a double-page spread headlined:
“Winners & Losers: This week’s scorecard of ups and downs.”

And joining him, though without the hmmm ... recognition ... is his former boss Pierre Peladeau, who has backed down from promising to shove Fox News North down our throats.
As Murray Dobbins says:

It’s quite a come down. From in-your-face arrogance to a total retreat in a matter of a few months, the big money behind Quebecor’s determination to set up a Fox news North is now looking pretty humble.

There’s no doubt that part of this is overreach on the part of Pierre Karl Peladeau and his junkyard-dog front man Kory Teneycke. But mostly it is a huge victory for every Canadian who took time to write, email, phone or other wise protest this grotesque plan to move Canadian political culture to the far right. And a victory in particular for Avaaz the on-line social movement that flushed Teneycke and his bully tactics into the open.

Chalk two up for the good guys.

Could this be a sign? Teneycke attacked Margaret Atwood, she fought back, he got fired (he says "resigned"). Teneycke went after Lawrence Martin claiming that he lied in his book Harperland when he said that our self-proclaimed dictator was going to Queen in he didn't get his way. Lawrence produced a tape and Teneycke shut up and went into hiding.

Stephen Harper was quite willing to give Peladeau 200 million dollars of our money until we raised a stink. He backed down.

We will get them one at a time.

Another Canadian Author Stands up To Harper and Wins

There is a disturbing pattern with the Harper government whenever anyone challenges them. They put them in their cross hairs and then go on the attack. It usually works.

Then along came Margaret Atwood.

She stood up to the bullies and won. Score one for the good guys.

Now we have another brave soul refusing to be victimized. One of Canada's best authors and journalists Lawrence Martin was subjected to the usual nonsense after the release of his book Harperland.

He was called a Liberal hack, but Martin is no Liberal, nor is he a hack.

The Prime Minister's Office is, predictably, dismissing Lawrence Martin's fascinating new book -- Harperland: The Politics of Control -- as the work of a Liberal sympathizer.

This ignores Martin's crusading pursuit of past Liberal misdeeds, from Shawinigate to the sponsorship scandal, but, also, the intriguing fact that most of the author's sources are former intimates of Stephen Harper's. And they're speaking on the record.

"Former" is the operative word, of course. No one who wants to keep their job, or pursue a career in the capital, can afford to be openly critical of this wary, self-protective prime minister. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews illustrated the approved technique recently, when asked about federal funding for hockey arenas: "Whatever the leader said, I stand by what the leader said."

And when Kory Teneycke denied telling Martin that Harper was going to go see the Queen if the Governor General refused his request to prorogue, he simply denied it.

He forgot that Lawrence Martin is smarter than the whole lot of them.

He produced a tape. Hee, hee.

Taking Control of the Conversation by Eliminating the Noise

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

" ... we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children." - Martin Luther King Jr.

The above was part of a speech made by Dr. King on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It has become a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Many people believe that the Religious Right or Moral Majority, came about because of Roe vs Wade, the case that legitimized abortion. But it did not. It was created in response to the civil rights movement. According to Rabbi Caryn Broitman, it was knee jerk to:

... the Supreme Court decision that ruled that institutions that practiced segregation would forfeit their tax exempt status. This decision led to the withdrawal of tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University, who among other things, did not admit Blacks, and when they did, had a policy against interracial dating. It was race, as well as the desire to maintain control over evangelical institutions, and not abortion, that led to the establishment of the religious right. (1)

This was a shame, because it was the exact opposite of anything true Evangelicals ever stood for:

In fact, before the civil war Evangelicals in the North were leading progressives whose piety gave rise to abolitionism, the female seminary movement, and prison reform. William Jennings Bryan, one of the most famous evangelicals, devoted himself to causes such as the Peace Movement and women’s suffrage and was a leading proponent of the progressive income tax. (1)

But in the same way that the Religious Right hijacked the Republican Party in the United States, they have also hijacked Evangelism, turning it into faith based hatred.

And while the majority of Evangelicals do not follow this dogma, the only ones being heard, are those making all the noise.

This year on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Glen Beck from Fox News organized a "Restoring Honor" 'Tea Party' march, declaring that President Obama was not doing enough to unite the country.

The sentiments were honorable, but the rhetoric was subterfuge. This was a predominantly white people's march against a black president. And in the same way that the original Boston Tea Party was a merchant's revolt against paying taxes, this was a corporate funded revolt against the proposed removal of George Bush's massive corporate tax cuts.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And just as the original Tea Party revellers disguised themselves in black paint and native regalia, these Tea Party revellers are masked in "love of country" and "freedom".

It is Republican political strategy. Advance your cause by exploiting those who will be hurt the most by corporate greed.

And while the majority of Americans do not follow this policy, the only ones being heard, are those making all the noise.

American news satirist, Jon Stewart, is tired of all the noise, and planning his own rally, at the same Lincoln Memorial. He hopes to restore sanity to the United States. Sanity that has been threatened by the Religious Right. Sanity that is being threatened by Fox News. And sanity that is being threatened by the likes of Glen Beck.

Stewart's event is designed is to counter what he called a minority of 15% or 20% of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric. News of Stewart's rally came at the end of an extraordinary week. It began with a narrowly avoided Qur'an-burning on the anniversary of the 11 September terrorist attacks and ended with former Alaska governor and right wing darling Sarah Palin stoking suspicions that she will run for the White House in 2012. (2)

His country is in big trouble and he has recognized that the only ones being heard, are those making all the noise.

Canada is not only being threatened by Fox News North, but by the Tea Party North, as the only screeching voices belong to the likes of Kory Teneycke, Ezra Levant, John Baird and Dean Del Mastro. And the only noise is coming from our own Religious Right, inspired and financed by the American Religious Right. And the noisy voices of the gun lobby, inspired and financed by the U.S. NRA, are taking on our values as a peaceful country.

And let's not forget the noise of the American company Lockheed-Martin, who are demanding that we build fighter jets. Or the U.S. private prison entrepreneurs, who are demanding that we build more prisons for imaginary prisoners. Or the American anti-tax movement that has Jason Kenney in their clutches.

Or the Republican strategist Frank Lutz, who is demanding that the Harper government engage in divisive politics to turn Canadians away at election time. Or American John Hagee who is now writing our foreign policy. Or James Dobson who wants to tell us who we can marry. Or newly minted American David Frum who wants to tell us who to hate.

We need to steer the conversation from guns, prisons and fighter jets, to issues that are important to us. Things like health care, and an aging population. Homelessness, child poverty. And rights. Basic human rights that guarantee equal treatment for us all, regardless of race, religion or gender.

Will we continue to allow the Harperites to monopolize the conversation, and demonize anyone who doesn't agree with them? Haroon Siddiqui is right. Stephen Harper needs to be dethroned. But that's not enough.

Canadians need to find their voices, or risk having them drowned out by too much noise.

Sources:

1. Yom Kippur Sermon 5769: A critical analysis of the Jewish alliance with the Christian Right regarding Israel, By Rabbi Caryn Broitman, Yom Kippur 2008

2. Daily Show's Jon Stewart calls on American voters to rally for sanity: TV satirist Jon Stewart announces Washington march against Tea Party extremism, By Joanna Walters, UK Guardian, September 19, 2010

Margaret Atwood Kicks Some Fox News North Butt

On Friday, Ezra Levant had another column published in our local paper (Kingston Whig Standard), now part of the Sun group, whose writers compete weekly in a dumbest column contest. Part of the criteria is that they must show their undying devotion to the Reform movement and destroy anyone with differing political views.

Ezra usually wins and with Kory Teneycke gone, his competition has been all but eliminated.

Under the heading Atwood's flip-flop on free speech Levant made the following accusations:

Canadian author Margaret Atwood is a free-speech activist. She is the vice-president of International PEN, the advocacy group for imprisoned writers.

As a civil libertarian, Atwood defends freedom, even for odious people. Like Al Jazeera, the satellite network owned by an Arab sheik. Al Jazeera helps publicize terrorists like al-Qaida, who send snuff videos to the channel, knowing they will be obediently aired as propaganda.

Did I mention that the contest was for the dumbest remarks?

Well Atwood has fired back, and surprise, the Sun Media has published her rebuttal. The first intelligent thing I've read in the Sun for a very long time. Of course their heading did vindicate them. They are not attempting to be a legitimate newspaper. They only published it so their readers could continue their viscous attacks.

Margaret Atwood in the Sun?!?! Canadian author and (Scotch-swilling) icon fires back at us over Sun TV News (and we’re so scared!)

"And we're so scared"? Welcome to Fox News North. Only complete morons welcome.

One comment made by Atwood, when she was "accused" of supporting the Green Party, was: "I’d vote for a turnip if it was accountable, transparent, a parliamentary democrat, and listened to people."

So someone has started a group supporting the turnip's bid for prime minister, since he would definitely out perform our current one.

Vote Margaret Atwood's Turnip for Prime Minister of Canada

It's just a fun tongue in cheek response to Sun's nonsense. Though if it came down to voting for Stephen Harper or a turnip, I'd pick the turnip.

Margaret Atwood Won, Kory Teneycke Lost. That's Enough For Me.

How could Margaret Atwood not win? She's brilliant, and Kory Teneycke, is ... well ... not!

John Doyle has a very funny column in the Globe and Mail: 10 things you need to know about Fox News North

When making the announcement, the former spokesman for Our Glorious Leader Stephen Harper said, according to this newspaper, that “controversy over Sun TV, which he acknowledged he helped fuel, is hurting the project's chances of acquiring the regulatory approvals it seeks.” Yeah, well, whatever. Call me crazy but I seriously doubt if CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein read the news of Teneycke’s departure and said, “Oh, okay. That makes everything all right, then."

Steve Maher also covers Teneycke's departure:

To pump up Sun TV, Teneycke sought to grab attention by personally attacking people like Atwood in the bombastic style of a Fox News host, which was jarring in traditionally deferential Canada. Like Icarus in the Greek myth, he flew too close to the sun, got burned and fell to the ground.

I feel bad for him, but not that bad. When he was running the Sun papers, he got rid of some good reporters, including Sun columnist Greg Weston. Weston has had more scoops than I’ve had hot dinners, causing headaches for six or seven prime ministers, and it was disturbing to see him pushed out by someone so close to the government of the day.

Now Sun TV will be run by Luc Lavoie, a former spokesman for Brian Mulroney. And Teneycke? He is awfully talented, so I suspect his landing will be gentler than Icarus’s. If not, I think he would make an excellent ambassador to Chile.

Fox News Chile maybe?

El anfitrión de la demostración es Kory Teneycke

Ding Dong, Teneycke's Gone .... Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out

Good news today. Kory Teneycke has resigned. But our battle is far from over.

"The resignation of Prime Minister Harper's former spin doctor from the leadership of one of Canada's most powerful news organizations is a battle won in a longer fight against crony-media in Canada.

We've seen a massive people-powered movement growing to protect our democracy, with 80,000 petition signatures and $110,000 raised online in just days. We saw the big corporate response - with smear pieces in Quebecor newspapers, legal threats, and insider knowledge of criminal sabotage of our petition. But Canadians did not back down.

Teneycke's resignation was sudden and unexpected, and followed Avaaz's request to the RCMP yesterday for a criminal investigation into the sabotage of our petition. This event only reinforces the need for a full police inquiry.

I hope Avaaz nails him to the wall. We have to send a message that crony-media is not welcome here.

Good work guys!

Canada's Right-Wing Media is in Trouble

For all the efforts that began with Conrad Black, to turn Canada to the right, we are simply NOT a right-wing country.

The National Post may have sung the praises of neoconservatism, but in the end neoconservatism has bit them in the butt.

News today is that there are layoffs and buyouts in the works for many of the original CanWest publications.

The entire National Post newsroom has been offered buyouts - and they have until Friday to accept, sources at the National Post confirm. Sources also say that there is no guarantee any employee applying for a buyout will receive one. ... . The news follows a series of buyout offers and layoffs at other Postmedia papers last week. The Globe and Mail reports 20 layoffs at the Edmonton Journal and 20 at the Calgary Herald.

It's a shame really but they had to know that Canadians have no stomach for constant negative attacks.

No one is saying that we want news from a left or right wing bent. We just want fair and balanced journalism. Maybe we can now return to that.

Are you listening Kory Teneycke?

How Desperate is Kory Teneycke and Sun Media?

I have been subscribing to the Kingston Whig Standard for 38 years. I delivered it for 5 years when I was young and my parents got the paper for as long as I can remember.

But I now rarely ever read it.

The National section used to be my favourite part, and their columnists covered a wide range of interesting and relevant topics.

But since Sun Media took it over, it's little more than a Reform Party attack ad. Greg Weston, the only fair and balanced writer they had left, was fired for exposing "fake lake".

Now we get the likes of Ezra Levant, long time supporter of the Reform movement. Monte Solberg, long time Reform Party MP. Peter Worthington, one of the most right-wing journalists on the planet, and father-in-law of David Frum. Gerry Nicholls, VP of the National Citizens Coalition when Stephen Harper was their president. John Snobolen, the high school drop out who became Mike Harris's education (?) minister. Michael Den Tandt, who defies all reason.

But the paper hit a new low yesterday. Under the headline 'Ignatieff's former chief of staff takes 'cheap shot' at Sun readers', they wasted three columns on this non-issue. The key word was 'former'. Ian Davey was fired a year ago by Ignatieff. But that didn't stop Sun Media from making this 'newsworthy'.

Davey suggested that the Toronto Sun was for people who can't read. I couldn't agree more. It always a reputation for being a cheap tabloid. But under Kory Teneycke's guidance, they made this about attacking the 6.5 million readers across the country of papers in the Sun Media chain.

First off, that Sun Media chain now includes the many local papers they bought up, so people don't subscribe because of the Sun, but in spite of them. It's often their only choice.

I attended a Save the Prison Farms event several weeks ago and was speaking with a woman who stated that she was surprised that the Whig was giving this so much press. But they did it in their local section, the only thing they have any control over.

The conversation then turned to the demise of a paper that used to be so well respected as one of Canada's oldest. I told her that I had noticed that since Sun took it over, it had gone so far to the right that you could find more balanced reporting in the National Enquirer.

She had no idea that we were now part of Sun Media. "That explains it" she said.

But clearly this story was published to create an "us against them" mentality. It became about 'Ignatieff ... cheap shot ... readers'. "He" was attacking "us".

How this will resonate with local readers is any one's guess, but it may just make readers, sitting at their breakfast table, learning for the first time that their newspaper is now part of Sun Media, mutter "that explains it".

But this is the kind of crap we will get from Fox News North. Contrived news 24/7. I can hardly wait.

Does Stephen Harper Have a Caucus Revolt on His Hands?

I wondered how long it would be before Maxime Bernier spoke out against Harper's latest plan to give 200 million dollars to a multimillionaire, to build a for-profit rink.

Possibly, the same multimillionaire who is Kory Teneycke's boss and the man who wants to bring us Fox News North.

Former cabinet minister Maxime Bernier as come out against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's willingness to use federal dollars to fund sports arenas and stadiums across the country. The Quebec MP has joined other Conservatives, particularly in Western Canada, who are reportedly angry at the proposal. Sources have told CBC News that a caucus revolt could possibly be brewing, with MPs demanding the federal government keep out of the business of professional sports.

Writing on his blog, Bernier said that "the project is simply not profitable and will constitute a financial burden for taxpayers for decades to come, even in the best scenario. That’s why not a single private player has been found to invest in it."

How could any of the Reformers possibly campaign on that? They are supposed to be pretending to know what they're doing on the economy. We have a huge debt and deficit. They are asking the working class to pay more taxes and higher EI premiums. But they are giving money to PROFESSIONAL HOCKEY CLUBS!!!!

Millions and millions of dollars with the promise of more to come.

My question would be, even if we could afford this, since taxpayers are footing the bill, do we get in to watch the games for free?

Kory Teneycke and Avaaz Was a Stephen Harper Rerun

During the 2008 election campaign, John Baird sent out a press release suggesting that a “Wall Street Billionaire” was bankrolling an anti-Harper campaign, in violation of the Canada Elections Act?

The group that Baird referred to as a 'Shadowy Foreign Organization', was Avaaz, who had launched a 'vote for the environment' blitz, urging Canadians to vote strategically.

Baird held a press conference and everything.

After the conference, staff members of Minister of the Environment John Baird distributed a press release accusing the Avaaz effort of being a shadowy foreign initiative, funded by foreign billionaire George Soros, which is violating Canadian election law. All of these allegations are false.

In fact, the Avaaz campaign is exclusively run and funded by Canadians, and has been fully reviewed and registered as a legitimate third party by Elections Canada and is listed on its website. Avaaz proactively initiated full consultations with Elections Canada lawyers, who approved the application. “Our campaign is of, by, and for Canadians, and strictly Canadian money is being used, that’s verified by an auditor registered with Elections Canada”, said Avaaz Executive Director Ricken Patel.

In other words, John Baird was full of it.

So when the Canadian organization Avaaz launched a campaign against Fox News North, despite the fact that it was determined that Avaaz was indeed not a 'Shadowy Foreign organization', Kory Teneycke, rehashed Baird's former lies, implying that the advocacy group is foreign and has no business meddling in Canadian affairs.

Unlike his foreign Fox News North, and their spin-off teabaggers, trying to make Canadian politics just as toxic as they are in the U.S. (Be sure to sign the petition if you haven't already).

Heather Mallick wrote an excellent column on the subject: Fox News North is a rancid idea. She has some experience with Fox News in the United States, and confirms that:

Fox celebrates ignorance and fosters hate, it’s your weasel heart, that chunk of you that spurts endorphins when a hated rival crashes his car on Ambien or is caught with a gerbil where a gerbil shouldn’t be. It’s a poison tree. Weirdly transfixing as Glenn Beck is, when you eat the Fox apple, it eats away at you. And it’s a news cartoon. When real journalists make a mistake, we feel a sickness in our soul. It’s humiliating, it should, and will be, publicly corrected and so-workers avert their eyes. Fox isn’t like that. They seemingly make up numbers, flying unburdened through their fenced-in no-fact zone.

Much like the way the Harper government operates, in a no-fact-zone.

Fox targets women. And racial groups. But most worryingly, it targets individuals in the same way the Harper government does. Tom Flanagan, who has helped guide Harper since he met him in 1990 at the University of Calgary, laid out his game plan for the conservative takeover in his book Harper’s Team. What matters is the cleansing of alleged liberals from the actual governance of the country. Once you get elected, Flanagan wrote, “you choose judges, appoint the senior civil service, fund or de-fund advocacy groups.” This is the Fox agenda and certainly the Harper agenda we see now.

We don't need this garbage and we shouldn't have to pay for something we don't want. It's that simple.

Sun Media's Attacks on Sheila Fraser May Now Have Relevance

Last month our local paper, part of the Sun Media chain, ran on the front page of their National section, a story attacking our Attorney General, Sheila Fraser, and her office's spending. This was complimented with a political cartoon.

It all appeared to be a little odd. Where were these stories coming from and why now?

It may have something to do with her recent report on the stimulus spending.

The possible fly in the ointment for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's fall schedule is already in the hands of his government—a potentially explosive report from Auditor General Sheila Fraser on billions of dollars in stimulus spending under the government's Economic Action Plan.

A spokesman for Ms. Fraser confirmed to The Hill Times that findings of the audit, along with audits on a total of 13 other areas that could also provide the opposition with ammunition in Parliament, have been sent to the respective departments under a tight cloak of secrecy for their review, fact verification and possible discussion with Cabinet ministers.

No doubt the report will cover self-promotion advertising, pork-barrelling and the effectiveness of the entire program.

A data-extraction analysis by Ottawa Citizen reporter Glen McGregor and Halifax Chronicle-Herald reporter Stephen Maher last October found that 57 per cent of the stimulus money the government had committed for large projects to that point went to ridings held by Conservative Party of Canada MPs. Their report said the difference then between government and opposition ridings was most pronounced in Quebec, where Conservative ridings received 22 per cent of large projects even though the party holds only 13 per cent of ridings. Liberal districts received only 10 per cent of large projects though they hold 19 per cent of seats in Quebec.

... Mr. [John] McCallum [Liberal MP, Markham-Unionville, Ont] said political favouritism is only one aspect he and his party expect Ms. Fraser may have investigated. He recalled the controversy over millions of dollars the government spent promoting the program—at least $34-million—and allegations that the advertising was a thinly disguised promotion of the Conservative party rather than a useful guide for citizen and business participation. At one point, the government was pressured into withdrawing more than 30 photos of Prime Minister Harper from the Economic Action Plan website. The government was discovered spending $46,000 to turn two commuter train cars in Toronto into rolling billboards for the action plan, in the midst of the H1N1 pandemic scare, and the government spent $108,000 on an action plan reporting event on the plan's progress that, critics said, looked more like an election campaign rally.

If only Harper had his Fox News North up and running. They would have spent weeks destroying the reputation of Sheila Fraser. Biff Buffoon would have encouraged rallies for her removal and called on God to strike her down, while Janie Saber would have gone through her garbage and published receipts for Starbucks coffee. Clearly she's a Liberal.

Then by the time the report was released, it would have no credibility, having been written by a woman who belongs in a home.

I can hardly wait.

Fake Names, Fake Lakes and Swat Teams

Our campaign efforts were also energized by the initiative of some younger Reformers, headed up by Kory Teneycke, who took it upon themselves to help "win Ontario." They raised enough money to finance a month-long bus tour ... Dubbing themselves "The Reform SWAT Team ... the team campaigned vigorously, helping out in every way possible, from dropping literature to chanting and waving banners at Leader's events, to mounting counter-demonstrations to quell the occasional group of protesters.

For a little variety and stim­ulation (this was an energetic bunch), the SWAT Team would also drop into the campaign offices of opposition candidates to see what they could stir up. - Preston Manning (1)

Kory Teneycke has remained a Reform movement supporter, following them through their metamorphosis to Alliance and then the Conservative Party of Canada. In 2008 he was named Stephen Harper's spokesman, and in 2009, with Harper in tow, met with Rupert Murdoch and on our dime, finalized plans to launch a Fox News North.

This has met with a lot of opposition in Canada, especially from those of us who are politically engaged and have witnessed how Fox News has destroyed political debate in the United States.

And much of this opposition is now focused on a petition, started by a group called Avaaz, that now has over 71,000 names. Sun Media cried foul because this group is U.S. based, (whereas their group is Australian based and runs U.S. Fox News)

For me as a Canadian, the issue is that I was inspired to sign the petition, no matter the source, and not because of the preamble, but because I know that this kind of vitriol is wrong for this country, that is already suffering the effects of right-wing whiplash.

Susan Delacourt wrote an excellent column for the Star, on this issue: Journalism, petitions and activism, and while she questions the motive of U.S. involvement, brings up several other important issues.

One is fraud:

Fake names* -- including those of some well-known Hill journalists as well as Conservatives and fictional characters -- were added to the petition sometime on Thursday. The head of business development for SunTV wrote a column for Friday's paper, slamming the petition because of the existence of fake names. Problem -- Kory Teneycke seemed to have inside knowledge of the fake names on the petition, and thanks to some dogged inquiry by O'Malley and Avaaz, we learn that these fake names were submitted by one person -- either known by Kory or Kory himself. (Kory did say on TV last night that he didn't do it, but he does seem to know who did.) Conservatives say the issue is the validity of the petition. Avaaz, and those whose names were appended to the petition without their knowledge, say the issue is forgery/fraud. On the issue of the fake names, I'm in agreement that the issue here is fraud -- not the validity of the petition. I think there should be an investigation into who submitted the names and the person who did it should be punished. This isn't high school here; we're talking about people's jobs and reputations.

Another is the "creation" of news:

On the road this summer aboard the "Liberal Express", I witnessed several occasions where Sun reporters in the regions produced a piece of paper with a question for Michael Ignatieff. They would read this query, sometimes saying they'd been told to ask the question by their bosses. Funnily enough, the questions mirrored Conservative talking points that were also sent by email to reporters aboard the bus. Then we had stories in the paper the next day saying that Ignatieff's tour was being "derailed" by questions about his candidates. The "derailing" (which was a bit of an overstatement) came from journalists' questions, nothing else.

And the third is according to Delacourt, when journalism strays into activism.

In 1996, David Taras at the University of Calgary, wrote an article: The Winds of Right-wing Change in Canadian Journalism. In it he discussed a new phenomenon in the Canadian media: the increasing number of journalists who had become "ardent political activists". It was in reference to the Winds of Change conference that was taking place to try and unite the right wing parties under one banner.

The Winds of Change conference, which took place in Calgary in May 1996, brought together approximately 70 leading right-wing thinkers and activists in an effort to bring unity to conservative forces before the next federal election, expected in 1997 ...... The conference's real significance, its real meaning, however, may have little to do with whether the goal of unity on the right is ever achieved. More important perhaps is that the conference highlighted a phenomenon that has been taking place for quite some time in American politics, but seems only now to be emerging full-blown in Canada: that an increasing number of journalists have become ardent political activists. Where objectivity was once the gold standard on which the professional credibility of journalists rested, today the rules seem to have changed. Some journalists have been able to enhance their status by openly championing partisan positions and causes. (2)

And the number of journalists who have been able to enhance their status by openly championing partisan positions and causes, is growing.

This doesn't mean that journalists have never been partisan. But there is a difference between writing with a partisan bent, and openly creating news stories, in an attempt to promote a political party, as Sun Media has recently done.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines journalism as: "writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation."

What Teneycke and Sun Media have done is not journalism. But it goes back to the days when Teneycke's "Reform SWAT team" dropped "into the campaign offices of opposition candidates to see what they could stir up." (1) Nothing more.

And this is what Fox News North will be all about. Single party campaigning and attacks on the opposition. Do we really need that 24/7?

Footnotes:

Popular columnist Greg Weston was fired from Sun Media for breaking the "fake lake" story.

Sources:

1. Think Big: My Adventures in Life and Democracy, By Preston Manning, McClelland & Stewart, 2002, ISBN: 0-7710-5675-3, Pg. 163

2. The Winds of Right-wing Change in Canadian Journalism, By David Taras (University of Calgary), Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 21, No 4, 1996

Kory Teneycke and Fox News North Attack a Canadian Institution

Sorry Mr. Teneycke, but if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck ...

And if it looks like a Fox and acts like a Fox ...

You can wrap this up in the Canadian flag if you want, but it's still Republican nonsense. Have your station, sell ads, and go broke. It will always be Fox News North, and will earn the same respect as the National Enquirer.

But to suggest that most of the people who signed the petition are American is rather misleading, is it not? How would you know that?

Their site was hacked, though I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

However, one thing you will not do is attack Margaret Atwood. If you could write like her you wouldn't be flogging trash. And if you were half as Canadian as she, you wouldn't be importing American garbage.

Margaret Atwood is Right. Fox News North is Not About Free Speech

Margaret Atwood is taking a lot of heat from our right-wingers, over her comments about Fox News North.

“Of course Fox & Co. can set up a channel or whatever they want to do, if it's legal etc.,” she told The Globe and Mail in an email. “But it shouldn't happen this way. It's like the head-of-census affair – gov't direct meddling in affairs that are supposed to be arm's length – so do what they say or they fire you. “It's part of the ‘I make the rules around here,’ Harper-is-a-king thing,” she wrote.

Her involvement sparked a debate on Twitter with conservative blogger Stephen Taylor and Sun Media’s Ottawa bureau chief, David Akin, Tuesday night. Both men say she is accusing the Sun – which is seeking to launch a right-wing TV channel – of “hate speech.”

But it's not about their right to peddle hatred, like their American counterpart, but the fact that they want all cable subscribers to pay for it, whether we want it or not. That is a violation of our freedoms. As suggested by the petition:

“Prime Minister Harper is trying to push American-style hate media onto our airwaves, and make us all pay for it. His plan is to create a ‘Fox News North’ to mimic the kind of hate-filled propaganda with which Fox News has poisoned U.S. politics. The channel will be run by Harper’s former top aide and will be funded with money from our cable TV fees!”

The bulk of our media has already moved to the right, so personally I wonder why we need this nonsense 24/7. But if they are determined to launch this station, they can pay for it themselves. Sell it if they can. But they know they can't so instead they are going to force it on us.

But more importantly, it's about Harper's interference in an arms length agency, trying to force CRTC to give in to his demands. Says Atwood:

“Some people signing the petition object to the expected content. I object to the process,” she told The Globe. “It's the [prime ministerial] pressure on yet another civil servant that bothers me. These folks are supposed to be working for the taxpayer, not the PM.”

Canadian politics already being poisoned:

An American journalist visited Canada in the summer of 2006, and made the following observation:

As an American journalist visiting my wife's relatives in Canada, I've always been struck by how ardently the country's political discourse focused on substance — the budget, health care, schools, roads — with little of the cheap theatrics and angry divisiveness of U.S. politics and punditry. Reading and listening to the Canadian news media during those family trips could be a tad boring, but it also was touching, like remembering your earnest grade-school civics teacher lecturing about the wonders of the American democratic process.

But in my visit this past summer, I noticed that the tone of Canada suddenly had changed. There was a nastier edge to the commentary. There were not-so-subtle appeals to racism and xenophobia, references to Muslim neighbourhoods in Quebec as “Quebecistan” and to Lebanese-Canadians as “Hezbocrats,” a play on the Muslim group Hezbollah. To someone who has covered U.S. politics for three decades, there was a shock of recognition.

Standing out starkly against the bland traditions of Canadian governance was the pugnacious 'tude of American political combat, wedge issues pounded in with a zeal that put the goal of winning and holding power over everything else. It was as if a virus that had long infected the people south of the border had overnight jumped containment and spread northward establishing itself in a new host population.

And things have only gotten worse. When was the last time we debated anything that mattered to Canadians? Poverty, homelessness, health care, the environment, our aging population? I can't even remember.

It's all about guns, super prisons and fighter jets. Canadians who work abroad are being marginalized. Intelligence is being denounced as "elite" and facts are now the enemy.

I'm so tired of it all. I want to be a tad boring again and I don't want to pay for Fox News North since I have no intention of ever watching it.

How Harper's Fox News North Will Turn us Into a Nation of Idiots

There was an interesting column in the New York Times this week by Timothy Egan: Building a Nation of Know-Nothings. In it he discusses the absolute dumming down of American politics, and the selling of lies, that have become "facts", to that dummed down populace.

But it was not just the Religious Right that made American politics so toxic, but media outlets like Fox News. The same Fox News that Stephen Harper and his trusty sidekick Kory Teneycke are trying to flog to the Canadian people.

As Linda McQuaig reminds us:

My guess is it's pretty easy to arrange lunch with the Prime Minister. No doubt Stephen Harper often lunches with labour leaders and advocates for the homeless [she says tongue in cheek]. So it should be considered no big deal that, among those the PM has lunched with, is U.S. media billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who has probably done more than any single individual in recent years to push American politics sharply to the right.

It's interesting to imagine, however, why our Prime Minister would want to meet with Murdoch, whose Fox News TV channel has poisoned U.S. political debate and nurtured America's extremist right-wing Tea Party movement. If you subscribe to the notion that Harper has no particular political agenda, his lunch with Murdoch in March 2009 might seem harmless, perhaps a purely social affair.

But the evidence suggests they were discussing plans to transform the Canadian political landscape by creating a right-wing, Fox-style TV station in Canada. Present at the lunch was Fox News president Roger Ailes, known for bringing cutthroat Republican campaign tactics to the screen. (Ailes designed the infamous race-baiting Willie Horton commercials that brought George H.W. Bush to power.)
Also present at the lunch was Harper aide Kory Teneycke, who has since become the front man in the bid by Quebec media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau to get a specialty TV licence for a Fox News-style network in Canada.

Then there's the fact that the lunch, during an official Harper visit to New York, was kept secret -- until being unearthed recently by Canadian Press reporter Bruce Cheadle.

So in fact, the Canadian taxpayer foot the bill for Teneycke's job interview.

And Egan of the New York Times describes what this will mean for Canadian politics, which have already become hyper-partisan and toxic under Stephen Harper.

And how the Republicans sell lies and half truths as "facts".

It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush ... a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies. So where is this “media?”

Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method: “Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.” ... On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where’s the evidence?” The design is to make Obama un-American, (aka "Just Visiting")

Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site’s five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck. Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was “just for her and approximately 40 of her friends.” Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady “is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you.” The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He’s Muslim and foreign. She’s living the luxe life on your dime. They don’t even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.

And Teneycke is already playing around with the race nonsense, dissing Muslims at every opportunity. But he also threw out a little colour when his Sun Media lauded Stephen Harper for choosing a "white guy" as governor general. He put it out there to see how we'd respond. We did nothing, so expect more of the same.

There is another important point to consider here, with the realization that we are poised to become the next nation of know-nothings.

The Americans appear to be about to give the Republicans control of Congress in the mid-term elections, proving they've learned nothing from past mistakes (Weapons of Mass Destruction anyone?)

The last sweep was in 1995 under Newt Gingrich. Would it surprise you to know that Gingrich claims to owe his success to the Reform Party? Stephen Harper's Reform Party under Preston Manning, when Harper was his lieutenant?

Canadians became exporters of neo-con innovation in the 1990s. 'I would say Margaret Thatcher and Mr. [Preston] Manning are the two non-Americans we learned most from'', said U.S. Republican House Speaker, Newt Gingrich in 1995.'I know him [Preston Manning] because I watched all of his commercials. We developed our platform from watching his campaign.' Like cowboy culture, Canadian neo-conservatism is a growth industry, spawning a whole generation of Will James outlaws in hot pursuit of political power." (1)

Before that Gingrich was thought to be from the fringe.

"Newt Gingrich was no Ronald Reagan. A career politician, he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1978, at the age of thirty-five, and became the Republican Whip in 1989. Despite this measure of success, however, he was never part of the Republican inner circle, largely because of his extreme views ... (2)

So while many in the media correctly suggest that Stephen Harper's ideology is pure Republican, in many ways the "new" Republican ideology is also pure Reform Party. Stephen Harper's Reform Party. The Party he wrote policy for and morphed into the Conservative Party of Canada.

Are you looking forward to Fox News North as much as I am?

Sources:

1. Slumming it at the Rodeo: The Cultural Roots of Canada's Right-Wing Revolution, Gordon Laird, 1998, Douglas & McIntyre, ISBN: 1-55054 627-9, Pref. xiv-xv1.

2. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 32