Life Getting Tough in Harperland

The consumer price index reveals that Canadians are paying higher prices today than a year ago, with significant increases in food (up 4.8%), shelter (up 1.5%) and gasoline (up 13.5%).

Yet wages have only increased .08%  We are not keeping pace.

The Harper government can't blame this on the global crisis because similar increases were reported in 2008, before the so-called crisis.

We were then in an election where the Harperites were promising that Canada would be safe from any economic distresses under their leadership.

We don't really need statistics to tell us that we are worse off today then we were five years ago.

Household debt is at a record high.  Income disparity is rising faster that many developed countries. 

Poverty is on the rise and when a report was presented to Stephen Harper that outlined ways to decrease poverty, he threw it in the trash.  Not his problem.

Compare those headlines with this one: Scotiabank, CIBC Top Bonus Increases After Record Bank Profits

Or this one: Big Oil Companies Post Huge Profits On High Gas Prices
 
Or this one as we remember the Attawapiskat crisis :  Record sales push De Beers’ profits up 55 percent

How do you like Neoconservatism so far?

Jim Flaherty Joins the GOP in Bid to Stick it to Workers

I can understand now why Stephen Harper claims to only watch American news.  How else can his government follow the trends, though the GOP are lagging?

Jim Flaherty announced an increase in payroll taxes ages ago.

The parties who claim to support lower taxes are instead increasing them, though only for those lucky enough to still have jobs.  Wealthy citizens have seen their taxes reduced dramatically on both sides of the border.

Flaherty is now framing his tax hike as only half of what he originally threatened.  The GOP just says take a hike.  Someone has to pay for the Bush tax cuts for the greedy.

Flaherty is also warning provinces to start cutting back on healthcare now at a time when our population is aging, and we need it the most.  "Canadians have to understand that everyone will have to pay their share."

Their share of what?  Their share of planes with no engines so Lockheed Martin can prosper?  Their share of nuclear submarines?  Their share of new uniforms for the Monarchist league?  Their share of new prisons when our crime rate is at its lowest in history?  Their share of corporate tax cuts?  Their share of blood for oil wars?

What??????????

I can think of many ways to find the necessary funds for healthcare.  How about cutting the size of cabinet and their Parliamentary secretaries for a start?

Could the Right-Wing Threat Get Any Worse?

High profile Scotland Yard officers have been forced to resign over the Rupert Murdoch scandal and the whistle blower is dead.

An investigation is underway in Canada involving Fox News North/Sun Media and how THEY obtained a police file on Jack Layton and the massage parlour.

Toronto has a redneck mayor, Rob Ford. Harper has a majority and Mike Harris lapdog Tim Hudak is poised to become the premier of Ontario in October.

But this may not be the worst of it.

Michelle Bachmann could become the next president of the United States, serving simultaneously with Canada's weapons of mass destruction.

Heaven help us!

Bachmann's husband, who is handling her campaign, was caught on tape sounding like he was once a Reform Party member, calling homosexuals "barbarians", sharing the views of most of Harper's caucus and staff.



He claimed the tape was doctored, but apparently it wasn't. I could have told him the "tape was doctored" line wouldn't work. Eventually you just sound like a liar on top of everything else.

And remember all the uproar over Obama's Reverend Wright? Bachmann has a Reverend Wrong, who called the Pope the Antichrist.

It's like the world has gone mad.

This is why we need a separation of Church of state, a legitimate media, and non-morons running governments.

It's like a really bad episode of The three Stooges, where Moe is beating the crap out of all of us.

Nyuk, nyuk.

Is Harper Planning to Wage War on Russia?

Ater invading Poland .... Oops! Wrong dicatator.

After putting our soldiers in the most dangerous places in Afghanistan (A Soldier First, Rick Hillier) and blasting Libya back to the stone age, the Harperites are ready to flex their muscles with Russia.

As Canada's combat role in Afghanistan comes to an end -- as is being ably reported by Sun Media's Thane Burnett -- Canada's Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced our quid-pro-quo to the Russian invasion of the Arctic will be an enhanced one-month-long Canadian military exercise involving 1,000 of our soldiers.

This is a must-do.

Five against one may seem unfair but we see the other way around, particularly since our Far North sovereignty exercise has been an annual event since Prime Minister Stephen Harper mandated a strong Canadian footprint along our most inhospitable coastline. In other words, what's ours is ours, and the message is clear.

We won't back down

This idiot won't be happy until he gets us all killed.

The Flotilla to Gaza Has Fox News North in a Flap

Fox News North is in a right flap over Canada's participation in the Flotilla to Gaza, to deliver badly needed humanitarian aid.

Conservative columnist John Robson claims they are acting like children, and Brian Lilley says that because there is an obesity problem in Palestine, they don't really need aid.

Obesity is not always about too much food, but not the right kind of food.

John Baird is warning the participants that he will not come to their rescue, and two NDP MPs have broken with party policy and are supporting the activists. So am I.

What's interesting, is that while in Canada we are accused of supporting terrorists, or of being anti-Semitic if we denounce the Israeli blockade, in Israel, 64% of citizens want their government to negotiate with Hamas.

Are those 64% who denounce their government's actions, anti-Semitic? They are residents of a Jewish state, so I rather doubt it.

But as Glenn Greenwald wrote:

Needless to say, isolating the democratically elected Hamas government and childishly pretending that they don't exist is a central prong of the Bush administration's policy, and few American politicians could ever get away with advocating that Israel attempt diplomatically to negotiate its conflicts with Hamas. Cascades of "anti-Israel," "soft-on-Terrorists" and other related accusations would pour down on any person suggesting such a thing.

The same can now be said of Canada.

Libby Davies got a tongue lashing and was forced to apologize, after visiting Gaza and reporting on the inhumanities. The Reformers dug up an old piece written by Michael Ignatieff for the New York Times, in which he compared the Israeli Apartheid to the Apartheid in South Africa.

Jimmy Carter was president then and Ignatieff had flown over Gaza in a helicopter to report on Carter's initiatives in the area. But clearly he was the devil for making such an observation, even if it was 30 years ago.

Lilley, in the Fox News North piece, also suggests that even if Canadians are arrested, they will be treated like royalty, spending their days sipping champagne and eating pâté.

It's not like they're going to be tortured or anything.

And yet there is overwhelming evidence that Israel does indeed torture prisoners.

Of all the things that Stephen Harper has sold out from under us, the selling of our backbone, and our ability to care, are the two things we will miss the most.

It's Not About the Life Jackets Dammit

Chris Selley writes a column for the National Post this week about mandatory life jackets, coming soon to a lake near you.

He brings up a story in the Toronto Star two years ago, suggesting that mandatory life jackets might not be a bad thing, given the increase in drowning victims that particular summer.

But Selley's article focuses on a new (and temporary) mandatory life jacket law, just passed in King County, Washington. The reason for the implementation of such a law was the unusually heavy amount of mountain snow, that was increasing water levels, making swimming dangerous.

But says Selley: 'I suspect the Founding Fathers might take serious issue with mandatory life jacket laws for swimmers. But if it can happen in liberal America, there’s no reason to believe it won’t happen in liberal Canada.'

Those darn liberals and their seat belt laws and helmet laws. If we want to be stupid, we should be allowed the freedom to be stupid.

Personally, I haven't given a lot of thought to mandatory life jackets for swimmers. If we take our grandson near water, or even when swimming in a pool, we always make sure he's wearing one. But that's mainly because of his disability. I probably wouldn't support a broad law banning swimming without a life jacket, but I doubt that would ever see the light of the day.

This is just a bit more right-wing fear mongering, that will probably have the neocons spitting in their cornflakes.

The problem with this "founding fathers", "don't take away my freedoms" logic of the Tea Party/Republican/Neoconservative movement is that it's balderdash.

Bill Maher discussed an incident where a young woman was removed from a movie theatre because she refused to put away her cell phone, annoying the other patrons. She wrote a scathing tea party like letter to the theatre saying that she lived in America, the land of the free, and all that. Forgetting that people would like the "freedom" to go to the movies to actually watch a movie. A rather novel idea, I know.

Chris Matthews, one of the panelists also expressed a desire to eat tuna, with the comfort of knowing that it had been expected with his tax dollars, and not have to play Russian Roulette with his food.

Stephen Harper envisions a Canada with no corporate taxes and no rules for big business. He signed onto a scheme called 'Risk Management', which allows companies to do their own inspections, but if Canadians die as a result, they have to clean up their own mess.

Jim Flaherty also announced recently a 'red tape commission', like the one adopted by Mike Harris in Ontario, that resulted in at least seven deaths at Walkerton.

However, let's say we listen to the neocon knuckleheads, and eliminate all government "infringement" on our lives.

In their book The Trouble With Billionaires, Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, tell the story of British movie star Michael Caine and composer Andrew Lloyd Weber. Both men threatened to leave England if the British government raised their taxes.

In true libertarian fashion, they declared that the reason they are rich is because of their talent. However, what they fail to recognize, is that their talent alone did not make them rich. Copyright laws protecting their talent did. Otherwise they would be busking on street corners or reciting Hamlet in the park to thundering applause, but little more.

Harper claims to be Canada's Mr. Hockey, but could the NHL afford to pay the salaries they do without trademark licensing? How about corporate logos? Why don't I have the freedom to open a burger shop with golden arches, or make running shoes with a simple check mark?

All of that is government intervention.

Even at the Olympics, the Australian team was forbidden from hanging out their team flag, because it encroached on trademark protection. Not of the trademark associated with the flag, but on other competing firms who poured money into the sporting event.

You were also denied the freedom to bring in your own food, because it violated the franchising of food. The same rule applied to bottled water and other drinks.

And what about government created trade laws? Without them Stephen Harper would have never been able to gift AbitibiBowater $130 million of our money, if he couldn't draw on Chapter 11 of NAFTA. He denied us the freedom of using that money for our own benefit.

And while we're mulling over mandatory licensing and restrictive safety rules, we might want to think about this.

The late Milton Friedman, the iconic symbol of the Harper government, wanted to put an end to the licensing of doctors. He claimed that those licenses gave monopoly power to the American Medical Association.

Is this why Harper's health minister, Leona Aglukkaq, is refusing to attend Canadian Medical Association conferences? Is she concerned with their monopoly?

But then we should forgive the poor girl. She had an opportunity to have her picture taken with Harper, and who knows, it might just make it to his wall of honour.

Sorry Leona. He shares that wall with no one.

Chris Selley is not concerned with the infringement on our freedoms, but only with stirring up Harper's base, with more "the government's out to get you" nonsense.

Besides. Now that Harper is allowing mining companies to dump their toxic waste in our lakes and rivers, we'll be having to mandate bio-hazard suits if we want to risk swimming in them.

JP Morgan Fined $153.6M For Doing God's Work

It is becoming increasingly evident that the so-called "Economic Crisis" was carefully engineered to force governments to tear down their welfare states.

The 153.6 million fine for JP Morgan is a drop in the bucket, when we look at the billions of dollars given in bailout money, much of which went to pay bonuses to execs of those companies, who "needed" the cash to "survive".

Too big to fail we were told.

The neoconservative movement is based on many things, but at the root is the desire to place public funds into private hands, and boy has there been a lot of public funds given away since this began. The financial 'shock doctrine'.

As a result, the United States is almost bankrupt and around the world austerity budgets are causing undue suffering on citizens. Not wealthy citizens though.

They're serving up caviar and Foie gras, while watching the peasants revolt on their wide screen TVs. Nothing this entertaining since public hangings.

But a few have a conscience, as distorted as it is, holding onto the belief that they are doing God's work". God sent Katrina so the neocons could rebuild in their image of what a "free market" should look like, including private schools and voucher systems. Milton Friedman had a spiritual awakening and began speaking in tongues.

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman-Sachs, told the London Times that he was just a banker doing God's work. I'm glad he cleared that up, because I thought he was just another crook.

And speaking of crooks, this "economic crisis" certainly did a lot for the careers of Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper. They just have to mention the word "economy" and everyone swoons.

And they're still using it as an excuse for more taxpayer funded advertising and even the reason for attacking postal employees. How dare they demand fair treatment during our "economic recovery"?

A Wikileaks document revealed that the Americans believe, and rightfully so, that Stephen Harper has no idea what he's doing when it comes to the economy, only hoping that the stimulus package worked. Otherwise, he had no plan "B".

They also portray Harper as being weak and a blowhard. Like we needed Wikileaks to tell us that.

Let's hope there are more fines and eventually arrests, because these guys should never get away with they've done. The largest fraud in history, that has destroyed the economies of many nations, and stuck Canada with a Harper majority.

He now has four years to destroy us, and destroy us he will.

So Who's the Elitist Now?

Rhys Kesselman, Canada Research Chair in Public Finance and a professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Public Policy, has an op-ed in the Globe and Mail discussing the Harper government's new tax policies, clearly designed to benefit the highest wage earners.

Neoconservatives love to talk about "lower taxes", but they don't really mean lower taxes for everyone. They have designer tax cuts, allowing claims for gym memberships. We can expect fitness centres to tout this tax break, locking more and more people into expensive contracts.

They design "family" tax benefits, to only target their version of the "family", no single parents allowed.

And while they move toward a zero tax for corporations, they raise taxes on workers with a payroll tax, and implement user fees. Most of these fees are again a transfer of funds from the public, to the private sector, who take over services once provided by the government for free.

Jim Flaherty has tapped into George Bush's favourite line of "tax relief", using a median figure, but when broken down, only the wealthiest citizens reap any real benefit.

The wonderful Linda McQuaig, again reminds us that this systematic transfer of wealth to the top, is hurting everyone. And yet to hear the neocons talk, those who are suffering the most, are the ones hurting the economy.

I watched Bill Maher this week, and one topic of conversation was Republican rhetoric, that not only defies logic, but also defies history.

Sarah Palin suggested that Paul Revere rode to the British camp and told them that they must uphold their second amendment right to bear arms, despite the fact that there was as of yet, no such amendment on the books, and indeed, no constitution.

Another Republican presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, suggested that U.S. soldiers fought in WWII so that Americans wouldn't be forced to have healthcare. Silly Obama. He should have known that before touting his socialist ideas.

But as Maher reminded his audience, they are the kind of people who would probably get elected, because despite the fact that what they spout is pure nonsense, they spout it with conviction, never changing their story.

The Conservatives just keep chanting "low taxes, low taxes, low taxes" and we believe them, even if logic and the increased difficulty of stretching our pay cheques, prove otherwise.

Another argument made by the neoconservatives, is that cutting taxes for the wealthiest, drives down the price of consumer goods (that's the "job creation" part - jobs in Third World countries).

And yes we can now buy cheap TVs and DVD players, but the cost of housing is on the rise and food through the roof. We can buy cheap crap but basic survival is getting very expensive.

The Reform/Alliance/Conservative Party was never a populist party, but perhaps the most top down party in the history of Canada. They tapped into the populism of social credit for support, but their platform was written by Stephen Harper, right from the National Citizens Coalition handbook (Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada, by William Johnson, McClelland & Stewart, 2005, ISBN 0-7710 4350-3).

It is a party run by and for the corporate sector.

But darn it all if they don't sound convincing when they pretend that they work for us.

Harper Dispenses With Throne Speech Debate. Why Not Just Cancel Debate Altogether?

The Harperites have decided to cancel the debate that usually follows the throne speech. I mean what's the point?

Unless we're going to have legitimate, well researched questions from the opposition, it will just be more noise. They claim that "The government's priority is to get its budget passed by June 23, when Parliament is scheduled to break for the summer."

I say just go home now. Harper never listened to anyone when he had a minority, do they really think he'll listen to anyone now?

Parliament has been rendered obsolete. We'll take our opposition to the streets.

The “Coup D’etat at Barriere Lake and Why it Matters

During the 2008 election campaign, a citizens group occupied the offices of Lawrence Cannon. After a member of his staff insulted the peaceful protesters, by suggesting that they were all drunkards, Cannon was forced to issue an apology.

But the incident brought the situation at Barriere Lake in Quebec, from where the occupying citizens hailed, to the public's attention.

Because the sit-in was only one measure taken by the community, that has been victimized by corporate greed and government intervention, for decades.

In his book, Speaking Out, Jack Layton mentions a visit to the community and a meeting with then Chief Harry Wawatie.

The true heroes, however, are First Nations leaders and communities. Like Barriere Lake Reserve Chief Harry Wawatie, whose community of four hundred people live in sixty decrepit houses in abject poverty while resource-extracting firms and tourism companies suck the enormous economic wealth out of the lands that should provide the community with sustenance. Courage and wise determination are what you see in the chief's eyes, along with deep sadness as he watches an affluent nation systematically deny human rights and security to the next generation of his community. (1)

And it has indeed been systematic, in what Todd Gordon calls a "violent intervention by paramilitary force to impose government-friendly leaderships in First Nation communities" (2), Barriere Lake being one of them.

The occupation of Lawrence Cannon's office was to protest the hostile takeover of their government.

In what residents of the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake, located 250 kilometres. from Ottawa, describe as a coup d'etat, SQ officers forcibly entered their community of 650 to remove a customary leadership, which had not been subject to the Indian Act's band council system and which had the support of the majority of the community. The SQ-enforced coup followed the Department of Indian Affairs' decision to remove the traditional chief and council and replace them with a small and unpopular faction. (2)

The conflict began in the 1960s, when the federal and Quebec governments forced the First Nation community off of its traditional lands and onto a small plot, with 'no community centre or high school, only one phone line for the entire community and serious overcrowding in substandard houses (in some cases; up to eighteen people live in small dwellings with unfinished basements and leaky roofs.'

The reserve is badly underserviced and the rape of the land has wreaked havoc on the ecosystem of their traditional territory. Hydro development has damaged waterways. Logging companies have cut over traplines, destroyed moose habitat (moose have been a staple of the community's diet) and sprayed the area with industrial herbicide.

One of their struggles has been a battle with lumber giant Domtar. In the 1980's the people of Barriere Lake mounted blockades, and cut off the wood supply to their mills, resulting in a Trilateral Agreement between the federal government, the Quebec government and the First Nations. But that agreement has not been honoured. Financial remuneration has been withheld and important meetings cancelled.

This has necessitated the residents to again mobilize, while the government worked behind the scenes to remove dissidents and plant a more compliant municipal body.

When former Barriere Lake leader Chief Jean Maurice Matchewan, was charged with assault, his bail conditions prohibited him from returning to the community. The same thing happened with band administrator, Michel Thusky. And though the cases were eventually thrown out, the legal troubles were damaging.

In 1995, the Quebec government began making accusations of sexual and financial misconduct by the community leadership, based solely on accusations by the puppet government in waiting.

Indian Affairs hired the law firm of Thompson Dorfman Sweatman to file a motion with the federal government to have Barriere Lake's traditional council removed from power. It was later discovered that the law firm also represented Domtar, the company standing the most to lose if the citizens retained their democratically elected council.

But the residents remained defiant, and blockaded their own reserve to keep the opposition from entering their community. Faced with the resistance, Indian Affairs cut off all government funding to the reserve, which was already suffering from ninety percent unemployment and extremely poor living conditions. But community members refused to give in, and lived for over a year without water, electricity or schooling for their children. They survived entirely by living off their land as best they could given the decades of environmental destruction caused by resource development. And when logging companies tried to move back into areas that had previously been protected, they were met once again by blockades. With mills facing shutdowns as a result, Indian Affairs dropped its effort to replace the community's leadership, and when elections were subsequently held, the opposition was soundly defeated." (2)

They won this battle , but the war continues. When a new chief was elected in 2006, the Harper government refused to recognize his leadership. Instead, it put Barriere Lake under Third Party Management meaning that an external consultant unilaterally runs their affairs.

This allowed the unwanted and unelected opposition, under corporate friendly Casey Ratt, to move in. He refused to hold elections and has promised to drop the lawsuit against the federal government.

This again sparked confrontations that led to a number of arrests.

Although most of those activists were eventually released from jail, the experience is a chilling re-minder of the lengths to which the state will go to keep indigenous people under its thumb. The full force of the state's coercive apparatus is brought to bear on those indigenous peoples willing to step outside the parameters Canada has set for its colonial relations with First Nations.

According to the Department of National Defense's counter-insurgency manual, there are aggressive measures that can be taken to handle "indigenous militancy".

One is the use of deception and misinformation campaigns, something we have already witnessed at Barriere Lake. But it does not rule out the use of "deadly force".

The rise of radical Native American organizations, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society, can be viewed as insurgencies with specific and limited aims. Although they do not seek complete control of the federal government, they do seek particular political concessions in their relationship with national governments and control (either overt or covert) of political affairs at a local/reserve ('First Nation') level, through the threat of, or use of, violence.

Given Harper's new border security deal with the U.S. and the Wikileaks documents that express their concerns over "indigenous militancy", we could see the use of force becoming more commonplace, if campaigns of deception and misinformation fail.

And let's not forget the most troubling aspect of all. A deal signed three years ago that allows the U.S. military to cross our border in the case of what they deem to be a "civil emergency".

I'm very concerned with the direction that the Harper government will take, given their unfettered power.

Lawrence Cannon has fortunately been replaced, and the new NDP MP Mathieu Ravignat, seems to be a compassionate and caring man. But if this becomes a military issue, there is little he will be able to do to stop it. I'm very worried.

Sources:

1. Speaking Out: Ideas That Work for Canadians, By Jack Layton, Key Porter Books, 2004 ISBN: 1-55263-577-5, Pg. 265-266

2. Imperialist Canada, By Todd Gordon, Arbeiter Publishing, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-894037-4507, Pg. 283-286

More Alarm Over Harper's Plans to Reduce Food Safety Regulations

A story over the weekend, revealed that U.S. scientists are concerned with the fact that traces of feces are being found in imported food. Not exotic food found in import shops, but fruits, vegetables and other staples, sold in our supermarkets.

Michael Doyle, a microbiologist with the University of Georgia, was to address that topic Monday while making the keynote address at the general meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.

Doyle and others are sounding the alarm about increasing proportions of food being imported - mostly because it costs less - from countries where sanitary standards for production are not as stringent as in places such as Canada and the United States.

And how safe are Canadians?

A Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokeswoman, when asked for comment on the safety of imported food, said in an email that "Canada's rigorous food safety requirements apply equally to imported and domestic foods." ... However, an internal audit of CFIA released in September found there were "deficiencies" with regard to its procedures dealing with imported food. The audit found that there are no mechanisms in place to ensure the quality of imported food is equivalent to that produced in Canada, other than for meat, fish and eggs. It said there was poor tracking to ensure the quality of products including beverages, infant formula, confectionaries, cereals, spices and seasonings, and baked products.

That CFIA report said the inflation-adjusted value of food imported increased to $21.8 billion in 2006 from $14.2 billion in 1997. On its website, the CFIA says more than 70 per cent of food products sold in Canada are imported.

But Canadians also need to be concerned with food processed at home.

Under the guise of eliminating red tape, the Harper government has been systematically tearing down any protections that stand in the way of corporate profit. At what has been dubbed the "jelly bean summit", Harper and George Bush agreed to lower safety standards, to come closer to those of Mexico, and adopted a new strategy, known as "risk management".

This allows many companies to inspect themselves, but if things go wrong, they have to clean up their own mess. The government will take no responsibility.

When Jim Flaherty announced the elimination of 80,000 public service jobs, many of those jobs are in "food safety".

They say "you are what you eat", and that could mean feeling crappy.

So Much For Belt Tightening. Harper Just Needs Bigger Pants

With promises of major cutbacks for everyone else, Stephen Harper is again rubbing our noses in the fact that he controls us all, by spreading our money lavishly around his MPs.

39 cabinet ministers, at a minimum annual cost of $9 million.

But don't forget that he usually also assigns numerous Parliamentary secretaries from among them, in an attempt to bring as many as possible into the executive, ensuring that few are left to actually question the executive.

Not that any of them ever question anything the exalted one does.

They wouldn't dare.

Harper's Dictatorship Now Complete and Unchallenged

Warren Kinsella writes this week: Stephen Harper gives Canadians the finger

The discussion is Harper's latest snub of the media, no longer caring whether they challenge his decisions. It was deliberate and calculated. He didn't have to answer to them regarding his Senate appointments. They are no longer useful to him.

Let them stomp up and down. For the next 4-5 years he will no longer have to explain his actions to the Canadian people. He's always done what he wanted anyway, but now his control of our country is absolute.

Lawrence Martin writes: Behold the most powerful PM ever

He has it all:

•A fractured opposition and decimated Liberal party.
•An overpowering political machine that doubles and triples rivals in financial resources.
•A preponderant media advantage with most of the big fourth-estate players on side.
•A public service more submissive than ever before.
•Agencies and watchdog groups that are intimidated or stacked with governing party partisans.
•A majority in the Senate and the House, plus command over an increasingly dysfunctional parliamentary committee structure.
•A bossist structure in the governing party that allows no dissent from within.

Not to mention the fact that within a few months, he will also have control of the Supreme Court, and the Governor General is a Conservative insider.

When Jack Layton teamed up with Harper to destroy the Liberals, he must have felt pretty powerful. But looking around at the carnage, just how powerful is he really? Leader of what?

Stephen Harper is ending the democratic voter subsidies, where less than $2.00 was taken from each voting taxpayer, and going to the party of their choice.

Layton's surge was mostly superficial, and I doubt it will generate into massive fundraising, given that he's pretty much impotent, with few allies in the House.

And how easy will it be for the Liberals to rebuild? Their membership is currently on the rise, as many Canadians now realize that the Harper/Layton team has gutted the centre, but can the interest hold?

It's a very terrifying time to be a Canadian progressive.

James Moore's Double Standard

Heritage Minister James Moore is angry. Apparently, a Canadian punk rock group, Living With Lions, who received a government grant, trashed Christianity and the Bible on their latest album.

Ezra Levant reached into his bag of prose and called them "a bunch of losers".

James Moore issued a statement calling the CD “offensive” and “simply wrong” and expressed his “profound disappointment” with the grant.

But where was his outrage last week, when we learned that taxpayers helped to sponsor the Islamophobic Geert Wilders, as part of the Tulip Festival?

Moore could have stopped his appearance, but didn't. The Right refer to Wilder's hate filled diatribes as "freedom of speech". Why then is Living With Lions not given the same consideration?

They are an anti-establishment punk band, who would appeal to a very small demographic, though the headlines will probably help them sell more albums.

However, there is a troubling double standard taking place in Canada today.

Geert Wilders fine, George Galloway out. Hate speech at a Tulip festival fine, young people expressing themselves silenced.

Welcome to Harperland.

Is the Tea Party Becoming Tepid and What Will it Mean for Harper?

South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley, was brought to power with the help of the Tea Party. As reward, she proposed a Tea Party Coalition in her state, using grassroots activism, to promote their agenda.

The crowning glory for this coalition, would be a rally, featuring Donald Trump. But when Trump backed out of the presidential race, he also backed away from the Tea Party, resulting in perhaps the poorest showing of the AstroTurf group for some time.

Philip Stanley came to Thursday’s rally from Asheville, N.C., in hopes of seeing Trump but said he was pleased to learn Haley would headline the event instead. Stanley said he respected Trump for directly questioning President Barack Obama about his birth certificate without fear of being labeled with “the R word” for racist .... “I never thought he was serious,” Stanley said of Trump. “He’s a promoter. Then, I heard Nikki Haley was here. That’s almost as good.”

But apparently not "almost as good" for most people, as the event was attended by only a handful of the faithful.

Are the Americans now backing away from the crazies? Obama's approval rating is at 60% and the birther movement, has been aborted, now that he produced the document they all claimed would prove he wasn't American born.

What will this mean for our crazy people? The ones who have contributed so much to the career of Stephen Harper, with the promise that they would be listened to.

He held them off when he was in a minority, but with a majority, they will not sit quiet, especially since many of them are in his caucus.

They'll applaud his destruction of the welfare state, that is until they realize that they are also victims, but they will also demand the right to bear arms (something Harper himself wrote into Reform Party policy), the abandonment of gay rights, women's rights and the rights of minorities, and the end of a woman's right to choose.

However, if Harper gives them all of these things, will they go away quietly, or emboldened, simply become more demanding?

Have some tea. One lump or two?

The Pentagon Deems That F-35s are no Longer Affordable

After the election results were in, Embassy magazine reported: F-35 firms breathe sigh of relief at Tory majority

But while the Canadian contract is secure, given that Harper won't budge an inch on his determination to own them, despite the fact that they come without engines, the United States could be set to abandon the project.

The cost of building the F-35 fighter jet, set to replace a large part of the US warplane fleet, is "unaffordable" in its current version and must be reviewed, the Pentagon's top acquisition official said Thursday. "Over the lifetime of this program, the decade or so, the per-aircraft cost of the 2,443 aircraft we want has doubled in real terms," said Ashton Carter, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

The culture of "easy money" for military spending after 9/11, is partly to blame in the U.S..

In Canada, it's Harper's ignorance. He's an easy mark.

Line 'em Up. Shoot 'em Down

For more than a decade Stephen Harper has had the Canadian Wheat Board in his cross hairs, and it began during his days with the National Citizens Coalition.

In 1996, farmer Andy McMechan of Lyleton, Manitoba, was charged with selling wheat to the United States without a CWB permit. A grassroots group, Canadian Farmers for Justice, took up his cause, and McMechan received a great deal of community support.

From their newsletter: "Late September saw a huge turnout for an old fashioned farm bee on the McMechan farm. Organized by friends of the McMechan family, people turned out from all around to help combine the fields and bring in the harvest. Still others were helping out on the garden, mowing the lawn and trimming trees. Even CTV's W-5 turned out with some cameras to record the event. And to make me wish I was there even more, there was a "huge table of food, baking, sandwiches and pickled preserves."

The National Citizens Coalition was always looking for causes like this to get behind, if it meant they could fundraise, garner media attention and/or discredit the Liberals, and this cause earned the triple crown.

So in July 1997, they started running attack ads against Liberal Ralph Goodale in the West, and beginning September 22, 1997, also in Ottawa. According to David Somerville, then president of the NCC (Stephen Harper his vice-president): "Our plan is to run a radio ad blitz in the West where Goodale lives and in Ottawa where he works. One way or another he will get the message."

And in the process, the campaign also helped Harper's Reform Party.

Goodale had proposed changes to the CWB that allowed it to be run by a board of directors, 10 elected by the prairie farmers themselves, and the other five appointed by the government; so Reform Party MPs joined the chorus, with then MP Jay Hill promising to do what he could to delay the vote on the bill.

The NCC had their well funded political cause and it paid off for Reform. From the July 1997 newsletter of the Canadian Farmers for Justice:

Who Speaks for the Western Farmer? Prairie farmers in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are now represented almost entirely by Reform MPs who stand for farmers' choice in grain marketing.

Of course the NCC cared little for the farmers. Their concern was for the corporate sector, and some believe that their expensive campaign may have been funded by Karlheinz Schreiber, Brian Mulroney's former cash machine, who was planning on starting a pasta business.

Ken Larsen, now with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, wrote in February of 2008:

Brian Mulroney's former chief of staff Norman Spector advised the Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. He suggested the committee's most important work was to find where and to whom Karlheinz Schreiber distributed around $10 million in so-called commissions. In December Schreiber told the same committee, "So forget the pasta thing. That came much later." At the time, many thought he was just talking about a machine. However, Mr Schreiber went on to testify that he and Mulroney discussed what to do about pasta in 1994, and he then went on to say "it started somehow in 1996 or 1997." Perhaps it was entirely coincidental, but less than a year later Steven Harper's National Citizens Coalition had generous funds to attack the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).

For Mr Harper it seems it was all about the pasta. He justified his attacks on the CWB with help from a couple of small groups, by claiming the CWB was preventing investors from opening pasta plants. For those who understand food processing, and the overbuilt pasta industry, these proposals were about as credible as a kindergarten class announcing they could build a working nuclear reactor if only Federal regulations were removed. However they did serve as a convenient stick for Harper to use on the CWB. Indeed, Harper became infamous for attacking the CWB using lavish electronic and print advertising. (1)

Harper is nothing if not determined to get his way, so with the same glee as his cancelling the Kelowna Accord, the Kyoto Protocol and a National Childcare Plan in 2006, he was kicking up his heels recently, when with the stroke of a pen, he axed the Canadian Wheat Board.

And if Canadians go hungry because of his agenda, he'll shriek "Let them eat pasta".

I've often suggested that if you want to know what Harper's next move will be, check out the Republicans or the Tea Party. But if you want an overview of his agenda, I suggest Gerry Nicholls' book Loyal to the Core: Stephen Harper, Me and the NCC and Murray Dobbin's The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Canada and Democracy in the Age of Globilization.

Dobbin sums up the agenda nicely, while Nicholls reveals the devious ways they sell it to us.

Sources:

1. Who funded Harper's Wheat Board vendetta? PM has been after Wheat Board since he was at National Citizens' Coalition, By Ken Larsen, Southern Alberta, February 12, 2008

Well Isn't That a Kick in the Teeth? Tony Clement in Charge of Our Money

The man who poured so much pork into his riding that he started a new strain of swine flu, is now in charge of our money.

And his first assignment is to find where he can trim $4 billion dollars.

And it won't be by reducing military spending or cancelling prison expansions.

I wonder how much we can get for a used gazebo?

More Smoke and Mirrors on the Canadian Economy

Now that the election is over, the Conservatives are reneging on their promise to balance the books a year earlier than their original fairy tale.

The only shock is that they still think we believe anything they say.

Embassy magazine reports several wikileak memos, and one deals with the U.S. view of how Harper handles the economy.

In a cable dated Jan. 4, 2010, American officials at the Embassy in Ottawa summarized the Harper government’s top five policy priorities for 2010, starting with Mr. Harper’s top goal, “remaining in power” and, secondly, the economy.

“The Conservatives will need to demonstrate slow but steady progress on the economy and to claim credit even when it is not necessarily due to them,” reads the document, signed off by US Ambassador David Jacobson.

“The Conservatives do not appear to have any bold measures up their sleeves to improve the economy,” it adds later, “but appear content to wait for more results from their uncharacteristic stimulus packages and for a rising global economy—especially in the US—to lift all boats.”

That pretty much sums it up: "claim credit even when it is not necessarily due to them" and "wait" hoping that other factors save them.

Another campaign promise was the "tax free savings accounts", a gift to the wealthy.

Neil Brooks, a professor of tax law at Osgoode Hall Law School, says the program does little for moderate earners, and is really about eliminating taxes on capital gains and other income from capital – something the financial community has long lobbied for but been unable to achieve.

Brooks argues that the TFSA program has far-reaching implications, moving Canada away from the income tax – which taxes income from both capital and wages – towards a system that taxes only wages. That will shift the tax burden away from investors, and increasingly onto the backs of wage earner ..

If this government put only a fraction of their focus on the average Canadian as they do the wealthy and the corporate sector, they might not have to worry about outside forces saving their bacon.

Neoconservatism scores another victory.

We Were so Close to Winning

Matt Peters and Ryna Boldt have an excellent piece in Rabble this week, reminding us of how close we came to holding Stephen Harper to a minority.

So what made this Harper majority? Time for some sobering statistics, you might want to prepare a barf bag: 6,201 -- Friends, this is not the title of the newest Rush album

This is a number we need to remember over the course of the next four years and especially during the next election: 6,201 is the COMBINED margin of victory across the 14 most closely contested Conservative ridings in Canada -- with 6,215 being the number needed -- as the total number of votes -- the nearest parties would require to have won these 14 seats but one vote.

The COMBINED margin of victory. This is how close the election actually was. In each of these races the Conservatives had a margin of victory of less than 800 votes. Most margins were much, much smaller

Strategic voting had a real chance, but was abandoned by many during the final days.

Now we have a Harper majority and the perfect storm, with a record deficit and a man at the helm who now has an excuse to dismantle our social safety net. And the Canada we once had will be no more.

I feel like Marlon Brando, in On the Waterfront:

We coulda had class. We coulda been a contender. We coulda been somebody ...