A Harper Majority: Please Don't Let the Facts Get in the Way

In an unprecedented move, the Conservatives have told the Supreme Court to ignore the facts, when determining the future of Vancouver's safe injection site.

The Harper government has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to ignore mounds of evidence trumpeting the success of North America’s first supervised injection site for drug users, warning that the court should avoid becoming a “super legislature” by ruling on the wisdom of federal policy decisions.

The caution is contained in Justice Department legal arguments filed in the Supreme Court for a hearing Thursday that will determine the fate of Insite, the safe-injection site located in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. Insite is an eight-year-old facility where addicts can inject their drugs using sterile needles under a nurse’s supervision.

This after a recent study showing that: Vancouver injection clinic cuts overdose deaths

Overdose deaths in Vancouver's troubled Downtown Eastside have dropped by more than a third since the creation of Insite, the neighbourhood's supervised injection clinic, according to a study in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Researchers with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS studied the number of overdose deaths around the injection facility before and after its creation. Insite has operated since 2003 with exemptions from federal drug laws, first allowed by the former Liberal government.

If it won't fit on a bumper sticker, it has no merit.

But demanding that the high court ignore facts in their decision is troubling to say the least.

Welcome to a Harper Majority. Leave your senses at the door.

Lawrence Martin is Right Mr. Harper. Canada is Not a Police State ... Yet!

The image above is of an 88-year-old woman who was brutalized and arrested during the protests against the closing of the Prison Farms in Kingston. Harper brought in the riot squads. Absolutely unnecessary.

We already knew that the Harper government was using our tax dollars to keep track of us on Facebook and other social media sites. But the revelation that the RCMP is screening Facebook to remove "undesirables" (non-supporters of Harper) from Conservative rallies, is over the top. We pay their salary, not him. And we pay them to protect us, not stalk us.

Lawrence Martin has an excellent column: By the way prime minister, this is not a police state

A very good read.

I love the new Liberal ad. This is what they have to keep doing. Simple but to the point messages. This one couldn't be any clearer.

Canada Now Officially a Police State

"Normal men do not know that everything is possible" David Rousset

Canada is now officially a police state. Stephen Harper can now send in the riot squad every time Canadian citizens "act up".

Those of us who have been sounding the alarm since the days when he promised soldiers in the streets, are more frightened then ever.

After getting a five year free ride from the media, he has been able to build his empire of state sponsored terror, without checks or balances.

Catherine Porter in the Star writes: Tales of horror from a police state — ours.

I sat in a plain, ordinary downtown hotel seminar room for two days this week, listening, one after another, to utterly jarring stories of police sadism at the G20. Tales of women forced to pee through their jeans. Naked students ordered to lift their testicles for inspection. A woman snatched from a downtown corner and dropped off near midnight in the shadows of Scarborough, no directions or hope of finding her way home.

The hearings by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and National Union of Public and General Employees were focused on the summit this past summer in Toronto. But it often felt like a history lesson on 1935 Germany.

And Murray Dobbin in the Tyee says: This is the Security State Steve Built

For those considering issue triage -- picking five or six issues to focus on -- in the fight to rid the country of the current government, one area that is critical to the outcome is exposing the Harper government's construction of the national security state.

I am referring here to the commitment of the Harper government to implementing policies that increase the importance of a war-fighting military in Canadian society, its preoccupation with tough-on-crime legislation, its blank cheque to security operations like the one "protecting" the G20 summit, and its continued efforts to convince Canadians that they face the constant risk of terrorist attack. The flip side of the coin: criminalizing dissent and trashing civil liberties so that opposition to this agenda can be kept to a minimum.

And yet there are still Canadians out there who believe that what the police did was just. They allowed the real terrorists to run amok, so Harper could get his Kodak moments, and then went after ordinary citizens.

Those advocating for the poor and homeless. Those protesting inaction on climate change. Those demanding that missing aboriginal women be looked for. Those seeking help for seniors. All of those "dangerous" Canadians who were attacked while sitting and singing "O Canada" or giving the peace sign, or blowing bubbles.

They were simply told by their fellow citizens, that they shouldn't have been there.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
....Martin Niemöller

The G-20 weekend in Toronto was a test for Harper. Just how much could he get away with? He needed to know. And he got his answer. Canadians will let him away with anything.

Bob Altemeyer has studied the phenomenon of authoritarian followers. He speaks of how they allowed the Bush administration to literally get away with murder.

If some day George W. Bush is indicted for authorizing torture, you can bet your bottom dollar [they] will howl to the heavens in protest. It won’t matter how extensive the torture was, how cruel and sickening it was, how many years it went on, how many prisoners died, how devious Bush was in trying to evade America’s laws and traditional stand against torture, or how many treaties the U.S. broke. Such an indictment would grind right up against the core of authoritarian followers, and they won’t have it. Maybe they’ll even say, “The president was busy running the war. He didn’t really know. It was all done by Rumsfeld and others.

"Stephen Harper didn't know". "It was the Toronto police and that crazy Police Chief Blair who wants to take away our guns".

"Herr Harper spent a billion dollars for security to keep us safe". "What if some of those peaceful protesters walked on our lawn or something?" "If they were beaten they probably deserved it."

As Dawg's Blawg says:

There will be no punishment. And most people, in their ignorance, will support their local police with their eyes wide shut. No matter what. No matter the laws they break. No matter whom they assault. No matter whom they kill.

Welcome to Harperland. Seig Heil.

Canada and Switzerland. Who Would Have Thought It?

Switzerland has always been seen as a peaceful country, remaining neutral in war. It's people friendly. Someone Canada could identify with.

Politically, they have no head of state and their government is comprised of ministers from all parties.

Sounds wonderful doesn't it?

Stephen Harper is in Switzerland today suggesting that Canada's foreign policy will now be based on "Canadian values". (HIS Canadian values) And photos with the "soccer mom" economic minister, are obviously staged to make us feel all warm and cozy.

Who cares if the rest of the United Nations hates us now, we've still got Switzerland on our side.

But something has been happening in Switzerland. The same social disease that brought Stephen Harper's neocons to power, is infecting the Swiss political system. Our carrier was the Religious Right/Republican strain, and medical experts now believe that it may have found it's way to this Alpine region.

The host is the Swiss People's Party (SVP), a right-wing populist, national conservative political entity. This is their list of symptoms, as described by Geneva University professor Pascal Sciarini during their last election campaign:

... anonymous donors are bankrolling an increasingly American-style campaign marked by unprecedented media coverage. Sciarini says party policies have taken a back seat during the run-up to next month's parliamentary elections as personalities and negative campaigning have dominated the electoral landscape.First came the People's Party notorious poster campaign showing three white sheep kicking a black sheep over the Swiss border [shown above promoting their anti-immigration stance]. Then the party's figurehead, Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, grabbed the headlines, complaining of a plot to unseat him.

... There are very important issues in Switzerland but the electoral campaign has turned into a very personalised campaign based on the image of Christoph Blocher. Therefore there is not much room for discussion about important issues, and this is something very unusual in Switzerland

... There are no budget limits, there is no transparency and there is no public financial support for the parties. Therefore the system is very opaque and we don't know exactly where the money comes from. Some people say the People's Party has spent at least SFr20 million ($17 million) on the campaign, which is quite unusual. The official budget for the electoral campaigns of the Social Democrats or the [centre-right] Radical Party is SFr1.2 million.

A right-wing party that has all the money and spent 20 times what the other parties could afford? And there are complaints that politics is becoming more polarized.

And Canada is not the only country to make Islamophobia an official policy with a government that promotes racism.

A Swiss vote to ban the construction of new minarets puts the spotlight on the Alpine country's social and political divisions and could herald a new surge in populist, anti-immigrant sentiment. The unexpected vote and high turnout in Sunday's referendum gives a boost to the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), a relatively new political force that has shaken up the country's traditionally cozy power-sharing system.

"It could well be the beginnings of a new right-wing surge," said Clive Church, a Swiss politics expert from Kent University. The SVP, which has grown rapidly since the 1980s to become Switzerland's largest party, has been accused of racism for its strident anti-immigration campaigns, including a poster showing a white sheep kicking black sheep off a Swiss flag.

Yes these Islamic mosque style spires are now banned. One former member of the SVP called the party's campaign against Islam, a 'witch hunt.'

And the policies of the Swiss People's party, sound eerily familiar:

The SVP adheres to national conservatism, aiming at the preservation of a conservative society. Furthermore, the party promotes the principle of individual responsibility and is skeptical toward any expansion of governmental services. The emphases of the party's policies lie in foreign policy, immigration and homeland security policy as well as tax and social welfare policy. Among political opponents, the SVP has gained a reputation as a party that maintains a hard-line stance. The SVP supports supply-side economics. Thus it is a proponent of lower taxes and is against deficit spending.

So pardon me if I don't fell are warm and fuzzy knowing that Switzerland is on our side. I'm not so sure I want them to be.

Oh and by the way. Don't expect Herr Harper to be bringing home chocolate, though I've heard he's bought them out of Swiss Army knives. No more just slinging barbs across the room.