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?

Harper Government Campaign Threats and Promises

When the NDP unveiled their environmental plan during the election campaign, Stephen Harper sounded the alarm. Harper predicts pain at gas pumps if Layton is in power

And yet immediately following the election that Harper won, gas prices skyrocketed. And that's without an environmental plan. None.

Also on the campaign trail, John Baird promised "no deep cuts to the Public Service". Yet one of the first announcements was that his government would be trimming the public service by 80,000 jobs. Part of their "job creating" focus on the economy.

Tony Clement has summoned oil executives to Ottawa for "a grilling". What a farce. It will probably go something like this:

Oil Execs: "Did you get the case of bourbon we sent you?"

Tony: "Yes. Did you get the billion dollars in subsidies we sent you?"

And it's only just begun.

Tony Clement's Troubles Continue Over Census Debacle

Aboriginal Canadians are challenging the Harper government's decision to end the mandatory long-form census, as being unconstitutional.

The federal government’s decision to scrap the long-form census constitutes a violation of Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a lawyer representing a coalition of Atlantic aboriginals told Federal Court on Monday. Anne Smith said the shorter replacement for the mandatory, long-form census — the voluntary national household survey — will produce skewed data.

“It’s not a representative survey if it’s not mandatory,” Smith told the court. As a result, it will be difficult for the government to discharge its constitutional duties to aboriginal peoples, she said. The lawyer said about 98 per cent of the long forms are filled out and returned, but only about 40 to 50 per cent of voluntary surveys are ever returned. She said the data resulting from a smaller sample size could prompt the government to conclude that services are no longer required for aboriginal people.

We also learned that the promised 30 million in ads, was misrepresented by Tony Clement.

Industry Minister Tony Clement said that $30 million in spending had been earmarked to encourage Canadians to fill out the survey and the short census. But Statistics Canada told The Canadian Press that $5 million of that money will cover extra printing costs, since more households will get the voluntary survey. And another $10 million of the pot is now going toward adding two extra questions on language into the short census.

The plot thickens.

While Canadians Continue to Suffer Harper is Doling Out More Corporate Welfare

We learned recently that the American firm, Pratt & Whitney has received 300 million dollars in a single day from Canadian taxpayers, in what is being called a "repayable investment".

In other words, a loan.

This on top of another "returnable investment" of 350 million four years ago, none of which has been paid back.

The official government news release explains the $300-million federal "investment" is part of a $1-billion research project by Pratt & Whitney to develop a new generation of aircraft engines at facilities near Montreal and Toronto. Industry Minister Tony Clement says the money for Pratt & Whitney will be used to improve the company's civil and military aircraft engines. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press) The release does not mention the company is also getting an additional $178 million from public coffers in the form of federal and provincial tax credits.

The government announcement also claims the deal will "create and maintain an average of more than 700 highly skilled jobs during the project work phase, and more than 2,000 jobs during the 15-year benefits phase." The company later explained that it hopes to hire about 200 new staff for the research and development project, expected to take about five years. At $300 million from taxpayers, that works out to $300,000 a year per job.

And why isn't the company repaying this money, or at least pay off the first loan before getting another? As Greg Weston points out, 'The company isn’t exactly broke. Pratt & Whitney Canada is a subsidiary of a huge U.S. conglomerate, United Technologies Corp., which last year posted profits of $4.2 billion on sales of almost $53 billion'.

I wonder how many corporate boards Stephen Harper and Tony Clement will sit on after we throw the bums out.

A New Government Can Cancel F-35 Contract. We Need a New Government ASAP!

This story might have been headlined 'Harper Government Lies', but since that's no longer news, the importance is that we can cancel the ridiculous fighter jet contract. We just need a change in government to do it.

We win on both counts.

The 2006 agreement for developing the controversial F-35 stealth fighter jets contains a withdrawal clause that would allow a new government to end Canada's participation with no penalties and appears to contradict the government's claim that Canadian firms involved up to now would suffer. The clause, combined with other clauses and timetables in the memorandum of understanding gives Canada the opportunity to withdraw at any time before it signs its first procurement contract in 2014 ...

The agreement's language seems to contradict Industry Minister Tony Clement's (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) suggestion last week that the Liberal party risks hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, as well as lost jobs in Canada's aerospace industry, if it carries out a promise that a Liberal government might withdraw from the agreement and open up a competition to replace Canada's aging fleet of CF-18 fighter jets.

Poor Tony Clement. How can anyone ever believe anything he says now?

But then, I never did.

When Are the Members of Harper's Caucus Going to Stand up to Him?

I used to like Maxime Bernier. I never agreed with his Libertarian views but he was usually naively honest.

He was the first to suggest that the War in Afghanistan was for drugs not democracy, and stated publicly that his party was committed to reducing government and hence social programs.

Not politically wise, but he was who he was.

So why has he suddenly resorted to lying? First he claimed that he received thousands of complaints about the long-form census, then changed his story when the facts were presented.

And his continued effort to support Harper's decision, despite opposition from across the country, is further diminishing his integrity.

Now we find that Bernier has always been in favour of the long-form census.

One of the biggest opponents of the long-form census within the Harper government actually defended the mandatory survey as an "essential" tool for Canadian society when he was industry minister, according to a newly released letter. "Most of the questions that appeared on the 2006 Census long-form have appeared on many censuses," Maxime Bernier wrote in a letter dated Aug. 21,
2006, as minister responsible for Statistics Canada.

"These questions continue to be essential for providing the information needed by governments, businesses, researchers and individual Canadians to shed light on issues of concern to all of us — employment, education, training, transportation, housing, immigration, income support, pensions for seniors, transfer payments, aboriginal issues and many more."

Is he so enamored with Stephen Harper that he will completely destroy himself? Has he been whipped into compliance?

I don't know what our little dictator has, but demagogues everywhere must be...well ... agog.

If Just One Person Complaining Will Cause This Government to Act, I Have a Complaint

In a continuation of the Harper government's weak arguments for scrapping the long form census, Tony Clement is now saying that even if there is only one dissenting voice, that's reason enough to make the change.

But it's been a journey for poor Tony to reach that level of enlightenment.

At first he simply lied, suggesting that this was all StatCanada's idea:

The Harper government asserted that the voluntary long form option was an idea put forth by Statistics Canada, when in reality the department was in favour of the mandatory long form option (which is supported by virtually all of Canada’s leading business, academic, government, and civil society groups). Also advocating for the mandatory long form option were Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of Canada, and the governments of Ontario and Quebec, which have decades of experience using the data provided by the census. In a letter dated September 11, 2010, the minister of industry, Tony Clement stated, “The chief statistician has indicated that this new approach will provide useful and usable data that can meet the needs of many users.”

Then he, with the help of the hapless Maxime Bernier, just started making stuff up.

An Industry Canada employee questioned Conservative MP Maxime Bernier's claims in July that as minister he received about 1,000 complaints a day about the mandatory long-form census, internal documents obtained by CBC News show. Maxime Bernier said in July his office received about 1,000 complaints a day about the mandatory long-form census when he oversaw it in 2006 as industry minister. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)The former industry minister, now a Conservative backbencher, said in July of this year that he was blitzed by complaints when he oversaw the 2006 census as minister.

However, in a July 18 email found among documents obtained by CBC News through an access-to-information request, ministry employee Paul Halucha asked a high-ranking official at Statistics Canada whether the agency had any numbers to back up Bernier's statement. Industry Canada's "internal survey of correspondence did not show anything close to a thousand a day," he wrote to Statistics Canada's Connie Graziadei, adding in brackets "we got a standard 25-30 a year."

And the majority of those complaints were because our census forms are now being processed by the arms dealer Lockheed-Martin.

The blogger Vanity Press has invited her readers to issue their 'one complaint'. But maybe we should create a scroll. Everyone write down their 'one complaint', sign it and we'll send it to the government. That way we'll be able to set the agenda.

But let's not kid ourselves. We all know whose 'one' voice this really was. The only voice now allowed in this country.

You Didn't Really Think Harper's Self-Promotion Would End at TV Ads and Signs Did You?

C'mon, we're talking about the king of the narcissists here. Painted bus ads, TV commercials and "signs, signs, everywhere a sign", was just a warm-up.

He's now using our money to put up plaques at spots where his signs suggested something was being done.

Yes folks. Tourists to North Bay will now be in awe at a commemorative plaque placed at the completion of a road.

Henry from Awshucks, Arkansas will take off his cap and his wife Mabel will draw her children close. "Look Henry. In 2010 Canadians built their first road."

"Good for them Mabel. Do you think they'll get cars now?"

"Be patient Henry. I don't think they have driveways at their igloos."

As Impolitical says:

A plaque is not a temporary item after all. Memorials to significant community figures, or an historic explorer's trail, or an historic building...those are the kinds of things that warrant commemoration in a community. Now maybe if this was the first road ever in North Bay...

But they will not be stopping there. In a report that was pried from their white knuckled hands, I've learned of several new plaques and touristy things, that will preserve this government's history.

- 'This is the spot where Gail Shea ordered the cruel and unnecessary slaughter of 560 defenseless Narwhal whales'. And just to the right of that 'This is the spot where Gail Shea drank tea and giggled with delight at her power to order the massacre of 560 defenseless Narwhal whales'.

- 'It was here that Stephen Harper made the decision to allow mines to dump their toxic waste into our lakes.'

- 'It was on this site that 1600 dead ducks were found, victims of the tarsands.'

- 'It was on this spot where Stephen Harper had his first photo-op as Dictator of Canada.' From there plaques commemorate each and every one, but a single plaque, cast in gold, marks the spot where he had his millionth. Two million is coming up soon and they are scouting around for a large supply of platinum, to make it just right. After all, the photo-op will be at the plaque commemorating this historic event.

- 'This plaque marks the spot where Dimitri Soudas had his nineteenth nervous breakdown'. Is there yet another photo-op in Harper's future at the spot of Dimmy Witty's one millionth next week?

-'This is the spot where Harper's people fled down the stairs during an RCMP raid at their headquarters.'

- 'It was here that Garry Breitkreuz led a group of gun nuts in a march protesting the fact that our police have ... [hmmm] .... big guns, and they aren't allowed.'

-'It was at this hotel, where in 2004 Stephen Harper met with Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe to form a coalition, and take power without earning it.'

- 'It was here that Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty announced the largest tax hikes in Canadian history.'

-'It was at this desk where Jim Flaherty bailed out our banks and put Canadians on the hoof for 125 billion dollars worth of sub-prime mortgages.'

- 'It was here where Stephen Harper announced that .. or I mean had a staffer announce that he was going to prorogue Parliament again because the nasty opposition wanted to know if he was complicit in torture.' This has only been done three times in our history to avoid having to be held accountable. Once by Sir John A. and twice by Stephen Harper. A new record. Now that deserves a plaque.

- 'It was on these streets that Stephen Harper had Canadians beat up, but ordered vandals to be left alone to do their work' And it only cost taxpayers 1.3 billion dollars.

- 'This is the site of Canada's first 'Fake Lake'.' This will be erected beside a sign that reads 'Polluted'.

And those are only a few.

But the crowning glory will be a monument, cast in bronze, of a giant eraser. Engraved on the base are all the things that the Harper regime has erased, including:

-The word 'equality' from the Status for Women

-Text on how both draft dodgers and resisters of the Vietnam War were ultimately allowed to stay in Canada suddenly vanished from the Citizenship and Immigration site.

-Funding for planned parenthood that has helped to decrease the number of abortions performed. So much for being pro-life.

- Words off sensitive documents that could implement them in the torture of detainees.

- The terms "gender equality," "child soldiers," "international humanitarian law," "good governance," "human security," "public diplomacy" and "The Responsibility to Protect" have been blacklisted from government parlance. While already limited to an unprecedented degree on what they are allowed to say in public, Canada’s civil servants and diplomats are now banned from using certain words. This means that the rape of women and children can now be used as a weapon of war.

- Our identity

- Funding to NGOs who cross Jason Kenney

- Women from history

- gay rights

- An environmental plan

-Freedom of speech

-Freedom of the Press

Again this is only a partial list. So many plaques, so little time.

But my favourite are the signs they will erect at all of our border crossings. Underneath a giant middle finger, are the words:

'If you are not a heterosexual, white male, religious fundamentalist with a loaded gun and a bad attitude - STAY THE HELL OUT!'