With or Without Permission Debauchery is Still Debauchery

Debauchery usually has a sexual connotation, but can also be used to describe any overindulgence.  Political debauchery is quickly making its way into our vernacular, as we witness overindulgence in campaign spending, attack ads and ugly divisive rhetoric.

Whether we're watching the impassioned faces of the Tea Partiers in the United States, or listening to the often senseless barbs tossed about in the House of Commons, we can see that these pleasure seekers have found their vice.

Not that there's anything wrong with political passion.  That kind of passion not only fuelled the Civil Rights Movement, the Woman's Rights Movement, implemented child labour laws,et al, but has been responsible for our very democracy.

Political engagement, not war, has created our modern civilization.

But just as debauchery can destroy lives, political debauchery can destroy nations.

The New Drug of Choice - Hyerpartisanship.

I don't think anyone could argue that our politics has become ugly and getting worse.

When someone from one side of the room in the Commons, accuses someone on the other side of something, you rarely get an explanation. Instead they pull out a piece of paper with some quote from a newspaper "proving" that the accuser had once engaged in similar behavior.

Political debate is being reduced to "I know I am, but what are you?"

Recently we have learned that the NDP is being charged with the mishandling of public funds, when they peppered ridings about to hold bi-elections, with Party campaign ads, using their Parliamentary envelopes and letterhead. They also took advantage of free postage, which is only permitted, or at least is supposed to be only permitted, to send notices to constituents.

They have been told that they will have to repay 1.17 million, the amount deemed to be the cost of the inappropriate use of public money.

Instead of paying up, apologizing, and promising not to do it again, they have decided to fight the decision, even if it means delaying summer break.

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair claims that the decision was made in a "Kangaroo Court" and that the other parties are guilty of the same crime.

He's right.

It's hard to look at this "ten percenter", sent out by the Conservatives, and not see it as partisan campaigning.

However, the other parties being wrong too is not a defense, it's an excuse.

The abuse of mailing privileges hit a peak in 2009, when it was determined that MPs had spent ten million dollars on what mostly amounted to Party PR. The Conservatives were the biggest spenders at twice what the combined opposition spent, most echoing their campaigns. "Not a leader", "Just visiting", always with a poll asking who was on the right track?

The practice has become less frequent, mainly due to public outrage, but I still receive nonsense suggesting that Justin Trudeau is in over his head or Thomas Mulcair wants to raise taxes.

Mulcair also claims that he received permission for the mailings from the Speaker of the House, who denies he ever approved them.

It does seem highly unlikely, that if the NDP asked if it would be okay to spend more than a million dollars of public money to campaign for upcoming bi-elections, that the Speaker would have said "sure".

So this is not about Kangaroo Courts or secretive House of Commons committees; it's about elected officials, who have become so hyper-partisan, that they see it as OK to use our money to guarantee their Party's political success.

The word debauchery comes from the French word debauchee, which means to “entice from work or duty.” It's pretty clear that duties are being neglected when the lure of oneupmanship and beating the system, take precedence over doing what they were elected to do.

No one campaigns on abusing tax dollars and I doubt they would win if they did.

So How Do We Clean Up This Mess?

Politicians are not the only ones guilty of being hooked on partisan porn. Debates on Twitter and Facebook, some healthy and some not so healthy, often become about defending your own Party's wrong doing, while pointing out the wrong doings of others.

In the last Ontario provincial election, NDP leader Andrea Horvath, constantly referred to the Liberals as "corrupt", claiming that only she could clean up government.

A ridiculous statement. At one time or another, most, if not all, governments, have had at least one member, who bends or breaks the rules.

To really clean up government, we need to clean up politicians who look for ways to abuse the trust we place in them.

If Maurizio Bevilacqua Wants to Clean up Vaughan I Know Where he Should Sweep

404 System Error, score another home run with their exposure of some questionable financing in Julian Fantino's campaign.

Seems Fantino is running two separate accounts, in a non-transparent fashion, one with a balance of $300,000.

Why two accounts and why were the records of only one of the accounts presented to Elections Canada?

Is Fantino accepting donations over the $1,100.00 limit imposed by our current government?

As a former Mike Harris crony, nothing that Julian Fantino does surprises me.  He had quite a reputation back in the day.

NOW magazine reported in October of 1999, of:   Fantino's Conservative ties to (Mike) Harris and the law-and-order platform ... "The kind of policing Fantino embodies is the scary part. The steroid boys will get a free hand. It'll be road-boss country again." It's moving the policing discussion a huge step backward," says another councillor, recalling the "kiddie porn" busts Fantino presided over in London that, when all was said and done, amounted mostly to an anti-gay witch hunt."

And a month later when he was handed the job of police Chief in Toronto:  "... firm signals from the Progressive Conservative government at Queen's Park that Mr. Fantino is the man Mike Harris and his people have wanted for the job."  His appointment was political and not based on merit.

Harris wanted to put a tough face on his so-called "law and order" agenda, and Fantino's was that face.  Sadly, that's all he brought to the job, as one retired RCMP Sgt from Caledonia says: “Fantino was a complete joke as far as law and order was concerned”

The case of Peter Shoniker is a perfect example.  Shoniker was a fundraiser for Mike Harris and the boys, who was caught in a sting involving money laundering.  Seems Shoniker washed clean $700,000 and outright stole another $50,000.

When he was approached by an undercover RCMP corporal in 2003, and asked for help to launder $250,000, money he said was stolen from the pension fund of a Hamilton union, Shoniker readily obliged. He told Cpl. Lewis he would use his special status as a lawyer to evade police surveillance. And he bragged about his connections to highly placed police officers:.“I'm untouchable, untouchable by the police. Not a cop in this country who would dare burn me, question my integrity.”

And indeed at his trial, guess who came to his rescue?  Yep.  Julian Fantino, who painted Shoniker as a saint.

Fantino knew how to play the game.  Attack the gay community but make sure that your Conservative friends are taken care of.

Another example of this was brought to light in April of 2011, when it was revealed that Fantino had secured a $10 million federal grant for a hospital in Vaughan, that appears to have been given under false pretenses.  In fact, two members of Fantino's re-election team resigned over the scandal. 'Two Vaughan Conservatives have quit their riding association over a $10 million federal grant given to a health care project spearheaded by MP Julian Fantino’s former fundraisers.'

And the two former fundraisers in question?  'Michael DeGasperis, the hospital group’s chair, and Sam Ciccolini, the director, ran Fantino’s successful byelection fundraising campaign in November 2010.'

Now go back to the leaked documents on 404.  Who is handling these questionable transactions?   Sam Ciccolini and Michael Degasperis.  Recipients of the $10 million gift.  And as the Star notes, this money is not even going to the hospital, which is a provincial expense, but is 'earmarked to help develop a site for health-related facilities to complement a hospital.'  Private, for profit, health care.  As yet there are no shovels in the ground.

There needs to be an investigation into this, but now that the RCMP are not allowed to investigate the government, one of their primary jobs, fat chance of that happening.

The new mayor of Vaughan, Maurizio Bevilacqua,  is determined to clean up Dodge, ending backroom deals and changing their reputation as the “City Above the Law”.

But until they get rid of Fantino and his cronies, I'm afraid it will be a futile effort.

More Hands Found in Harper's Deep Pockets

In 2007, knowing that they couldn't ride Adscam forever, the Harper government put our tax dollars to good use, by hiring a private investigator to dig into the Liberal's polling expenses.

However, the firm he hired did not uncover the results he was hoping for.

An independent investigator hired by the Harper government to look into past Liberal polling practices has wound up shining an unfavourable light on the Tories' penchant for polling. Daniel Paille notes that the Conservative government has commissioned more than two polls per business day, a figure he calls "quite astounding."

His report shows that the government spent $31.2 million on opinion research in the last year - more than any previous year and almost twice the $18 million spent on average during the Liberal years. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Paille, a former Parti Quebecois cabinet minister, last April to conduct a probe of federal contracts for public opinion research between 1990 and 2003.  The objective was to determine whether a judicial inquiry into the previous Liberal government's polling practices was warranted.

Since it cost taxpayers $610,000 for the report, should there not have been a judicial inquiry into the Harper government's polling practices? Of course there should have been, but the whole thing got swept under their lumpy rug.

To avoid such dangerous transparency dinging them again, the conservatives limited their polling and instead hired a rash of "consultants" who do everything from monitoring the internet to "advising" elected officials.

And to keep them all employed, they create offices with lavish titles, making it appear that they are doing wonderful things on behalf of Canadians.  Unfortunately, many are not working at all.  Like the Appointments Commission:

Canadian taxpayers have shelled out more than $1 million for a federal appointments commission that has no commissioners and hasn't overseen a single appointment in four years. In fact, it isn't even supposed to exist.  Stephen Harper created the commission in 2006, and promptly scrapped it in a huff.  Yet the spending continues, and indeed the commission lives on, despite serving no apparent use.

In 2010 they were actually asking for a budget increase, despite being a phantom commission.

Harper's longtime friend Bruce Carson, was awarded $5 million to study something or other, though his studies appear to stop at escorts. 
 
The ethics czar had 50 pending ethics violations waiting to be investigated when she was paid $500,000 to just go away.

Recently another bogus office was uncovered by Greg Weston. 

A federal agency created by the Harper government with great political fanfare in 2008 is costing millions of dollars to achieve pretty much nothing.  The Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board has just about everything a budding government agency could want.  So far, it has spent over $3.3 million for new offices, computers and furniture, well-paid executives and staff, travel budgets, expense accounts, board meetings, and lots of pricey consultants.  All that's missing is a reason for it to exist at all.

The Harper government had already spent through the almost $9 billion surplus of EI funds, so there is nothing left to invest. That hasn't stopped the bogus board (run by Tradex) from demanding bigger offices. Guess where the surpluses went?

The conservative base allows this man to get away with anything.  Had the Liberals done this, they would have been all over it.
 
A columnist for a Western paper once wrote a piece praising Harper for not appointing staff based on patronage.  I promptly reminded him that the Harper government had just set a new record for patronage appointments, even beating out Brian Mulroney.  He demanded to see my sources.  After providing them, he never contacted me again.
 
Maybe it does just come down to the size of their brains.

So This is Ethical Oil?

The American conservatives appear to be adopting, or at least sharing, tactics being used by the Canadian conservatives to get what they want.  Intimidation and corruption.

The Republican controlled Congress is voting on a bill that would force President Obama to make a decision on TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline by November 1.  An unprecedented tactic that would remove the authority of the president and the secretary of state.  Future abuse could be devastating to both domestic and foreign policy.

Obama had to accept the deal in order to avoid raising taxes on workers, something the Republicans were determined to do, and Jim Flaherty has already done. (Flaherty does love taxing the little guy, doesn't he?)

Protests are growing in both the U.S. and Canada over the controversial pipeline, with the Americans not wanting the environmental mess when bitumen is sent there for processing, and Canadians not wanting the risk of devastating oil spills.

Another factor not getting as much media attention, is that while the U.S. oil lobby is citing all the new jobs in their country, many good jobs in the industry are being piped South.

Why?  Lower wages?  Since our government is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry, profit will always be job one. 

Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert claims that Canada must find more markets for its crude oil if it hopes to become a global energy superpower.  Why can't we become a global energy superpower with something other than oil?  And how many Canadians dream of becoming a global energy superpower anyway?  We just want the world to stop hating us.

Another element to this story is one of questionable lobbying practices and conflict of interest.  Apparently at least three politician in the U.S. fighting for the pipeline, have shares in TransCanada; two Republicans and one Democrat.

Time to reduce the powers of the oil industry and put it back into the hands of citizens.

Kelly Block to Finally Reveal What Was Really Going on in Her Office

If only that were true.

In December of 2010, a staffer in Kelly Block's office, leaked details of a confidential pre-budget House Finance Committee report, to several key lobbyists.  When caught, the Conservatives claimed that he was a "rogue" staffer and would be dealt with.

Their modus operandi when caught red handed.  Blame it on the help.

Block's aide, Russell Ullyatt, was not new to controversy.  He was named in the case of Conservative MP Rob Clarke, a former RCMP officer, who during his 2008 campaign, was allowing uniformed officers to deliver his lawn signs.  The image was both unprofessional and frightening, though not the first time that the RCMP interfered in elections on behalf of the Harperites.

In fact, they are still doing it.

The government was able to cleverly control the message of Ullyatt's motor mouth, by suggesting that they were looking at ways to make sure that it wouldn't happen again, and of course Block gave him the sack.

However, what they refused to address was something far more serious.  Apparently Ullyat was running a very lucrative business from  INSIDE Block's office, using taxpayer money to print and distribute, according to his own website, more than 5 million direct mail fundraising letters on behalf of Conservative clients.

Throughout both House Affairs Committee meetings last week, opposition MPs honed in on Mr. Ullyatt's credibility and especially his ownership of a political mailing company BestMail.ca. Mr. Mulcair, who also has an office on the sixth floor of the Confederation Building near Ms. Block's office, said he had seen "skids with boxes piled high and a very elaborate printing machine" in the hallway outside Ms. Block's office.

If you look at the bestmail.ca website, it's pretty chintzy, with a Conservative blue banner and little else. Apparently he has no staff, according to the company profile, but then why would he need his own staff, when he could simply use Kelly's, which is paid for by us.

The other strange thing about his website is that under contact info it simply leads you back to bestmail.ca  Obviously his clients knew where he could be reached.

As usual, the Harperites circled the wagons, protecting Block, and Block herself, refused to be accountable, feigning ignorance, which in a Member of Parliament may be worse than deceit.  How can we trust her to make decisions when she can't, or won't, explain over 5,000,000 mail outs, allegedly produced and distributed by her own staff?  Surely she doesn't believe that she has 5,000,000 constituents?

Liberal MP Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Ont.) asked in Question Period on Dec. 16 whether the government would call in the RCMP to investigate what she called "a serious allegation of potential fraud being conducted out of [Ms. Block's] office." Government House Leader John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.), who had accompanied Ms. Block to her witness chair before the House Affairs Committee earlier that day, responded that the government would always be prepared to look at that.

They never did.

The opposition also revealed that her office had exorbitantly high printing expenses, which she signed off on.  They scripted her responses to committee and limited her time for questioning.
 
I bring this up now, because hypocritically, Block has now been charged with presenting a private member's bill to hold First Nation communities to account, by revealing the salaries of their leaders.  The implication of course is that they are perhaps corrupt, and even if this proves not to be so, the damage will be done.
 
The Reformers claim that Band members deserve "the same provisions as other Canadians in terms of transparency and accountability."
 
"Other Canadians" meaning anyone other than a member of their own government.  I don't know how Block will be able to discuss any of this with a straight face.  I mean, seriously.  She's being called a "rising star", but only because she clearly knows how the game is played.

You do as you're told and you'll be just fine.

This is clearly a witch hunt, but maybe the First Nation communities should announce that they are in the process of investigating Kelly Block and her connections to  Russell Ullyatt and bestmail.ca

Somebody's got to do it.

Never Seen Anything Like It? I Have. Mike Harris all Over Again

Why can't taxpayers press charges against politicians who steal our money?

Tony Clement deliberately misled Parliament, suggesting that he needed money for border security and instead used it for his re-election campaign. And listening to John Baird trying to defend it, is deja vu. These two criminals learned their craft when they stole from the Ontario taxpayers.

Same old, same old.

The big question is, why did the NDP not want this report to be released before the election? Puzzling.

Harper Must Have Sore Shoulders From all His Shrugging

To avoid having to answer questions about terrorists in his party, Stephen Harper's goons drowned out the media.

How is this democracy?

Canadians deserve answers. This is pretty serious. Cheering Conservative partisans shield Harper from awkward terrorism questions

Partisan supporters of Prime Minister Stephen Harper — led by Conservative staffers —purposely drowned out media questions Saturday about a controversial endorsement from a man with links to the Air India bombing. Harper was in Mississauga, Ont., where he hoped to use the venue of a Coptic Christian place of worship on Easter Weekend to promote his platform promise of a new office of religious freedom.

But two controversies about extremism overshadowed that message. A Tory candidate in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough has been shown to be a vocal supporter of the banned Tamil Tigers, prompting Conservative cabinet minister Peter Kent to say someone in his party's organization "obviously dropped the ball." And a Vancouver candidate is trying to distance herself from an endorsement from a high-profile Sikh advocate who has long been linked to the Air India bombing and the controversial Babbar Khalsa movement.

He's handling his campaign like he handles his government. In total secrecy.

Tape Reveals That Soudas Was Lying. Will Harper Still Back Him?

This story is in French but: Authority influence peddling scandal surface. In a nutshell two of the players talk about going through Con Senator Housakos to get Soudas to put the pressure on for the MPA council to pick their candidate.

And there is once again a question of kick backs.

And apparently Harper was aware of Carson after all.

A survey asked which topic would most influence your vote, and overwhelmingly it was Conservatives lack of ethics. I can't imagine why.

Harper Says he Won't Try to Form Coaltion. Who Besides Layton Would Join Him in One?

With typical arrogance Stephen Harper is saying that if he doesn't get the most seats he won't try to form a coalition. Who besides Layton would trust him?

If he fails to win his party will replace him.

He knows it and we know it.

And Graham Thomson gives his colleagues a dressing drown:

I'm upset with my colleagues in the media, with journalism professors, with teachers in general and with anyone responsible for informing Canadians how our system of parliamentary democracy works. That list certainly includes myself. We have obviously fallen down on the job.

How else to explain the headlines in newspapers -and the resulting chatter -around the country making it look as if Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is planning a coup after the federal election if he doesn't win the most seats? To read some of the stories, spiced up with quotes from outraged Conservatives, you'd think Ignatieff was ready to break out the guns and storm the doors of Parliament with his ragtag team of minority Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Québécois.

I'm ashamed with our media myself. They should know better.

And Harper is saying that even if he gets a minority he sees no reason for compromise. Nothing will change. He will run Parliament like he has a dictatorship.

Giving Canadians the finger.

The Toronto Star says Harper is taking the low road.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's emotional blackmail is beginning to wear thin. He's been stumping the land stirring fears that a Liberal-led “reckless coalition of losers” is poised to seize power and create a “black hole” if the voters are imprudent enough to deny his Conservatives the majority they crave.

“Michael Ignatieff's ambition to be prime minister trumps everything,” the Tories say. “Even how Canadians vote.” It's clever spin. But it's baloney. Anyone who is following this shallow campaign knows that the Conservatives, not some other clutch of losers, are likely to be back in power on May 2, crafting yet another Tory throne speech and budget. Every poll suggests the election is theirs to lose. This would be their third crack at governing since 2006.

We have to stop him. We can no longer count on help from the NDP so we'll have to slug it out alone.

Stephen Harper Stands by His Man

In January of 2008, Dimitri Soudas and his friend, Leo Housakos, a Conservative party fundraiser, became the subjects of an investigation into influence peddling.

A joint investigation by the Globe and Mail and Radio-Canada is alleging that a member of the Prime Minister's Office and a Conservative fundraiser directly interfered in a pair of political dossiers.

The report, which aired on the CBC's French-language service on Tuesday night, alleges PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas intervened in favour of a Montreal real estate developer currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the federal government, and sat in on a meeting with representatives of an international military contractor looking to sell its wares.

No charges were laid and Housakos was given a plum senate seat.

In 2010 a House of Commons bailiff tried to serve Dimiti Soudas and another staffer with a summons to appear before the Ethics Committee, but were twice refused entry to the government offices where Soudas worked. Stephen Harper had him in hiding, and no one was getting through the impenetrable barrier.

Now Soudas is again making headlines and Stephen Harper is again standing by his man. Soudas did nothing wrong, he tells us.

And yet at the time of Soudas' interference into an appointment with the Montreal Port Authority, cabinet Ministers were forced to intervene. Why were they forced to intervene if Soudas was not doing anything wrong?

There is also a question of whether or not Soudas lied under oath.

But Harper is not backing down. His boy did nothing wrong. I mean after all, didn't Bev Oda lie and is still running for office?

Obviously, Harper is hoping for another mandate, so he can make it all go away.

On May 2 vote, and vote wisely. Because crime shouldn't pay so handsomely.

Criminal Investigation Could be Underway Over G8 Spending

When the news first broke of the Fake lake, Conservatives claimed it showcased Canada. As fake?

The Liberals are now calling for a probe into the G8 spending that took money from the border security fund to finance Tony Clement's re-election campaign.

We know if it was the other way around, the Conservatives would be all over it.

I had someone from Clement's riding say that it wasn't their fault. They were hardly going to turn down the largess. I told him that he was right. But if they re-elect Clement, it means they support it.

Can We Make a Case For Mandatory Voting?

In 1891, Guillame Amyot introduced a private members’ bill on compulsory voting, designed to secure “purity in politics.”

A common practice on election day then, was to not only buy votes, but have others impersonate voters on the list, known to have left the area. It was felt that compulsory voting would limit both practices. Some of the logic may have been flawed, but the intention, I suppose, honourable.

The bill was defeated as infringing on citizens' rights.

In 2004, Liberal Senator Mac Harb, sponsored Bill S-22 in the Senate, calling for the introduction of mandatory voting in Canada. His concern was not corruption but voter apathy.

Senator Harb’s call for the introduction of mandatory voting stemmed from his concern with, in his words, “a rising electoral crisis” in Canada. Voter participation rates had gradually declined over the previous three decades and had experienced a “dramatic drop” in the 2004 federal election when a “record low of just 60.9 per cent” [now lower] of electors voted. As “democracy depends upon the active participation of its citizens” and as “record numbers” of young people are no longer voting, Senator Harb claimed that the time had come for Parliament to adopt legislation requiring all eligible electors to vote. (1)

The feeling was that if voting was treated the same way as mandatory taxes, jury duty and wearing seatbelts, it would become a natural thing.

There's no doubt that Canada has a democratic deficit. Stephen Harper is in power based on the will of just 22% of eligible voters. And yet he has been able to negotiate aggressive trade deals that diminish our sovereignty, control the Senate, and refuse to provide necessary information to Parliament; our elected representatives, whom we pay to hold the government to account.

It's interesting that in a 2005 Conservative press release, suggesting that Paul Martin was abusing his power, it was written: 'Responsibility to Parliament is absolutely key in our system of government. Unlike the United States, we lack checks and balances to constrain the power of the Executive. Parliament is the only meaningful constraint on the Executive and their widespread powers. When this constraint ceases to exist, the Governor-General, effectively chosen by the Prime Minister and likely therefore beholden to him/her, becomes the only check on the Prime Minister. That check is neither realistic nor desirable, let alone democratic or accountable.' (2)

The problem with low voter turnout is that often those who don't show up at the polls, are the ones who suffer the most from government decisions. Statistics have shown that the ridings with the highest voter volume, are those with the wealthiest citizens. So should we be surprised that governments draft legislation, that has the most benefit to that level of society?

The Conservatives, in fact, count on it. They ignore the poor and disenfranchised, because they know they can't count on their vote, so instead count on them not voting at all.

The first time in recent history that this strategy has been applied, was during the Reagan campaign, when his campaign manager was Stephen Harper's bridge to the American Religious Right, Paul Weyrich.

"With [Ronald] Reagan's outspoken opposition to the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Republican strategists knew that they would have to write off the blackvote. But although 90 per cent of black voters cast their ballots for the democrats, only 30 percent of eligible black Americans voted. Republican ... strategist Paul Weyrich stated "I don't want everyone to vote ... our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. We have no moral responsibility to turn out our opposition." (3)

It's why Conservatives try to make Parliament toxic. Why they defend their scandals by suggesting that the Liberals did it too, even when that isn't true or grossly exaggerated.

If voters can remain turned off at the polls, they will continue to tune out, and low voter turn out always favours the incumbent. Personally, I don't like the idea of compulsory voting, but do accept that we are now in a democratic crisis. We have to get people voting again. And not only voting but paying attention to what is taking place in their country.

Stephen Harper has shown what happens when we don't.

We become a government of one, where the people no longer have a voice. Canada has gone from first place to last in terms of accountability and openness. Stephen Harper has grown so confident in the knowledge that people won't care what he does, that he no longer acts on the wishes of the people.

Why should he?

We need to find ways to wake up the electorate. This may be the most important election in our lifetime, because our very democracy is at stake. Another mandate for Stephen Harper, or worse still, a majority, will send him the message that Parliament doesn't matter. Democracy doesn't matter. And we don't matter.

Think about that.

Sources:

1. The Debate About Compulsory Voting , By: John C. Courtney and Drew Wilby, The Canadian Parliamentary Review, Summer 2005

2. May 10, 2005

3. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 22

Have You Ever Seen a Pan With the Teflon Scraped Off?

We had a set of Teflon pans when I was a kid, a gift to my mother when my brother got his first job. They were great things but required a lot of extra care.

With us seven kids, who spent more time arguing over whose "turn it was to dry", taking special precautions with pots and pans never made it to the top of our list.

If we could hide them in a cupboard so they'd have to be washed when it wasn't our turn, that's what we did.

Suffice it to say that within a year those pots looked liked the side of an old barge in dry dock.

Bruce Anderson has a column in the Globe today: Ethics, arrogance and the end of the Teflon Tories.

He suggests that their arrogance may be their undoing.

Because up until now, they have simply dismissed all allegations against them, as partisan blather, ignoring the fact that Canadians want answers.

This arrogance got them into trouble the last prorogation, when they underestimated how important democracy is to Canadians.

They are doing the same now with the Contempt of Parliament charges, hoping we won't care. But we do care dammit.

The Conservatives just keep putting those pots in the cupboard, hoping we won't notice, but the Teflon has been eroding, and we're left with the ugly. It's time to replace them.

Anderson does question why the Liberals want an election now, but what he fails to understand, is that despite the poll of 15% of the people who answer their phone, there is a very large group of Canadians who want this election so bad we can taste it.

We have never had closure on so many issues from the Afghan Detainee abuse to the waste of our tax dollars on Harper's self-promotion. We want our chance to voice our concerns, and we will do that publicly, in droves.

Everyone who has ever been marginalized, polarized, beaten, verbally attacked and ignored by this government will rally.

The media and pollsters ignored us before, and we proved them wrong.

Give us that election and we'll show you how it's done.

Why Does Stephen Harper Only Call in the RCMP When He Gets Caught?

I love Bruce Carson's bio at the University of Calgary.

He comes to the position after more than two decades in politics. Carson served as director of policy and research for the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper when he was leader of the Opposition. In his most recent role as Senior Policy adviser to Prime Minister Harper, Carson has spent the last three years working on policy in both the Energy and Environment portfolios as well as other federal government initiatives.

No mention of the fact that he was working deals for a 22-year-old 'escort'.

Or that he had a criminal past:

The people who hired Bruce Carson knew he had a criminal record before tapping him to serve as the executive director of the Canada School of Energy and Environment.

Stephen Harper had no problem with his criminal past, until the media exposed it. Now he's all muster and bluster.

The disadvantage of Harper's tight control is that he can't deny knowing what is happening under his nose. That nose knows everything, and knew that he was dealing with a crook. In fact he often called Carson his friend.

I just wonder how many other Carsons are lurking about, that we don't know of ... yet.

The Erosion of Public Trust Was Cold and Calculated

Hannah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, mentions the erosion of public trust as a key element in the creation of an authoritarian state. This erosion of trust "leaves us increasingly open to dangerous manipulation by the enemies of open societies, those who disdain democracy as inherently weak and inefficient."

This erosion did not begin with Stephen Harper or the Reform/Neoconservative movement, but they have turned it turned into an art form.

And they do this in part by never taking responsibility for anything.

When caught in a sticky situation, they simply turn the tables and bring up past indiscretions of the other parties, especially the Liberals. There is never any closure. Any notion with the public that those committing sins (and sometimes crimes) were punished.

Stephen Harper ran on a fabricated notion of accountability, and yet his government has been the least accountable of any before it. However, if they cry "law-and-order" loud enough, giving the impression of being tough on crime, that's what gets our attention.

But as Bob Altemeyer reminds us: 'Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany running on a law-and-order platform just a few years after he tried to overthrow the government through an armed insurrection.' (1) A noble lie, since Hitler's "law-and-order" regimen created lawlessness, chaos and fear.

Cynicism as a Political Tool

Harper's former boss, Preston Manning, used to tell his candidates to dig up as much dirt on their political opponents as possible. Create a dossier, preparing for any debate. Policy was wrapped in ambiguity, but combativeness was carefully crafted.

And they took this with them to the House of Commons.

Obstruct, holler, chant and posture, but above all poison the well. And when all else fails, lie and lie deeply.

All of this contributes to a high degree of cynicism. As Chris Hedges says in his book Losing Moses on the Freeway:

When government and public institutions are no longer trusted, when they become engines solely for personal power and wealth at the expense of the interests and welfare of the public, it sends the message that honesty does not pay. There is a loss of faith in the structures designed to hold community together. Trust evaporates. People begin to believe nothing, or rather, they believe what they want to believe. Established media organs relay the lies of the powerful with little or no scrutiny, serving to further obscure the truth. A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom. (2)

A recent international poll concludes that the public’s faith in political parties is eroding, with "four out of five people saying they are corrupt or very corrupt."

This has been most significant with the mishandling of the financial crisis.

In Canada, the Harper government spent more time worrying about the political leverage with infrastructure spending, than job creation, and in the U.S., those taking most of the stimulus funds, used the money to better themselves.

Elizabeth MacDonald called it the: Federal Reserve’s Bailout of the Rich and Well-Connected

The conflicts of interest and policy controversies in the Federal Reserve’s bailout of the financial system now include helping out millionaires, billionaires, foreign automakers, and companies whose executives sit on the board of directors of the U.S. central bank.

How could you not become cynical?

Yet all of this cynicism and negativity is playing into the hands of the neoconservatives authoritarian agenda. In fact it is a necessity if they hope to succeed and maintain their hold on power.

As Hannah Arendt writes:

It has frequently been noticed that the surest long-term result of brainwashing is a peculiar kind of cynicism—an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established, in other words, the result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth vs. falsehood as among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed. (3)

Calculated ambiguity is used to sell their message, but earning the public's distrust is actually more important, once they have gained power.

Low voter turnout always favours the incumbent and a turned off public will leave those elected alone. We have been brainwashed with cynicism and thus trust no one, so we simply retreat.

If we could find a way to get the parties in the centre and left of centre to stop nattering at each other and focus on what's important, we might be able to give some hope to the electorate that there is an alternative.

Because if we can't do that, I'm afraid we're going to be stuck with Stephen Harper for a very long time, and his threatened majority will become a horrible reality.

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

Sources:

1. The Authoritarians, By Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, 2006

2. Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America, By Chris Hedges, Free Press, 2005, ISBN: 0-7432-5513-5, Pg. 133-134

3. The Origins of Totalitarianism, By Hannah Arendt, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968

Harper Government May Have Ties to the Mafia

This is not the first time that the Harper governemnt has been accused of having Mafia ties.

Maxime Bernier, Leo Housakos, Dimitri Soudas.

But new information has come to light in what some of are calling (or not calling) Renogate.

Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe told the House of Commons on Tuesday that a Tory fundraiser in Montreal in January 2009 was held at a restaurant owned by a man with links to a Mafia clan. "The owner of the restaurant where the cocktail party took place, Mr. Riccardo Padulo, is close to the Vito Rizzuto family, an influential member of the Mafia," Duceppe said. Earlier this year, Padulo attended a funeral service for Nick Rizzuto.

Construction boss Paul Sauve threw the fundraiser at Da Enrico restaurant months after his company got an $8.9-million contract to renovate Parliament's West Block. Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis was the guest of honour at the event. He was public works minister at the time. Executives from several companies that got huge government contracts donated to the Conservatives to attend the fundraiser. Opposition parties have demanded Paradis' resignation, raising the prospect that the Tories took kickbacks in return for handing out government contracts.

Wow. Hookers, booze, mafia. This just keeps getting better. (or worse)

RCMP Investigating Possible Corruption Charges Against Harper Government

The RCMP are currently investigating a possible lobbying fraud involving the "good old boys" of the Mulroney days and the "bad new boys" of Harper's.

Same old, same old.

The RCMP is investigating a $9-million renovation contract on Parliament Hill to a Montreal-based construction firm that hired a Conservative supporter to help in its dealings with the federal government, sources said.

The RCMP is probing the nature of the relationship between construction firm LM Sauvé and long-time Conservative organizer and business adviser Gilles Varin. Investigators are focusing on lobbying rules and anti-corruption laws.

Maybe we'll need those new prisons afterall.

The Harper Government Once Again Prove They Have Someting to Hide

As it is becoming more apparent that the so-called Economic Action Plan, was little more than a public relations scheme, to boost the Reformer's profile; a recent story helps to validate that claim.

Harper Aide, Ryan Sparrow, worked to keep the five million dollar price tag of the Olympic ad scheme, a secret.

A senior Conservative official repeatedly intervened last month to try and suppress the revelation that Ottawa spent $5-million on a TV advertising blitz surrounding the Vancouver Olympics, new records show.

In a tense exchange of e-mails over a two-day period, ministerial aide Ryan Sparrow blocked attempts by bureaucrats to reveal the price tag of the ads that aimed to promote Conservative budgetary measures.

The civil service had prepared the numbers in response to a question from The Globe and Mail, but records just released under the Access to Information Act show that Mr. Sparrow managed to temporarily hold back on their release.

Another journalist who tried to get information on ad spending for the action plan (now believed to be over one hundred million dollars), received over two hundred pages of junk.

If we are finding it this difficult to learn this government's secrets, what of the ones we don't find about? There is a very disturbing pattern here.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

Corruption and Scandals in Harper's Party

I'm doing something a little different with my blog, trying to organize archives, etc. so I'm using this page to link my stories to the corruption and scandals mounting within the Reform-Conservative Party.

Feel free to use anything.

We've got to start preparing ourselves for the next election, by reminding Canadians that Stephen Harper is not the only problem this party has.

They are the wrong fit for Canada and really must be put out to pasture, before they completely destroy this country.

Reform-Conservative Corruption, Scandals and Screw-Ups

Attack Ads

Brian Mulroney

Cadman Affair

Coalition

Dictatorship

Environmental Mess

Gun Registry

Foreign Policy

H1N1

Health Care

Homophobia

In and Out Election Scheme

Incompetence

Isotopes

Law and Order

Lies and Deception

Mishandling of the Economy

Morally Bankrupt

National Citizens Coalition

Patronage and Nepotism

Police State

Poverty and Homelessness

Privatization

Quebec

Ridley Terminals

Senate Appointments

Silencing Everyone

Tainting of the RCMP

Unemployment

War on Science

War on Universities

War on Women

Afghanistan and the Drug Trade. Who Are we Protecting?

When the story first broke about former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier leaving sensitive NATO documents in the apartment of a girlfriend, the media became focused on the sexy side of the story, ignoring most of the important issues. Like what was in the documents, and why is he taking them home?

But the woman in question, Julie Couillard, revealed something else that Bernier had told her, stating on national television that Maxime had said “the war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with building democracy in that country but has to do with the global control of the opium trade. It’s a drug war.”... "the War In Afghanistan was about the control of the global opium trade, not democracy".

According to a United Nations report in 2006:

UN anti-narcotics chief calls for wide-spectrum action against Afghan opium production

Afghanistan, the world’s largest opium producer, is already a “narco-economy” and risks becoming a “narco-state,” with drug production its largest employer, the top United Nations drugs and crime fighter warned today.

UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa called for a wide range of international action to curb production, trafficking, demand and accompanying corruption, terming the reduction of heroin demand “the mother of all drug control challenges.”

“Afghanistan has already become a narco-economy in the sense that drugs are now Afghanistan’s largest employer, income generator, source of capital, export and foreign investment,” UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told a ministerial conference in Moscow on drug trafficking routes from the country. “It has become a narco-society in the sense that many Afghans are now hooked on the drug money and now it risks becoming a narco-state,” he added.

“Pyramids of protection now connect the upper world of the Afghan establishment to the underworld of Afghan mafias.”

Seasoned journalist Arthur Kent, shown in the video above, is also concerned with the drug trade and made his concerns known to our ambassador in Afghanistan, Arif Lalani; when he first arrived. He told him that there members of the Karzai government involved in the illegal drug trade, but his warnings fell on deaf ears. Now remember, Arthur Kent is the brother of Reform-Conservative Peter Kent, so this is not a partisan issue.

The New York Times recently reported on the issue, but are suggesting that the Taliban are the only ones involved and that the drug trade is supporting their forces.

WASHINGTON — The United States-led counter narcotics effort in Afghanistan, viewed as critical to halting the flow of funds to the Taliban and curtailing corruption, lacks a long-term strategy, clear objectives and a plan for handing over responsibility to Afghans, the State Department inspector general said in a report released Wednesday.

The report said that military and civilian anti drug programs lacked clearly delineated roles, and that civilian contracts for counter narcotics work were poorly written and largely supervised from thousands of miles away.

We learn that there are new anti-drug initiatives, but are they really working? This from the Associated Press on December 24, 2009: US anti-drug effort in Afghanistan criticized
Afghanistan produces roughly 90 percent of the world's illicit opium. By MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON — The State Department's internal watchdog on Wednesday criticized the agency's nearly $2 billion anti-drug effort in Afghanistan for poor oversight and lack of a long-term strategy. The department's inspector general said the Afghanistan counter-narcotics program is hampered by too few personnel and rampant corruption among Afghan officials.

The inspector general's report also noted that despite a consensus among U.S. agencies that eradicating poppy fields is essential, the focus has shifted to interdiction of drug organizations and alternative crop projects ....

One more reason to RETHINK AFGHANISTAN!