Another Harper Lie? Say it Ain't So

Stephen Harper has claimed that his stacking of the Senate with his own hallelujah chorus, was so he could push through senate reform.

But someone forgot to mention it to the mostly hyper-partisan crew.

Turns out they like it right where they are. They don't have to do a thing, but obey commands.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a majority in the Senate but he may not have the numbers to push through the reforms he planned for the Red Chamber, Postmedia News has learned. That, say sources, is the real reason the government is showing signs it is willing to compromise by extending its proposed term limits for senators from eight years to 10 or 12, and promising a full study on the election of senators rather than the quick passage of its Senate reform package bills.

Harper appointed more than 30 Conservative senators to the upper house in the last 2 1/2 years — precisely, he said, so he could pass his Senate reform agenda. But, during that time, some senators have publicly and privately suggested they've changed their minds and no longer support Harper's plan to establish provincial senate elections and impose eight-year term limits.

I mean who would vote for these clowns?

In fact many have run for election and were rejected.

Just another day in Harperland.

Do All Conservative Ministers Live Under a Rock?

Next to "I'm sorry", the most common phrase used by Conservatives, is "I didn't get the memo".

I swear. It's like they have no idea what is going on under their noses.

That's if you believe them, which I don't.

Hackers who attacked two of Canada's federal departments stole classified information before being discovered last January, CBC News has learned. The revelation comes from documents obtained under Access to Information laws, and contradicts what the minister in charge said at the time.

Six months ago, hackers launched an unprecedented cyber attack on the federal government. In January, the government's computer system came under attack ...
"Indications are that data has been exfiltrated and that privileged accounts have been compromised," said a memo written Jan. 31, 2011.

Former Treasury Board president Stockwell Day said he was never told that any classified information was stolen from government computers. "Certainly, on the information that I got, I had full confidence that the systems had moved quickly to shut down, that significant information had not in fact been carried away, and that the ongoing assessment of that by the technicians continues," he told CBC News on Thursday.

I find it hard to believe that he was kept in the dark about something this important.

Congratulations Ted Hsu on Your New Appointments

Kingston's Ted Hsu has been named to two positions in the Liberal shadow cabinet, Critic for Science & Technology, and for the Federal Economic Development Agency of both Southern and Northern Ontario.

Ted has a PhD in physics from Princeton, and is not only fluent in French, English and Chinese, but also speaks the language of science. Something the Harper government is completely illiterate in.

He's hard working and personable, and will be a great asset to the team as the party rebuilds.

Marc Garneau as House Leader, is also a good choice, as he presents a contrast to the bombastic Peter Van Loan, and often volatile Thomas Mulcair. And Ralph Goodale, one of the most likable and honest in the House, as Deputy leader is a perfect fit.

A Scientific Change in Direction?

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

I wrote a piece a while back comparing Nazi science minister Bernhard Rust and Christian Paradis, both of whom controlled any messages, pertaining to scientific research.

Gary Goodyear made a feel good announcement yesterday at Queen's University with the promise of a $30 million investment in research.

This just happened to coincide with another announcement that 50 staff members at Environment Canada, "including scientists and scientific support staff", were given their lay off notices.

What does it mean when Gary Goodyear, our science minister who doesn't believe in science, is pledging millions for scientific research, on the same day that we lose 50 scientists?

For the answer to that question, we can turn to a piece written by Laura Beach, and published on The Mark: The Militarization of Canada's Universities

Beach argues that most research at universities is now conducted to bolster " the “military industrial complex” within the university sphere."

A significant portion of federal funding to Canadian universities now flows through “matching funds” projects where industry and government share financial investment.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Networks of Centres of Excellence both participate in “matching funds” projects, favouring research that has direct applications in private industry. It is within this context that the influence of the military has become so pervasive in universities across the country.

Goodyear's announcement specifically mentions NSERC as one of the partners in the new research grant, and NSERC conducts research for the Department of National Defence.

The other area that is receiving research funding is Ultra Large Scale Software This is a system being developed for the U.S. Defense Department:

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has a goal of information dominance—to achieve and exploit superior collection, fusion, analysis, and use of information to meet mission objectives. This goal depends on increasingly complex systems characterized by thousands of platforms, sensors, decision nodes, weapons, and war fighters connected through heterogeneous wired and wireless networks. These systems will push far beyond the size of today’s systems and systems of systems by every measure. They will be ultra-large, network-centric, real-time, cyber-physical, social systems that support a landscape of information-sharing constraints and must be adaptable and robust in extreme environments, and be sustainable legally, technically, and politically.

And if these three, seemingly unrelated stories, don't help to define Harper's change in direction, when it comes to scientific research, another might make you want to pay attention.

To further our own "military industrial complex", the government has just announced that they will be creating seven new operational bases around the world: Kuwait, Germany, Senegal, Kenya, Singapore, South Korea and Jamaica.

This while Libya is being blasted back to the stone age with the promise of more to come.

So now it makes perfect sense for Christian Paradis to filter information on government funded, scientific research.

And a joke from Time magazine, in a 1933 piece:

Two Germans were eyeing a burly lout in the Nazi uniform who was striding through a university hall. First man: "What is the policeman doing here?" Second man: "Sh, sh. That is the man selected to succeed Einstein."

Can you hear me now?

Will the Harperites Make the NDP Swear an Oath of Allegiance?

Jean Chrétien has recently weighed in on the NDP's stance on national unity.

Former prime minister Jean Chretien says he's disturbed by the NDP's "ambiguity" on national unity and its willingness to resurrect the debate over the Constitution.
He was referring to an NDP caucus that suddenly includes sympathizers of Quebec independence and is the first pan-Canadian party to oppose the Clarity Act, Chretien's landmark law which sets rules for a future referendum.

"Obviously, there's some ambiguity and I see they've started to talk about the Constitution again since the election," Chretien said during a visit to Quebec City. "I said in 1993: 'If you want to talk about the Constitution, vote against me because I won't go there. There are other problems than that."'

When he mentioned 1993, I remembered something from that time.

It was the year that Harper's Reform Party and the Bloc, made election history, with the Reformers winning 52 seats, and the Bloc, 54, to become the official opposition.

Reformers had taken a tough stand with Quebec, and had joined forces with the Alliance for the Preservation of English, to challenge bilingualism.

Things became charged when members of APEC set fired to a Quebec flag in Brockville.

“On a platform behind the train station, a Quebec flag was spread out. About half a dozen demonstrators took turns stomping and spitting on the Fleur-de-lis before it was set ablaze.”(Ottawa Citizen, October 19, 1992)

And for a bit of trivia, one of Harper's new senators, Bob Runciman, was a supporter.

“The Brockville chapter of APEC successfully opposed a petition to introduce French immersion classes in the Leeds and Grenville school district; not that the school board really needed prodding from APEC to turn down French immersion. Bob Runciman, the local MPP, supports APEC and has addressed a meeting of its Brockville chapter.” (Kingston Whig-Standard, July 11 1987)

“Runciman has apparently helped whip up the anti-bilingualism sentiment in the area, and [APEC] members claimed 1,400 people have joined the cause in Brockville and 10,000 across the province.” (The Toronto Star, Aug 16 1987)

But I digress.

In the piece on Chretien, it states that: 'The NDP stance would seem to be at odds with the Clarity Act, which calls for a clear majority for sovereigntists before Ottawa would entertain negotiations to break up the country.'

However, as I've mentioned several times, Jack Layton actually campaigned in 2004, on a promise to repeal the Clarity Act.

So back to my original question and the 1993 election results.

Several Reform Party MPs suggested that since the Bloc was a separatist party, their MPs should be forced to pledge allegiance to Canada. (video below) They also liberally threw out words like "treason", not unlike the insane rantings during the 2008 coalition crisis.

So given the fact that the NDP now has 59 MPs from Quebec, several of whom are also "separatists", with the leader vowing to scrap the Clarity Act, will the Reformers in the House, of which there are many (including the prime minister), demand that they pledge an Oath of Allegiance?

It would be no crazier today than it was in 1993. (and yes, this is tongue in cheek)

Victimizing the Victims

An item appearing in the Huffington Post today, is almost too shocking to believe: FEMA To Demand That Hurricane Katrina Victims Return Aid Money

Nearly six years have passed since Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans in misery, but many residents haven't forgiven the Federal Emergency Management Agency for its sluggish response to the storm. Now another delayed reaction by FEMA – a stop-and-start push to recoup millions of dollars in disaster aid – is reminding storm victims why they often cursed the agency's name.

As a new hurricane season begins Wednesday, FEMA is working to determine how much money it overpaid or mistakenly awarded to victims of the destructive 2005 hurricane season. The agency is reviewing more than $600 million given to roughly 154,000 victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and is poised to demand that some return money.

And if that isn't horrifying enough, we also learn that in Haiti, victims of the devastating earthquake are now being forced out of their temporary shelters.

Since 23 May, more than 300 homeless families have been forcibly evicted from two makeshift camps in the Delmas municipality of Port-au-Prince, continuing what seems to be a wave of forced evictions in the Haitian capital. Hundreds more are facing imminent eviction in the next three months.

Victimizing the victims. How did it come to that?

A Harper Majority and the Future of the FTAA

The Free Trade Area of the Americas, was supposed to be a follow up to NAFTA, with a trade agreement that extended from Alaska to Chile.

An extension of the corporate dream as markets would be open to every country in Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

The deal was to be finalized January 1, 2005, but has been delayed because of strong social movements across the hemisphere, bringing the debate to the public's attention.

After the destruction of the Southern Cone by Milton Friedman and his "Chicago Boys", many South American countries are not so eager for a repeat.

Friedman had turned the area into a laboratory for the Chicago School of Economics, at a heavy human toll.

The Chicago School also begat the Calgary School, and the Calgary School begat Stephen Harper, a man still determined to complete the free marketeer agenda.

Why else would he unleash John Baird on the world?

Canada and the FTAA

According to Todd Gordon in Imperialist Canada:

Canada has been the most vociferous proponent of the FTAA. The U.S. Congress cooled on free trade in the latter half of the 1990s, making it harder for successive American presidents to successfully pursue the FTAA.

Canada took the lead negotiating role in the early stages, chaired the Summit Implementation Re?view Group, hosted a trade ministerial meeting and several other Summit of the Americas (of which the FTAA is a part) meetings. In this leadership role, Canada has tried to exploit its image as a benign international force to push the agreement through. "We do not have the baggage," one trade negotiator notes when assessing the prospect for FTAA negotiations led by Canada."

And the Harperites are hoping to use that image of a "benign international force", to push through an aggressive agenda.

They have established an advisory panel and are trying to recreate a "democratic" movement, according to University of California's Michael Allen, modeled on existing foundations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (2).

According to the New York Times: "The National Endowment for Democracy is a quasi-governmental foundation created by the Reagan Administration in 1983 to channel millions of Federal dollars into anti-Communist 'private diplomacy.'"

And it was fashioned after Milton Friedman's Chicago style gangster diplomacy.

Pamela Wallin's appointment to the new advisory panel is fitting. According to Michael Byers:

Ms. Wallin, who served as consul general in New York, played a central role in persuading American opinion-makers that Canada was fully supportive of the "war on terror." She now works as a senior adviser to the Council of the Americas, a free trade-promoting organization that counts some of the largest U.S. corporations among its members. (3)

The problem facing these free marketeers, is that Latin America is not as keen on the FTAA and all that "democracy". They want to create their own trading bloc, setting their own terms.

They still bear the scars of the "Authoritarian Democracy", while Canada is now in the process of receiving the blows from our own. According to Wikipedia, Brazil is taking the lead as they try to establish a new foundation.

With a Harper majority, we may see an attempt to thwart such a move, with full military force. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Canada recently dropped 240 bombs on Libya and is in the market to buy 1300 more.

For what purpose?

We have got to start paying attention to what is being done in our name. Harper may be trying to exploit our reputation to pursue his agenda, but that good name is wearing thin. We are increasingly being viewed as an aggressor nation.

Is this really your Canada?

Sources:

1. Imperialist Canada, By Todd Gordon, Arbeiter Publishing, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-894037-4507, Pg. 154-55

2. The D-word out of favor? Don’t tell the Canadians, By Michael Allen, Democracy Digest, December 4, 2009

3. Why I said no to Manley, By Dr. Michael Byers, Ottawa Citizen, December 13, 2007