It's Time For Don Cherry to Hang Up the Ugly Jackets and Retire

The normally bombastic Don Cherry went too far on this week's Coach's Corner, calling those who oppose fighting in the NHL "pukes and hypocrites".

The "pukes and hypocrites" fought back.

A lot of kids watch his rants and what kind of message is he sending?

And what's really alarming is that CBC is supporting him.

Maybe it is time to pull the plug on them. They're becoming more like Fox News than Fox News. Glenn Beck would have loved Cherry. They both act like idiots and get paid megabucks to do it.

Time to remind Canadians just who Cherry really is. Not the hero of the working class, after standing with Rob Ford against them. Just another corporate shill getting rich off the Neocons.

I'm ashamed to say that he's from Kingston.

The CBC on the Chopping Block is No Surprise to Anyone

I came across this image for the CBC.  I think it was for an event that was sold out.  However, as soon as I saw it, I thought how appropriate.

There is a bit of angst over the future of the CBC, with poor Stephen Harper losing sleep over the country's finances.

At least that's the way the story is being sold.

Anyone who read his speech at the Reform Party assembly, more than two decades ago, stumped to thunderous applause; know that the CBC was history from the day he was named prime minister.

Although, I believe they wrote their own death warrant the first time they called the Reform-Alliance Party, 'Tories'.

They helped Harper keep up the facade, and are now worried that his success, means their demise.

They should have thought of that.  Public broadcasting, belongs to us, the public, and CBC is no doubt looking to the public to save them.  But where were they when we needed saving?

Evan Solomon went so far to the right, he may be too radical for Fox News, and after Lloyd Mansbridge's infomercial for Harper during the last election campaign, what is there left for us to fight for?

Another right-wing entertainment station?  We need an alternative to Fox News North, not an instant replay.  The only thing I watch on CBC now is the Rick Mercer Show.  Everything else is just blah, blah, blah.

I am very sad about this, but I'm also mad as hell.  The majority of Canadians do not support the Right-Wing Revolution, yet we have no one speaking for us.  A few columnists now and then, but their work is lost in the drone of the same old, same old.

"Harper wore out another pair of shoes today.  He's got to quit walking on water".

For anyone interested, in Harper's speech he promised to also get rid of EI, The Canada Pension Plan (already shot through the heart by Jim Flaherty), Old Age Security, the Canada Health Act ....

Everything put in place to help Canadians.

I will sign a petition to keep the CBC alive, but only on the condition that they start acting like a "public" institution, and not another Harper communication vehicle.

We need a program warning Canadians of our Religious Right, especially since most of them are American based.  We need a program promoting progressive ideas.  We need a program raising awareness to the income disparity that is hurting the most vulnerable in our society.

If the CBC can provide that kind of programming, I'm in.  If not, count me out.

Conservatives Have Stolen Footage From CBC and Refuse to Give it Back

We are used to the Harper government believing that everything that belongs to us, belongs to them. But now the Conservative Party has adopted the same culture of entitlement.

They have virtually stolen footage from the CBC to use in attack ads against Michael Ignatieff.

And when the CBC asked them to stop, they refused.

Remember, the CBC does not belong to the government of Canada. And it doesn't belong to Stephen Harper. It belongs to us. So once again, we have the corporate financed Harper conservatives, challenging the Canadian people.

Us. The Us's. The 2/3 of Canadians who have been ignored by this government.

There is kind of a funny aside to this though. Apparently some clever hackers, or computer savvy individuals, have linked the CBC footage stolen YouTube videos, to negative samplings, designed by amateurs.

They'll probably be convicted or exiled, because we all know the only ones allowed to break the law, are the Harperites.

Stephen Harper to Perform CBC's Swan Song. Goodbye Hockey Night in Canada

Stephen Harper has always hated the CBC. I mean it has Canadian in it's name. How could he possibly like it?

Dean Del Mastro also hates the CBC. He's planning on "Reorganizing" the CBC's money? That's Reform speak for cutting it off.

Del Mastro was involved in a little collusion with Mike Duffy to embarrass a CBC journalist. He's a truly evil man.

And we've learned from WikiLeaks that the Americans don't like CBC because they "stereo-type" them.

"While this situation hardly constitutes a public diplomacy crisis per se, the degree of comfort with which Canadian broadcast entities, including those financed by Canadian tax dollars, twist current events to feed long-standing negative images of the U.S. — and the extent to which the Canadian public seems willing to indulge in the feast — is noteworthy as an indication of the kind of insidious negative popular stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada."

Maybe if they stopped acting like insidious negative asses, we wouldn't think of them that way. Besides, have you seen how they stereo-type us? We all live in Igloos, eh?

All of this makes me angry, but learning that we could be losing Hockey Night in Canada, because of another corporate take over, has me steamed.

Is Herr Harper going to leave us with anything?

Hockey Night in Canada to be replaced with Every Night in Harperland, aka: Fox News North.

Oh, well. Buck up and start practicing your goose step. Make sure you move the furniture first. Trust me.

Is the CBC on It's Way Out?

Martin Knelman believes that the CBC may be on it's way out. He sites a softened approach to news and the failure to create new programming of interest.

I think part of the problem may be that they are simply shell shocked.

Our current government has had it in for them for years. And I don't know if that's why they started shifting to the right, but I no longer watch their news stories.

And panel discussions have become one right-wing opinion pitted against another.

No one speaks for Canada anymore.

With Fox News North on the horizon, they are going to be eaten alive.

Knelman says that if Harper gets his majority (egads!) he'll no doubt just defund it.

He's probably right.

But unless they get back to being a "public" broadcasting system, why bother funding it at all.

I'm a Radical! How Cool is That?

Apparently the Reformers have sent out a fundraising letter after uncovering some nefarious plot by someone who has contributed money to the Liberal Party, and is in cahoots with the CBC. I think she also knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried and who really killed JFK.

But this is the funny part:

It has now come to our attention that Mrs. Pynenburg is the Vice-President of the National Women's Liberal Commission, and a proud member of Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper (CRUSH), a radical anti-Stephen Harper group.

Not the National Women's Liberal Commission! Oh no, say it ain't so. Lynch her now.

Mary Pynenburg is a Facebook friend and she is wonderful. And like me she is not only "a proud member of Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper", but also Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.

I don't know the story of the poll, but it can't be much different than the ones that have been flooding the media, conducted by the Manning Centre (Manning as in Reform Party/Stephen Harper Manning)

And CRUSH is hardly radical. I write for them on Unseat Harper (we're also on Twitter) and I donate $25.00 a month to the Liberal Party. If that makes me a radical, then so be it.

I've always wanted to be a "radical" and if the Reformers want to put that in a fundraising letter they can go ahead. I might even throw in a few bucks if they're that hard up.

Now where's my Abbie Hoffman T-shirt and go-go boots. There's gonna' be a revolution! But first I need a nap.

Rabble's Not Rex Murphy Contest and Humberto Da Silva

As I mentioned in a couple of other postings, Rabble is having a Not Rex Murphy contest and have chosen their top five finalists. You can view all of the entries here.

Da Silva, in the video above, brings up some very valid points about our media, and their shift to the right.

And as he indicates, we used to be able to at least depend on our public broadcaster, CBC, to keep us informed and promote the things that mattered to Canadians.

Things like health care and social services. But now as he states, it's mostly crap. No wonder social media is becoming so popular.

Humberto also has a website, with the same irreverent humour that I love. You can visit it here.

So be sure to listen to all the videos and vote for your favourite. These types of contests are an excellent way to engage people in the political process.

Charles Moore Gets the Smackdown - From the Calgary Herald?

During our kind of mini debate on the CBC Monday, Charles Moore brought out the tired old Reform-Conservative lines ... coalition ... too few numbers ... economy ... blah, blah, blah.

He's certainly entitled to his opinion, even if it is wrong (hee, hee), but much was off topic.

However, I did want to rebut a couple of things. First off about the handling of the economy. As I mentioned before, what we saw of the Canada Action Plan was nothing more than a huge PR stunt.

From signs to big cardboard cheques, self-promotion ads and targeting of stimulus to their own ridings - Harper was not piloting us through the recession, but charting his own course.

Had the Coalition been handling the stimulus, it would not have been partisan, and remember Harper himself never planned to do anything.

But back to CAPP. Though trying to make comparisons of our numbers by using the entire Canadian population, he is wrong in assuming we are trivial. Besides, by that reasoning, Harper is in power based on about 6% of the population.

But babies can't vote and babies don't go on Facebook.

Why prorogation of Parliament is a big deal
By Paula Arab,
Calgary Herald
January 28, 2010

What's the big deal about proroguing Parliament, New Brunswick columnist Charles Moore asked earlier this week.

Well Charles, I'll tell you what the big deal is. Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn't prorogue for the traditional reasons, because the work is done, or to stick to a schedule. Nope. For the second time in 13 months, he asked the Governor General to shut down government to protect his own political hide.

Thanks to Harper, proroguing has become a common, household term, meaning to avoid unpleasantness in the House of Commons.

He has turned the procedure of closing down the government because the session has ended, into a political tool that serves his own interests. The big deal is never before in the history of Canada has a prime minister been so disrespectful of our democratic institutions, that are there to represent the voice of the people. The functioning of Parliament may not be perfect, but it's all we've got.

This is an abuse of power, plain and simple. Worse, it's part of a larger pattern of disturbingly authoritarian behaviour in which our prime minister seems to believe he is above accountability, to the media, the public or now the opposition's criticism in the House of Commons.

If Harper is trying to convince Canadians he can be trusted with a majority government, this is no way to go about inspiring the electorate's onfidence.

The big deal is 36 bills have now died on the table because of the abrupt prorogation in the middle of a session. All the work that went into crafting this legislation has been for naught, and adds up to at least 368 hours of wasted Parliamentary time.

The cost to taxpayers of proroguing is $50 million. Still, people like Moore, who writes a column for the Saint John's Telegraph Journal, express surprise by the public outrage. "I don't deny there's a lot of buzz but what is the issue of substance here?" he said on CBC Radio's The Current. "What still puzzles me is what exactly is the outrage about?"

Where do I begin? Harper requested the governor general prorogue parliament on Dec. 30, a day when five Canadians died in Afghanistan, including the first journalist, Herald reporter Michelle Lang.

It's a cynical, opportunistic play at a time when most people are otherwise busy with family and the Christmas Holidays. They're not paying attention to the news. It's amazing anyone caught the news of prorogation, considering how the deaths of Lang and the others in Afghanistan overshadowed all other news.

That people are still talking about the issue four weeks later, joining Facebook groups and going out to protests, shows just how badly Harper miscalculated public perception. Harper's excuse is laughable, as I found out when I asked Parliamentary expert Ned Franks whether there could be any truth in wanting to "recalibrate" until after the Olympics. The Queen's University professor emeritus burst out in belly laughs.

"There are a lot of fairy tales in politics including the government's explanation of why it prorogued." The Conservatives further antagonized the public with their spin and misrepresentation of facts. The next day, Conservative strategist Tim Powers was doing national interviews, saying Parliament has been prorogued 105 times in Canada's history, including four times by Jean Chretien.

"If you do the math that works out to about every one in 1.3 years. People understand this is parliamentary procedure." What Powers failed to explain is that every parliamentary session ends with a prorogation. It's a normal event except when the prime minister uses it to avoid accountability to Parliament, as Harper has done twice in his four years in power.

Prorogation was an annual event up until the 1960s because Parliament operated on a yearly schedule. New sessions automatically began every fall. Chretien was prime minister for seven sessions in three Parliaments. Four sessions ended by prorogation, and three in dissolution for an election.

He is guilty of proroguing to avoid embarrassment only once, in 2002, when he prorogued early to delay the tabling of the auditor general's report documenting the sponsorship scandal.

Prior to that, the only example occurred in 1873, when Sir John A. Macdonald shut down Parliament to avoid a probe into the Pacific Scandal. As for every other Westminster parliament? Only in Canada.

Australia, New Zealand and Britain all learned the lesson of King Charles I, who prorogued in his own self-interest in 1629. He got into a power struggle over his Royal prerogative, back in the pre-modern era, before the notion of good, democratic government replaced the monarchical system. King Charles eventually got beheaded. Mac-Donald was forced to resign. Chretien left and the Liberal Party is still in tatters.

And Harper? The Afghan detainees affair might very well be old news by the time Parliament resumes in March, and we may never know what, if anything, the government was trying to avoid. Canadians have a right to know. And, it seems, Canadians care very much about Parliament, even if they don't always like how it behaves. That, Charles Moore, is what the big deal is all about.

parab@theherald.canwest.com

I Have Never Been so Terrified in My Life

I received a phone call this afternoon from a producer at CBC. Honest, I'm not making it up.

At first I thought I was being punked, but it turned out to be legit.

She said that she had read my blog and wondered if I would be interested in appearing on The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti, on Monday morning.

We will be discussing the anti-prorogation rallies on the weekend and the impact of the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament site.

I'm terrified but still kind of looking forward to it. I can't imagine that anyone would have much interest in anything I have to say, but. As long as I don't have to sing.

I will be debating a journalist from Nova Scotia who is very pro-prorogation (is that a word?). Anyway, he adamantly supports Stephen Harper's decision, so it should be interesting.

I love a good debate, but hope I don't start crying. Do you think there might be attack ads now 'Emily Dee ... just visiting'. I could float by on the TV screen. Nah.

I didn't get off to a real good start though. She asked me I had ever caught 'The Current', and I told her that I don't really watch TV. She said ... it's the radio. Oye!