Mulcair's Confusing Stance on Security and C-51

Columnist Ralph Surrette had a piece in the Chronicle Herald this weekend:  Harper defeat won’t suffice; this calls for fumigation

In it he questions why the NDP did not go on the attack when Stephen Harper announced that he’d institute a "ban on travel by Canadians to areas of terrorist activity "

This announcement sent a chill down the spine of many Canadians, and prompted experts to weigh in on the legality of such a move.  More importantly, however, it would mean the further deterioration of our rights.

Says Surrette:

After all, the arguments over the anti-terror law, Bill C-51, were still fresh — a law denounced by four former prime ministers (including a Tory one, Joe Clark), five retired chief justices of the Supreme Court, former ministers of justice and pretty well every legal expert in the country, that triggered alarm at the United Nations, that was described by both the RCMP and CSIS as “unnecessary” and that was denounced by the otherwise small-c conservative Globe and Mail as a “quasi-police state bill.” And here was Harper jerking our chains again on the same issue, proposing another broad dragnet largely outside the rule of law. What a political opportunity!

What a political opportunity indeed.  Both Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair saw the ban proposal as political posturing.  I agree.  Not unlike the political posturing by the NDP over C-51, which is no longer a bill but a series of laws, affecting many areas.  

What is puzzling though, are Thomas Mulcair's comments, when asked about Harper's latest ploy.  Rather than denounce it, he claims that "obviously" he would support it.  He only questions whether it would actually do anything.

Huh?

He also states that C-51 was a failure because it did nothing to prevent the radicalization of youth.  What would he want to see in the bill to prevent "the radicalization of youth"?  

The only way to stop youth from being sympathetic to the goals of groups like ISIS, is to stop invading countries for oil.  Stop taking away one group's human rights by painting them all as terrorists, while inflicting the worst kind of terror on their homelands, with bombs.

If there was even a hint of diplomacy in our foreign policy, young blood would not boil.

The NDP is now too focused on silencing any sympathy for Palestine, dropping candidates like flies, to care whether our rights are being violated.  How many New Canadians will be prevented from visiting their families? Given this government's loose interpretation of terrorists, that could be just about anywhere.

 "Obviously we are going to support anything that will prevent the threat of terrorism".  Really?

Thomas Mulcair and the NDP, if they were in power, would not scrap C-51.  They can't.  It is now law, resulting from an omnibus bill that has changed many laws.  

At best, they will put through amendments to the anti-terrorism measures, that challenge our rights and freedoms.  Exactly what Justin Trudeau promised.

Hot air will only get you so far.

Besides, Mulcair's new priority is decriminalizing marijuana.  In the first minute.  This will certainly win him the vote of drug dealers, as it gives them a free pass.  Without legalization, and thus control, it will do nothing to keep marijuana out of the hands of children.

Which brings up a bit more confusion over what Mulcair actually stands for.

Are the New Conservative Election Fraud Plans Going up in Smoke?

In April of this year, an ambulance was called to 24 Sussex Drive, after a teenage girl had consumed too much alcohol. No charges were laid, despite the fact that she was underage.

The occasion was a birthday party for Stephen Harper's son Ben, and the official response was that the Harpers were just a normal family. Yes, apparently all normal families ply teenagers with enough alcohol, that they have to be rushed to hospital, apparently suffering from alcohol poisoning.

(The image above is our Justice Minister Peter MacKay and his beer bong)

However, rather than using this as an opportunity to address the growing problem of teen drinking, Harper attacked Justin Trudeau for wanting to legalize marijuana.

Double standard or plain ignorance? Tough call, but one thing that history has taught us, is that prohibition only increases criminal activity, while creating new social norms.

Bathtub Gin and the Devil's Music

In November of 1933, on the eve of the end of Prohibition in the U.S., Fortune Magazine ran an article, summing up the era since 1919, when the Draconian Volstead Act was put in place.

"Moonshiners" "bootleggers", "speak easies" and "bathtub gin"; defined the period, as did Al Capone and others who protected their prohibition empires with violence, that included shoot outs with police.

The Fortune article focused not on the history, which was well known, but on prohibition's impact on American culture. Noting that before the ban, Americans drank 140 million gallons of liquor a year, and during the ban, that increased to 200 million gallons a year, they spoke of a "rebirth" in the industry that manufacturers of spirits had to address.

Bathtub chemists had not only made gin the new drink of choice, but had created a new class of drinkers.

... the bootleg industry, discovered that the one thing prohibition prohibited was the manufacture of the native U.S. drink, rye and bourbon whiskey, and so it gave the thirsty citizens something else and changed the taste of a generation.

The calculation of the taste factor now baffles everyone in the business. Before prohibition, gin went into Martinis and Negroes. The alcohol industry of the 1920s made it a drink. The younger drinking generation was weaned on it and an entirely new body of drinkers, women, preferred it to whiskey .....

Gin flowed freely at parties and in the Speak Easies and Jazz Clubs, throughout the 1920s, where dancing and "wild" music helped to define the era. But something else was becoming popular. Marijuana.

Throughout the Jazz and Swing eras, pot was consumed by both musicians and their fans. Louis Armstrong called it a "cheap drunk" and preferred it to alcohol, as did many others, including Dizzy Gillespie. Pot not only improved their stamina, but provided a new element to their music. A wild abandon that was also seen in the jitterbugging of the patrons.

This raised concern among law makers, not because of the health impact of the drug, but the influence of non-whites on pop culture. Says journalist Maia Szalvitz:

Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (an early predecessor of the DEA), was one of the driving forces behind pot prohibition. He pushed it for explicitly racist reasons, saying, “Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men,” and:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

Hustlers, Beats and Others

By the 1950s the "Beat Movement" created a new pot user. According to the 1972 Report of the Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs: "... the accompanying growth of a white middle class audience for jazz music also played a role in the diffusion of cannabis-smoking."

By the 1960s, the craze had spread. Wrote Ned Polsky in Hustlers, Beats and Others:

The "beats... most enduring imprint on American culture appears, in retrospect, to have been precisely this diffusion of marijuana use to many circles of middle-and upper-class whites ....

Anslinger's ban had not reduced the use of pot, any more than the Volstead Act had reduced the use of alcohol.

In Canada, Marijuana prohibition was enacted in 1923, and while its use was mostly clandestine, a 1967 study in Toronto, revealed that its popularity was widespread enough to warrant user categories.

"The Beats", who were usually under twenty-five and inhabited "the Village" section of downtown Toronto; "The Swingers", who were mainly criminals, members of the criminal fringe and entertainers between the ages of thirty and forty-five; and "The Squares", who were upper-middle class, well-educated professionals between thirty-five and fifty years of age."

So was music the gateway to marijuajna?

According to that 1972 report speaking to the "cannabis-using population "There is almost universal consumption of tobacco and most drink alcohol (usually beer or wine)"

So is tobacco and alcohol the gateway to marijuajna?

Of course not. It's society. And society determines what is socially acceptable.

I don't smoke pot and could actually get it legally because of my MS, but choose not to. I tried it once as a teenager, and never liked it. But then I have never smoked cigarettes and the number of times that I have been drunk, I could count with the fingers on one hand.

However, none of these decisions were moral issues, but rather an aversion to chemicals.

When Justin Trudeau announced that he would legalize pot, not just decriminalize it, it triggered a storm of debate. Canadians began to question the sensibility of pot "laws", and now an overwhelming majority agree with Trudeau. He has forced the other parties to create a policy on the subject.

With the Conservative attack ads suggesting that Justin Trudeau wants to force your children to smoke pot; backfiring; they have decided to use a different approach. Spending our money to create anti-pot ads, to improve their chances for re-election.

In the meantime, they are offering an olive branch by promising to perhaps soften the laws. However, any punitive actions are long past their prime. We need to treat alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, the same, by making all of them controlled substances, rather than illegal ones.

After all, roads were not paved with good intentions but with vices.

The results in Colorado have been overwhelming, and the revenue better than expected. Add the savings in court and police costs, and it seems a no-brainer.

Stephen Harper's allowance of serving alcohol at a teen's party was not only illegal, but proved to be dangerous. He needs to get off his high horse.

If taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill for yet more of his Party's political ads, than those ads need to include the dangers of alcohol and tobacco. Despite a well publicized hoax, it's almost impossible to OD on pot, yet alcohol poisoning is real and growing.

And pot does not cause cancer, but cigarettes do.

Canada has always been a progressive country, but under this government, we we are regressing, and I'm sick of it. Given the latest poll results, I'm not alone.

Harper's new (un)fair Elections Act, and gerrymandering redrawing of the electoral map, are transparent attempts at stealing yet another election. He can't win unless he cheats and he knows that.

But given this important issue, will it all go up in smoke? Let's hope so.

It Was Wrong When Ronald Reagan Did it and Just as Wrong For Stephen Harper

In, albeit not their sleaziest act, the Harper government blanketed the Ontario federal riding of Scarborough-Agincourt with flyers, aimed at the Liberals, for the upcoming bi-election.

Not unusual during an election campaign.

What made these flyers beyond the pale, was their content. Hoping to tap into the abundant immigrant community for votes, they suggest that Justin Trudeau will encourage their children to smoke pot, by making it available in stores.

Says Joan Bryden for the Canadian Press:

In fact, Trudeau argues that legalizing, regulating and taxing pot would help keep it out of the hands of children and starve organized crime of its lucrative marijuana trade.

This is not the first time that Stephen Harper has tried to exploit new Canadians with misleading information.

In 2005, he began attending multi-cultural events denouncing same-sex marriage, telling the crowds that the Liberals were going to force their churches to perform the ceremonies. A lie, but it didn't matter. He was recruiting for his base.

Ronald Reagan and the War on Drugs

Richard Nixon was actually the first to coin the term 'war on drugs', but by the early 1980s, it became as potent as the war on taxes is today. For politicians, you either became a soldier battling drugs, or you were a pusher trying to corrupt children. There was no middle ground.

Ronald Reagan, who had always taken a divide and conquer approach to politics, saw this war as one he could win. Not the actual drug war, but the war against liberalism.

Most conservatives blamed drugs, in particular marijuana, for the conceived ills of modern society. Says Dan Baum in his book: Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure

Conservative parents' groups opposed to marijuana had helped to ignite the Reagan Revolution. Marijuana symbolized the weakness and permissiveness of a liberal society; it was held responsible for the slovenly appearance of teenagers and their lack of motivation. Carlton Turner, Reagan's first drug czar, believed that marijuana use was inextricably linked to "the present young-adult generation's involvement in anti-military, anti-nuclear power, anti-big business, anti-authority demonstrations." A public-health approach to drug control was replaced by an emphasis on law enforcement. Drug abuse was no longer considered a form of illness; all drug use was deemed immoral, and punishing drug offenders was thought to be more important than getting them off drugs.

Politicians began calling for tougher sentences for drug users and abusers, with Newt Gingrich going so far as to draft a bill that demanded a ' life sentence or the death penalty for anyone caught bringing more than two ounces of marijuana into the United States.' (Baum)

So Harper's new Gingrich style crime bills, that include mandatory minimums for Marijuana growers, are not about putting youth on the straight and narrow, but pandering to his anti-liberal base.

But will it work? This is not the 1980s and attitudes toward pot have changed. Those "slovenly teenagers" are now adults, who grew up in an atmosphere of "reefer madness" hysteria, and know that it was more hyperbole than sound judgement.

Cigarette smoking is more harmful to your health than marijuana, and alcoholism just as damaging to families as drug addiction.

Also important to note is that half of the deaths caused by drug overdose, were from prescription medicines, and today's youth are increasingly turning to 'legal' drugs to get high. So will there be a war on big-pharma?

The Conservatives may shoot themselves in the foot with this newest ammunition in their arsenal, but who knows? We've witnessed some of the most bizarre attacks on their opponents and reason itself, yet they're still standing.

Pandering to core supporters with nonsense, while discouraging reasonable Canadians from engaging in politics, is not without it's merits.

When it comes to legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana, let's hope that good sense prevails.

Canadians Being the Largest Lender of Sub-Prime Mortgages in the World May Not be Our Biggest Problem

I keep reminding people, and everyone needs to keep reminding people, that Stevie and Jimbo did not handle our economy very prudently and they have us in a lot of deep doo doo.

They bailed out our banks to the tune of 125 billion dollars by buying up, on our behalf, all high risk mortgages.

High-risk mortgages that Jimbo and Stevie allowed into this country in the first place.

But the UK Guardian has published a story about our underground economy, that could also be in big trouble.

It has to do with the marijuana industry, which will dry up if California legalizes it and we don't.

This November, in an effort to increase tax revenue, California will hold a referendum on whether or not to legalise the cultivation and use of marijuana. If passed, the change in law would be devastating to the Canadian economy, halting the flow of billions of dollars from the US into Canada and eventually forcing hundreds of thousands into unemployment.

Over the past 20 years, Canada has developed a substantial and highly profitable marijuana industry that is almost completely dependent on the US market. Between 60 and 90% of the marijuana produced domestically is exported to the US via cross-border smuggling operations. It's exactly like the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s, only far more sophisticated and more profitable. The establishment of a legal industry based in the US would likely cripple these exports overnight.

Ironically, support for legalisation is stronger in Canada than it is in California. Canada's most prominent rightwing thinktanks have long supported legalisation, as do the majority of Canadians. But since the Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, formed a minority government in 2006, drug reform has been wiped off the agenda and the gears have grinded into reverse. In a bizarre twist that defies all rational thought, the Conservatives have decided they want to go in the opposite direction of the Canadian voter and emulate outdated Republican drug war policies that have already proved catastrophic in the US.

The Conservatives have proposed legislation that would introduce mandatory minimum prison sentences for marijuana producers. If passed, the
legislation would result in spending billions in order to put more people in prison – the exact scenario that lead California into severe debt and towards legalisation. Even more stupefying, police in Montreal recently raided a "compassion centre" that legally distributes medicinal cannabis, and Conservative politicians have started calling for medicinal centres to be shut down across the country.

Of course all you'll ever get from Harper is "marijuana is bad, now where did I put my beer?", even though Stockwell Day (yeah, I know) admits that he once smoked it "and inhaled".

Something to think about.

The Hypocrisies and Insanities of Rob Nicholson's Crime Bills

There was an interesting article in the Ottawa Citizen today about Rob Nicholson's ridiculous crime bills.

The author, Susan Riley, reminded us that back in the day when Mr. Nicholson was with the Progressive Conservative party he wasn't nuts.

An irritated Nicholson has vowed to reintroduce the bill in March, when Parliament resumes -- but here's another curiosity. The Hill Times reported recently that, in 1988, Nicholson, then a Progressive Conservative MP,was vice-chair of a Commons committee that recommended against mandatory minimums, except for repeat violent sex offenders.

Asked about this apparent change of heart, the minister's spokes-person noted the drug world and values have changed. But the facts haven't. As New Democrat Libby Davies noted: "What they are doing is not based on evidence, whatsoever. It's a political stance."

And there in lies the problem with this party. No decisions they make have anything to do with what's best for Canada or the Canadian people. Everything, but everything, is about the fortunes of the Conservative Party of Canada.

In November, John Geddes wrote a piece for MacLeans; 'Are we really soft on crime', revealing that criminal and law enforcement experts claimed that these horrible crime bills are not the way to go:

Ian Brodie, the former university political science professor who served as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff from 2006 to 2008, explained why in an unusually candid talk on Conservative strategy last spring at McGill University in Montreal. “Every time we proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, sociologists, criminologists, defence lawyers and Liberals attacked us for proposing measures that the evidence apparently showed did not work,” Brodie said. “That was a good thing for us politically, in that sociologists, criminologists and defence lawyers were and are all held in lower repute than Conservative politicians by the voting public. Politically it helped us tremendously to be attacked by this coalition of university types.”

'University types'?

Rob Nicholson himself knows that these bill are the absolute wrong way to go for this country, but will sacrifice his credibility for votes. Why did he get into Canadian politics? Is this really the level that our government has stooped?

And they use this same kind of controlled ignorance when dealing with the safe injection site in Vancouver, as Riley continues:

It doesn't bother providing facts, or even arguments; it appeals, as usual, to resentment, ignorance and frightening headlines that obscure the fact that crime rates have been declining. And, with the brave exception of Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, most of Harper's political opponents, including those who know better, are afraid to object. If Conservatives were as concerned with victims as they claim to be, the effectiveness of crime-fighting measures would be paramount -- not their political appeal. And they'd be counselling wisdom in this complex issue, not revenge.

Academics are 'elitists' and experts are 'university types'. People are afraid to speak up to this government because they know a smear campaign will immediately follow. From Richard Colvin to the latest victim, TD Bank CEO Ed Clark. Everyone now lives in a culture of fear.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?