Ten More Conservative Misdeeds for TGIF

As promised, ten more. I can't really put more than that on a single blog posting, but have decided to sort them and upload them to my website, so they can be referenced by those working against neoconservatism next election.

I'm so pumped.

I've got my Army of US's, I'm working on videos, doing my blog. I slept last Tuesday. I'm good to go.

10. Conservative MP David Sweet is the founder of the Canadian branch of the male-dominated Promise Keepers. According to the National Organization for Women, the Promise Keepers are a threat to women's rights:

The group encourages inequality within marriages and teaches a doctrine of male superiority. According to Amy Schindler, "the discourse of masculinity found within conservative religious movements, such as the Promise Keepers and the Victorian era movement 'muscular Christianity,' is inherently political. Any masculinity project aimed at restoring or reclaiming a 'traditional' male role for privileged white, heterosexual males has a political impact within the tapestry of class, race, and gender power."

He won the election by keeping quiet about this, only saying that he once ran a non-profit group. According to EGALE:

This election, Mr. Sweet has erased all evidence of his past affiliation with Promise Keepers. There is no mention of them on his campaign website. The Promise Keepers Canada website has also been scrubbed clean of Mr. Sweet. Even the Christian Week website has been scrubbed.“It seems that Mr. Sweet has gone to great trouble to hide his past,” said Laurie Arron, Egale’s Director of Advocacy. “For example, he’s said that women are natural followers.

It wasn’t easy to track this down. An article in Christian Week in which he said this was removed from that website. Luckily, Google has cached a copy of it.”Promise Keepers do not encourage a relationship of equals in a marriage. Rather, they call for men to “take” their role as the leader in the family. Promise Keeper Tony Evans stated “I am not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I am urging you to take it back. There can be no compromise here.” .

He should not be allowed to vote on anything pertaining to women's issues and yet he does.

9. When the Harper government sponsored an event in the Northwest Territories to announce job creation (myth), the N.W.T. labour leader was banned.

A Yellowknife-based union leader said military police barred her from attending Prime Minister Stephen Harper's announcement of new northern labour agreements Thursday afternoon.Mary Lou Cherwaty, president of the N.W.T. Federation of Labour, said she was not invited to Harper's announcement, which he made in the N.W.T. capital about 5 p.m. MT Thursday.

"I believe it's a slap in the face to workers," Cherwaty told CBC News on Friday. "Any amount of money that they'll decide to throw towards the training and [the] developments that they're talking about in the North is going to be for the benefit of business and corporations and not for the benefit of workers, obviously."

Of course it is, and we already know it was to allow drilling in protected areas.

8. First Public Works Scandal: When the affair between Maxime Bernier and Julie Couillard was unfolding, it was learned that she had also been involved in a questionable contract given by Michael Fortier. Fortier was the party fundraiser that Harper fast tracked to a senate seat and then given a cabinet posting, despite the fact that he never faced the electorate. He eventually did and lost.

The Quebec media have reported in recent days that Couillard's first brush with the Conservative party would have taken place in March or April of 2007 – around the same time Investissements immobiliers Kevlar, a subsidiary of Groupe Kevlar, began the preliminary stages of a bidding process for a multi-million dollar contract to build a 200,000-square-foot federal office building in downtown Quebec City.According to sources, Couillard was first registered as a Kevlar affiliate agent in early April 2007 – around the time she dated Côté [Fortier's special assistant] and shortly before she met Bernier.

7. Has given huge military contracts to a company with a well known reputation for corruption. SNC Lavelin and it's affiliate, General Dynamics Corp, is providing private security, and communications.

The Canadian unit of General Dynamics Corp., the world's biggest defence contractor, said Monday it will supply a fully digital communications system to the Canadian Army, ensuring troops will continue to have access to critical communications services in combat zones. The contract, awarded by the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada, is worth $341 million over the five initial years and can be extended for up to five more years, bringing the total tab to $682 million.

When a group Homes not Bombs protested outside their offices in Toronto, they were given the usual response.

But SNC-Lavalin management would have none of it, preferring to treat Homes not Bombs as a security threat. In their largest display of force yet, some three dozen Metro Police, eight wearing riot visors and riding horses -- backed up with two police wagons ready to cart folks away -- were on hand early today at the Etobicoke offices of the firm, which has been the site of two prior, peaceful protests.All this for a group of ten people with placards and flyers calling for an end to the profits being made from war crimes.

Dissent is not allowed.

6. When former RCMP watchdog, Paul Kennedy revealed that the Harper government had not acted on any recommendations made to clean up the police force, Conservative MP Blake Richards went on the attack, "... equating the work of his "bureaucrats and paper pushers" with that of RCMP officers who risk their lives on the street."

Kennedy would later be forced out for his role in investigating the Afghan Detainee issue.

5. While publicly rebuking Lybia's Mohammar Gadhafi for protecting a known terrorist, it was learned that Harper personally approved the leader's stopover in Canada. An outright lie.

OTTAWA — A new document shows Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally approved Moammar Gadhafi's planned stopover in Newfoundland last fall. The green light came even as the Harper government was rebuking the Libyan leader for supporting a convicted terrorist.

Gadhafi eventually cancelled his planned Canadian stop in St. John's, Newfoundland, after the Prime Minister's Office said he would be scolded for throwing a party for a man jailed in the Lockerbie bombing. But internal emails
obtained by The Canadian Press reveal it was Harper himself who gave Gadhafi's
visit the go-ahead.

4. Ezra Levant and the Anne Coulter Fiasco: After blaming the University of Ottawa for cancelling the appearance of the controversial right-winger Anne Coulter, it was learned that the whole thing was nothing more than a publicity stunt. The Conservative government set up the whole thing in yet another attack on Muslims.

Before the Ottawa event, a $250.00 a plate dinner was held for Conservative supporters, sponsored by the Ottawa Campus Conservatives and arranged by Ashley Scorpio, who is listed in the government's electronic directory, as a "... staffer working in the office of Conservative MP Gerald Keddy. She has also worked for Ontario Conservative MP Patrick Brown and was once an administrative assistant in the Harper PMO".

Coulter cancelled the event herself:

First, contrary to what Coulter seems to suggest in a brief phone interview with Macleans.ca scribe Colby Cosh, it was not the police who "shut it down." I spoke with Ottawa Police Services media relations officer Alain Boucher this morning, and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that it was her security team that made the decision to call off the event. "We gave her options" -- including, he said, to "find a bigger venue" -- but "they opted to cancel ... It's not up to the Ottawa police to make that decision."

Ties to International Free Press Society, a right-wing Danish group responsible for publishing the Danish cartoons, who wrote:

It is interesting to see the aftermath of Canada’s Ottawa University after an unruly crowd of leftist and Islamic protesters through threats vandalism and intimidation, shut down a planned speech by Ann Coulter.

Same old, same old.

3. In 2005 as leader of the opposition, Stephen Harper protested Bill C-38 (same-sex marriage) by suggesting that if would mean that religious schools couldn't fire gay teachers.

... the comments brought back memories of Mr. Harper’s voting record as an MP. Back in 1996, Mr. Harper voted against amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The effect of that law was to make it illegal, among other things, to fire someone because they’re gay or lesbian. Mr. Harper voted to allow continued workplace discrimination.

2. The Canadian Defense Department vandalized Wikipedia on behalf of Peter MacKay and his F-35s:

The mystery of who at the Defence Department has been vandalizing information on a Wikipedia website critical of the Conservative government’s decision to spend billions on a new stealth jet is now centred on the busiest fighter base in the country. Defence Department information technology specialists haven’t yet been able to determine where the computers being used to alter the Wikipedia site are located, according to department officials in Ottawa. But using a readily available search engine on the Internet, the Citizen has tracked the locations of the three computers to CFB Cold Lake, Alta. The base is expected to be a major centre for the Joint Strike Fighter (or JSF) the Harper government wants to buy.

Our tax dollars at work

1. Secretly tearing down public healthcare: In 2005 Stephen Harper was publicly promising to abolish public healthcare.

[May 8th, 2005, Stephen Harper] promised that if he was elected Prime Minister of Canada, one of the first things on his agenda would be to privatize the Canadian Healthcare System. Harper believes his party, the newly united Conservative Party made up of remnants of the old PC and Canadian Alliance Party is destined to win a possible upcoming election. And he is being rather smug about it.

Belinda Stronach, has defected to the Liberal Party, saying she disagrees with Stephen Harper on the issue of healthcare & the budget and that she would rather join the Liberals than "help Harper destroy the best healthcare system in the world". The current Liberal Budget designates a moderate increase to healthcare spending, whereas Harper favours a decrease in spending.

And the Canadian Medical Association believes that he already has. He just forgot to run it by us:

Does Canada still have a federal health minister? And, more important, does it have a government with the slightest interest in maintaining the national health-insurance program called medicare? For all practical purposes, the answer to both of those questions is a resounding “No.” Leona Aglukkaq, who holds the title of Minister of Health, was glaringly absent this week from the Canadian Medical Association gathering in Niagara Falls, Ont.

So until tomorrow, chow for now.

Today's Top Ten Conservative Misdeeds

I'm attempting to release ten Conservative misdeeds a day or so, keeping track of them at the bottom of this page. Today's list:

10. Pierre Poilievre and the Calgary School: Most of us remember Poilievre's remarks about aboriginals at a time when Stephen Harper was making an empty apology for their treatment in the residential schools.

"Now along with this apology comes another $4 billion in compensation for those who partook in the residential schools over those years ... Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask: 'Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?' My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That's the solution in the long run -- more money will not solve it."

He apologized for the remarks but what the media should have delved into, was the "some of us", who believed that those in the school "partook" willingly in their own systematic abuse, and are now just plain lazy. Like Stephen Harper, Poilievre is a product of the 'Calgary School' (a branch of their political science department), where young neocons are being spurned out, and one of their gurus is Tom Flanagan (the man who said that Julian Assange should be assassinated).

Several years ago, Marcie McDonald wrote an article for the Walrus magazine, entitled The Man Behind Stephen Harper, in which she discusses Tom Flanagan and the agenda of the Calgary School. From that article:

Consternation rumbled across the country like an approaching thunderhead. For aboriginal leaders, one of their worst nightmares appeared about to come true. Two weeks before last June’s federal election, pollsters were suddenly predicting that Conservative leader Stephen Harper might pull off an upset and form the next government.

What worried many in First Nations’ circles was not Harper himself, but the man poised to become the real power behind his prime ministerial throne: his national campaign director Tom Flanagan, a U.S.-born professor of political science at the University of Calgary. Most voters had never heard of Flanagan, who has managed to elude the media while helping choreograph Harper’s shrewd, three-year consolidation of power.

But among aboriginal activists, his name set off alarms. For the past three decades, Flanagan has churned out scholarly studies debunking the heroism of Métis icon Louis Riel, arguing against native land claims, and calling for an end to aboriginal rights. Those stands had already made him a controversial figure, but four years ago, his book, First Nations? Second Thoughts, sent tempers off the charts.

And the "Some of us" also includes Conservative MP Peter Goldring who had plenty to say about Louis Riel, when he posted (a taxpayer funded) newsletter to his website suggesting that Louis Riel was a villain.

Goldring posted the letter in response to a request from the federal New Democrats who wanted Louis Riel to be recognized as a father of confederation and wanted a conviction that saw him hanged for treason overturned. In his letter Goldring wrote, "Riel didn't father confederation; He fought those who did." Riel, a politician who fought for Metis rights in the late 1800s and also helped found the province of Manitoba, led two violent rebellions against the Canadian government and was hanged for treason.The letter went on to say, "To un-hang Louis Riel and to mount a statue to him on Parliament Hill would elevate anarchy and civil disobedience to that of democratic statesmanship." The letter has now been removed from Goldring's website, but the words have Alberta's Metis outraged.

9. Using our money to pay for Conservative Party fundraisers:

When Defence Minister Peter MacKay flew to British Columbia in January, he split his time between government business and two Tory fundraising gigs. Taxpayers footed the bill. When then-Indian affairs minister Jim Prentice flew to Nova Scotia to meet with provincial chiefs, he headlined a Conservative fundraising dinner in Prince Edward Island. Taxpayers paid for the trip ... The federal Conservatives – elected on promises to be squeaky clean – are using government resources to help fill their election war chest.

The Star easily found 25 examples of Tory ministers mixing fundraising and department business, each trip typically costing taxpayers several thousand dollars, though complete costs are not disclosed.

8. A day after Harper's latest patronage senate pick was announced, that pick, Larry Smith, revealed that he would be running for the neocons next election. So what does this mean? It means that he can now do an awful lot of pre-election campaigning, and charge the Canadian taxpayer for it. He's off to a good start. Stealing from us before becoming a Harper MP. We have to make sure he never does. This party has already surpassed their quota of thieves.

7. Broke laws by holding cabinet meetings in secret and the silencing of the press: In April of 2006, Time magazine sounded the alarm on the Harper government, and their unprecedented secrecy. Among the topics discussed:

--The PMO has restricted what Cabinet ministers, embassies, consulates and some Members of Parliament can say and do without first having their plans vetted by the PMO.

--Officials decide which reporters get to ask questions at the Prime Minister's press conferences and sometimes pass over those they suspect have questions they don't want to deal with.

--The PMO has not announced some of Harper's meetings with national and international leaders.

--The PMO has placed undue restrictions on allowing reporters into photo ops in the Prime Minister's Centre Block office, even though they have traditionally been allowed access. The PMO last week beefed up security and allowed only photographers and camera operators into a meeting ... Reporters who had been barred from the session got into a minor shoving match with Commons security guards.... "Canadians should be worried when they see the government trying to exert such an unprecedented level of control."

Peter Murdoch of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union said that it "smacks of totalitarianism." And Alasdair Roberts, a Syracuse University public-policy professor, asked "How can the average Canadian make a judgment about whether their government is being well run if they don't have access to the information?"

6. Peter Mackay fabricated a threat by Russia, when he suggested that they had entered our airspace unannounced and he had to send our jets to the rescue.

What’s the big deal?, was the response from the Russians. Canada had been notified of the flight and the Russian aircraft never entered Canadian airspace, they pointed out."The countries adjacent to the flight path had been notified and the planes did not violate the airspace of other countries. In this light the statements by the Canadian Defense Ministry provoke astonishment and can only be called a farce," Russia’s Ria Novosti quoted a government official ... there actually was no story. Nothing at all. It was fabricated by a government which found it momentarily expedient to huff and puff about the evil Russian bear.

And despite being outed by the press (about 1% of the press anyway), Mackay has repeated his performance. Apparently they played this little game to justify buying the "lemon" F-35s. Yes that's what we want. A government that will poke a stick at a country with nuclear weapons. But not to worry. If they don't burn up at take off, our planes will hunt them down.

5. Rod Bruinooge and the Sponsorship Scandal: Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge was involved in a bit of a ... shall we say "caper"? It started with the the patronage appointment of Bruinooge's old business associate, Gary Brazzell, to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). Apparently Rod owed Mr. Brazzell quite a bit of money at the time.

There was a recent Tory appointment that the WFP missed, as they always seem to miss it. That man is the one Manitoban who got plum appointments from both Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. That man is Ladco Board Member and former Rod Bruinooge lawyer Gary Brazzell.

And Bruinooge went to work for Brazzell with a project he was involved in.

Less than two years after the Kenaston underpass finally ended traffic mayhem on one major south Winnipeg artery, the area's MP says it's time to do the same thing on Waverley (Waverley West is a project of Ladco). And Winnipeg South MP Rod Bruinooge says his government is prepared to pony up its share of the cash." Senior Manitoba minister Vic Toews has signalled to me that should the province come on board, the federal government will be there," Bruinooge said. (Time for Waverley underpass: Tory MP Winnipeg Free Press By Mia Rabson June 16, 2008 )

But the name Gary Brazzell is interesting for another reason. In Stevie Cameron's book: On the take: crime, corruption and greed in the Mulroney years, she tells of how Mulroney gave out contracts to government Ad agencies.

During the Mulroney years, Montreal’s advertising and public relations community made the Ritz coffee shop something of a hangout in the mornings. Perhaps they were hoping for the chance of a word with Mulroney, who always stayed at the hotel when he was in town, or maybe they were just making sure they had regular contact with [Fernand] Roberge. “There was a real clique there,” said one of the advertising executives.

Mulroney had just fired the old VIA Rail board and appointed a new one packed with cronies and party bagmen, and one of them was Gary Brazzell.

And in all the wheeling a dealing, an ad agency with little experience was given a lucrative contract, despite the fact that there were many better qualified agencies who had submitted tenders. And at least one Mulroney appointee, Marc LeFrançois, would be named in Adsam several years later. The culture of entitlement that resulted in the Sponsorship Scandal was created then at the Ritz coffee shop. Cronyism is alive and well in Harperland.

4. When black Somali immigrant Suaad Hagi Mohamud went home for her mother's funeral, she was stopped at the airport before returning to Canada, because officials believed that her passport photo did not look like her. So they contacted our embassy, who told officials that she was an impostor and to keep her there. Her ordeal was frightening.

By cancelling her passport, they rendered her stateless. And rendered her to the Kenyans – the same Kenyans who had rendered another Canadian citizen, Bashir Makhtal, to an Ethiopian prison.The default position of a powerful bureaucracy is control. But when its political protectors are unresponsive to principles or the people, bureaucratic control unconsciously, and without any obvious will, can become sadism.Remarkably, the Canadian politician elected by the people to oversee the bureaucracy – and to help fellow Canadians in distress – failed in his highest obligation. Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon crushed her hope for quick justice with mistruths and irrelevancies. In demeaning and damaging language, he said she hadn't tried hard enough to prove she was a citizen.

And when members of the Foreign Affairs Committee were called to discuss her situation, the Conservatives acted in the usual fashion. Glen Pearson tells it best:

In the midst of it all walked in a quiet, demure woman, whose presence immediately sent an electric current through the committee members and especially the media. This was Ms. Suaad Mohamud, the Canadian citizen who had
been trapped, and for a time imprisoned, in Narobi, Kenya under the claim that she was an imposter. Her lawyer sat with her in the appropriate spot and when the right moment came she quietly addressed the committee.

Her story was a horror tale that resulted in her being denied access to the resources of her own Canadian government while at the same time being kept from her ten year old son living in Toronto. She had gone to see family in Africa but upon her attempt to return her identity was questioned, despite the fact she produced countless pieces of evidence to prove she was who she said she was.

... All three opposition parties offered heartfelt apologies. And some of the Government members expressed sorrow at what had happened to her. But clearly they had been given direction to not apologize for the incident. You could see the struggle in their own eyes and I could tell easily that a couple of them wanted to offer their apologies. But they didn’t and that is just a symbol of much that is wrong at the moment.

3. Harper's India Fiasco: On October 16, 2009; residents in the riding of Mississauga-Erindale opened their doors to a surprise visitor. It was none other than famous Bollywood actor and OXFAM Ambassador, Rahul Bose. He was there distributing pamphlets and asking those he spoke with to encourage Stephen Harper to go to Copenhagen and make an honest effort to address climate change.

Fearing a backlash from the Indo-Canadian community, the Harper government went into damage control. Time for a photo-op:

MUMBAI, India — Prime Minister Stephen Harper will meet India’s answer to Brad Pitt on Monday and pose for pictures with Indo-Canadian contestants of wildly popular TV dance contest. The reason? More votes in Canada.

The pictures of Harper meeting Bollywood mega-star Akshay Kumar are pure political gold, say Conservatives in Canada. So too is Harper’s tour Monday of the television studio that is home to the reality show Premier Dance League — the subcontinent’s version of So You Think You Can Dance — that is a hit here and with the Indian diaspora in Canada. Three Indo-Canadians have advanced through several rounds of the contest. Harper’s three days India will certainly contain some of the standard photo-ops one would expect ...

And who better to make the announcement than Conservative MP Bob Dechert, who just happens to represent Mississauga-Erindale where residents had been star-struck.

Mr. Speaker, before the Liberal leader decided to return to Canada to be crowned, the Liberal government pursued an ideological policy of isolation toward India, slapping it with sanctions and marginalizing Canada's influence with India well into this decade. Our government has been working to repair this long-term damage to our relationship. That is why the Prime Minister is in India this week, rebuilding relationships and deepening our economic ties with an emerging economic power.

Translation: blah, blah, blah.

But what our media missed about this little trip, where Harper played a dancing fool (stood still clapping while others danced around him), was that the press in India were roughed up and kept from media events. Just like home.

Controversy and chaos marked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Golden Temple visit. Harper refused to partake of prasad at Darshani Deodi after being dissuaded by his aide, Alisa Mohammed. He also declined langar.

SGPC officials said she also made them vacate their information office prior to the premier’s arrival. “When we objected, she said she had already spoken to the SGPC secretary on the matter. It is for the first time that we have suffered such humiliation at hands of a foreigner in our own office,” said a senior SGPC official, expressing resentment over the behaviour of the Canadian PM’s staff ....

2. In November of 2008, there was a very distressing story emerging from the Baffin Islands where more than 500 Narwhal whales were trapped in the ice. But instead of bringing in an ice breaker to free them, Gail Shea's office gave the order to simply shoot them. This made international headlines, since the American Humane Society had offered to rescue them. Captain Paul Watson who watched the slaughter was livid.

The slaughter of these Narwhals did not need to take place. The Humane Society offered to employ Inuit to keep the breathing holes open until a Canadian government icebreaker could arrive to break them out. The Canadian government refused to dispatch an icebreaker stating that the noise of the icebreaker would "stress" the whales.

There was nothing humane about the slaughter that followed as Inuit riflemen opened fire on the frightened whales. The "stress" of an icebreaker would have been minimal compared to the horrific trauma of having family members torn apart by bullets around them. There is no humane way to shoot a whale. For the DFO to describe this slaughter as "humane" is ludicrous ...

So what did the neocons do? Went after Captain Paul Watson. He told them to bring it on:

"A government that refuses to abide by democratic principles and closes the door of Parliament rather than to submit to the rule of the majority is hardly in a position to demand my resignation. The Canadian government has no power or authority over us and we have no cause to respect any demands from the Canadian government, especially the ridiculous Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Gail Shea remains Minister only because the honourable members of
Parliament have been denied the floor from which to fire her," said Captain Paul Watson.

1. Jim Flaherty Profits from private school: After announcing that his government would be providing "bursaries" so that children could attend private, for profit, religious schools, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer, BCer in Toronto exposed a scam that Flaherty and his wife had been engaged in, that netted a lot of profit for themselves and a few of their friends. He has all the documentation and it's well worth a read.

Hosing the Taxpayer 101.

That's it for today. I'm already working on tomorrow's list.

My Next Top Ten List of Conservative Misdeeds

A made a New Years top ten list of Conservative misdeeds, but have since received several other important ones, that should have been included. (I also have more than a hundred of my own)

So I decided to make additional lists, because when you put everything together, they are quite shocking, and paint a picture of a government that is not only corrupt, but terrifying.

So if you don't see yours here, it's coming. I'm just doing a bit more research.

And again, David Letterman style, beginning with the last.

10. Conservative cabinet minister Bev Oda racked up $5,475 in limo fees in four days, after her own ministry at the time, had just seen its funding slashed. David Akin called it a "limousine addiction." She claimed to have reimbursed the treasury for some of the expense, but this was not reflected in the disclosure. And even after getting caught with her hands in the cookie jar, labelled "taxpayer money", she continued to travel in style. This guy even wrote a song about it. Catchy.

9. Louis Ranger had been a public servant for 35 years, when he locked horns with John Baird over improper targeting of stimulus money. He was pushed out of the job and told, “We don’t want your advice” regarding the spending projects [infrastructure]. Indeed, the woman who is the ADM in charge of the file has been specifically told by the Minster’s [John Baird] office, “We don’t want your advice; we want you to do as you’re told.”

Ranger said of Baird: "As a long time bureaucrat, I am used to dealing with politicians who revel in self-interest. Baird however, is the nastiest, most partisan creature to have ever run a large department. What is best for Canada isn’t even remotely of interest to him - what is best for his party and his own political ambitions drives his agenda entirely."

8. In 2009, Jason Kenney's office barred British MP George Galloway from Canada because he had provided humanitarian aid to Palestine. We have since learned that the decision was that of Kenney's assistant and communications director, Alykhan Velshi:

From the first e-mail that Mr. Kenney’s communications director, Alykhan Velshi, sent on March 16, 2009, at 2:09 p.m. to immigration bureaucrats – the subject line was “inadmissible” – only 102 minutes passed before an official in the National Security section of the CBSA had agreed that Mr. Galloway should be barred for being a member of a terrorist organization. ...It was Mr. Kenney’s communications’ aide, Mr. Velshi, who set the wheels in motion a few days before, on March 16.

He sent an e-mail at 2:09 p.m. to the Immigration Department’s director-general of communications, Edison Stewart, saying he had a media call asking “why we’re letting in the following person even though he’s publicly called for money to go to a banned terrorist entity in Canada [Hamas] and that makes him inadmissible.”

Velshi is a player in the American neoconservative movement, and includes among his colleagues the late Irving Kristol, Andrew C. McCarthy, Lynn and Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, etc. He belongs to the neoconservative foreign policy group: American Enterprise Institute and Foundation for Defense of Democracies. In the November 17, 2003, issue of The American Conservative, they described the origins of FDD:

In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel's response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization ... to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself.

Jason Kenney only has a high school education, so we shouldn't be too surprised that someone else is making most of the decisions. Apparently Velshi was also behind the Canadian Arab Foundation losing their funding and the U.S. war resisters being deported. Kenney is Immigration Minister in name only. The department is being run primarily by the American Neoconservatives.

7. The late Chuck Cadman was a Conservative MP, who while dying of cancer, was approached by two of Harper's operatives: Doug Finley (now a patronage appointed senator) and Tom Flanagan. Their visit was to bribe Cadman with a one million dollar life insurance policy in exchange for his vote to topple the Martin government. Harper was caught on tape admitting that there were "financial considerations" made, but then later said the tape had been doctored. It wasn't.

In a democratic country, trying to buy a vote is a very serious offense. But in Harperland, it's business as usual. He still has not been held to account. Instead he sued the Liberals until they no longer had money to defend themselves, so had to agree not to discuss the matter again. And that's what passes for democracy in Harper's world.

6. Conservative MP Gary Lunn was investigated for collusion charges pertaining to the 2008 election.

Five months after voting day, questions remain about the role third-party advertising played in Saanich-Gulf Islands, where five previously unheard of groups bought ads to support Lunn. Lunn was natural resources minister at the time, but after the election was demoted to a minister of state position. Four of the groups shared a financial agent, Van Isle Marina owner Mark Dickinson, and were registered out of the legal office of Lunn associate and Victoria lawyer Bruce Hallsor. Hallsor was vice-president of the Conservative's electoral district association for Saanich-Gulf Islands at the time, and remains on the EDA executive in an "election readiness" position.

Could charges be pending? Let's hope. A simple demotion is not good enough. We're still paying his salary.

5. Tony Clement spent 50 million tax dollars to help flip Deerhurst Resorts.

Deerhurst was briefly put on the market for sale in 2008, the year of the financial market crash before the listing was pulled. This time around it doesn’t hurt that images of Deerhurst have been sent around the globe during last month’s G8 Summit gathering of top world leaders. During the meeting, an eight kilometre wire fence was installed around the resort for security. The property may also be attractive to a buyer because of more than $50 million worth of infrastructure improvements in the Muskoka area to prepare for the visit.

and:

“The majority of the on-site government budget was event-based and temporary,” she said, adding an undisclosed amount of government money was spent “to ensure all 10 leaders’ suites were identical and to reconfigure a ballroom half-wall slightly to allow for the division of the space.” Still, the spending associated with hosting the government summit pumped at least $50-million into infrastructure projects in the area to prepare for the world leaders’ visit. The improvements included the repaving of Deerhurst Road, improvement of the region’s power grid and enhanced cellphone coverage.

"An undisclosed amount of government money"? There is no such thing as "government money". That is our money.

4. Conservative MP Devinder Shory is allegedly involved in a giant mortgage fraud.

The Bank of Montreal is accusing Calgary Conservative MP Devinder Shory of having ties to what is believed to be Canada's largest mortgage fraud.The bank has filed a lawsuit against hundreds of Albertans, including Shory. Civil court documents filed in the lawsuit, and obtained exclusively by CBC News, allege Shory, a lawyer, executed legal transactions that misrepresented the true mortgage owner of at least five Calgary properties.

Ironically it came to light shortly after Minister of Justice, Rob Nicholson, and Natural Resources Minister, Christian Paradis, announced legislation to establish mandatory jail time for fraud over $1 million and to "help ensure the voices of victims are heard when white-collar criminals are sentenced to jail." Let's see if they put their money where their mouths are, though Paradis is in a bit of trouble himself.

3. Stephen Harper used a loophole in the law to allow mining companies to turn Canadian lakes into toxic dump sites.

CBC News has learned that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly "reclassified" as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland. Environmentalists say the process amounts to a "hidden subsidy" to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat ....

2. Jason Kenney and Peter Van Loan launched workplace raids, deporting workers without even allowing them to contact their families. One of those deported was believed to have been in retaliation for launching sexual abuse charges against her boss.

These U.S.-style attacks (even as they are being phased out by the Obama administration) were used to arrest refugee claimants, live-in caregivers, temporary workers and non-status people who have fallen outside of the strict
and official compliance with immigration regulations. A worker who dropped out of status when she left the employment of a sexually abusive boss was arrested in the raids .. .In an illegal move, 41 of the nearly 100 arrested were tricked into signing waivers that removed their right to a PRRA hearing and a chance at protection from deportation. (Jason Kenney's Doublespeak Exposed: Tories unleash
Canada Border Services on Migrants, By S.K. Hussan and Mac Scott, The Bullet, April 22, 2009)

We even made the news in Guatemala:

Hundreds of Guatemalan migrant workers and their community allies marched through Guatemala City to the steps of the Canadian embassy on Wednesday, to protest the abusive treatment of migrants under Canada's Temporary Foreign Workers program. The workers at the protest had been fired and repatriated for defending their labour and human rights while working in Canada. UFCW Canada, the Agriculture Workers Alliance (AWA), Global Workers Justice and a number of other Guatemalan and international organizations also participated in the demonstration, and joined in the call for a complete review of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program because the federal government program fails to provide migrant workers with legal protection or access to the justice system even when the workers are mistreated.

1. After promising not to tax income trusts, Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty did just that. And when asked to defend their claims of tax leakage, they brought forward heavily redacted documentation. Sound familiar? CAITI has a lot of great information on this and are still fighting the government's decision, since many Canadians lost all of their savings, especially seniors, because of this about face.

Don't forget. Don't forget any of this.

My New Years Top Ten List of Conservative Misdeeds

In the spirit of the New Year, when everyone is listing their favourite music, movies, worst dressed, etc., I thought I'd list my top ten Conservative misdeeds. The worst of the worst.

These aren't the obvious things, like 130 million for self promo television ads, 45 million for signs or 100 million for opinion polls, and then ignoring our opinions completely.

These took a lot more work. A lot more cunning. And a lot more deceit. And several of them you may not have even been aware of until now.

I'm listing them as David Letterman presents his top ten lists, beginning with the last.

10. The creation of an AstroTurf group called Canadians for Afghanistan, whose role was to change public opinion on the war. Turns out it was funded by military companies eager to continue their lucrative contracts, and run by party insiders.

A self-described grassroots youth organization that wants Canada to continue its mission in Afghanistan was organized with help from a lobbyist who, until recently, worked for a prominent Conservative MP. The group, Canadians for Afghanistan, introduced itself to the national media on Parliament Hill yesterday by calling on Canada to remain committed to ongoing military and humanitarian support.

The Canadians For Afghanistan website lists its main contact as Josh McJannett, a former Conservative staffer who worked for government whip Jay Hill until September. He had previously worked as an aide to Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer. After leaving the Hill, Mr. McJannett became a lobbyist with Summa Strategies, an Ottawa government-relations firm that counts some defence contractors, including U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing, among its clients.

9. The appointment of a big Pharma Vice-President to a government agency responsible for distributing funds to the industry.

Last October, the Harper government appointed Bernard Prigent to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the federal agency that distributes about a billion dollars annually for health research. That appointment was met with near-universal condemnation from medical ethicists, because Prigent is a vice-president of Pfizer Canada, a firm that stands to profit from the decisions made at CIHR.

8. The creation of an AstroTurf group promoting the continued subsidy of the coal industry, mostly American, by having the operation of Ridley Terminals, paid for by tax payers.

In the great scheme of Canada’s economy, Ridley Terminals Inc. is no big deal. With annual revenue of just under $25-million, the Crown corporation operates a bulk-commodity handling facility off Ridley Island in Prince Rupert, B.C., 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver. FP Comment’s editorial team has never been to Ridley Terminals, and wouldn’t know a bulk handling facility from the Coney Island Cyclone Ride. What we do know, when we see it, is big time corporate subsidy seeking, backroom politics, scheming lobbyists and cabinet ministers throwing their weight around to satisfy the big time corporate interests.

The AstroTurfers were the Ridley Terminals Users Group and they were financed by the Houston based (with ties to G.W. Bush) Global Public Affairs.

The focus of opposition activity is the Ridley Terminals Users Group, a cabal of major B.C. and Alberta coal mine operators, including such giants as Husky Energy, Suncor Energy, Tech Coal and Coal Valley Resources, headquartered in Mr. [Rob] Merrifield’s riding. The listed federal lobbyist for Ridley Terminal Users Group is Philip Cartwright, of Global Public Affairs in Ottawa. With Global Public Affairs leading the campaign, a sudden un-spontaneous groundswell of opposition is sweeping local governments in and around Prince Rupert. The National Post called them Harper's Ridley terminators.

And to avoid the problem of pandering to an American organization, Harper broke the rules of his own accountability act, by removing Erin Wall, assistant to Brian Jean, Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities [John Baird] and sent her to work for Global Public Affairs.

Ms Wall was then registered as a lobbyist for the Houston based International Commodity Export Corporation, the largest beneficiary of government subsidies to the [Ridley] terminals. Her appointment took place on June 19, 2009; just before the firing of Dan Veniez (the operator of the terminals who went public), and on the same day that ICEC underwent a name change to give it the appearance of a Canadian company. And they get 25 million dollars annually, as a gift from Canadian taxpayers.

7. Breaking election laws by allowing a non-profit organization, then headed up by Kory Teneycke, to campaign for the Conservatives under the guise of promoting renewable energies. The Conservatives 2005-06 election platform on environmental issues, was called 'Made in Canada'. Coincidentally the same 'Made in Canada' solutions promoted by Canadian Renewable Energies, which was funded in part by the oil and gas industry. They were also given a two billion dollar grant by Jim Flaherty.

The brochure used to be available on-line, but it has conveniently disappeared (I have a printed copy that I'll scan and show later). However, it was filled with pictures of Harper Conservatives and headed 'Made in Canada'. A steal at two billion dollars.

6. After Dr. John O'Connor, a family physician who was a visiting doctor to the small northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan, reported high levels of a rare cancer in those living downstream from the Tar Sands, the Harper government set out to destroy him.

... the family physician never anticipated that speaking out about his concerns would land him in a career-threatening struggle against the federal government with his medical licence on the line."Looking back, it's been a nightmare for me," O'Connor said in an interview. "It's just something I never expected in a million years. I just wanted to be the family doctor that I was when I went up there."

In April of 2009, Dr. O'Connor and Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent; were asked to speak at a special parliamentary committee on 'the impact of world's largest energy project on water: 130 square kilometres of waste water, acid rain, fish deformities, rare cancers and city-scale withdrawals of freshwater.'Expecting to be treated as the experts that they were , they were instead ambushed by, for lack of a better term, a gang of thugs, all from the Conservative goon squad. As Nikiforuk recounts:

But both O'Connor and I made a terrible mistake. We assumed that all committee members would be interested in rigorous dialogue regardless of political affiliation. But that's not what Ottawa delivered. Instead, several Tory MPs subjected us to abusive Republican tactics geared to dismiss, discredit and dishonour.

And yet they claimed they didn't know about deformed fish in the Tar Sands rivers.

5. Another AstroTurf group was created to sell Canadians on the notion that Climate Change was a hoax. Calling themselves Friends of Science, they ran ads on radio stations aping Harper's environmental policies.

David McGuinty was baffled when he first heard provocative advertising about global warming in the midst of the 2006 federal election.The radio spots criticized a consumer energy conservation program along with the climate change policies of the government of the day and appeared to come from nowhere.

But Charles Montgomery, from the Globe and Mail, uncovered the truth:

Friends of Science has taken undisclosed sums from Alberta oil and gas interests. The money was funneled through the Calgary Foundation, to the University of Calgary and on to the FOS though something called the “Science Education Fund.” All this appears to be orchestrated by Stephen Harper’s long-time political confidante and fishing buddy, U. Calgary Prof Dr. Barry Cooper. It seems the FOS has taken a page right out of the US climate change attack group’s playbook: funnel money through foundations and third party groups to “wipe the oil” off the dollars they receive.

4. The Listeriosis outbreak that was the direct result of Stephen Harper allowing meat processing firms to inspect themselves. Twenty Canadians died and hundreds more fell ill from tainted meat that came from Maple Leaf Foods.

According to Council of Canadians:

"At the heart of [the system] is a reliance on industry reporting and monitoring, rather than independent government testing, and an emphasis on cleaning up the mess (to the environment or human lives) caused by bad products after the fact. They call this “risk management,” an about-face from the “precautionary principle” of better safe than sorry."

And despite promising to put meat inspectors back on the job, nothing has been done.

3. The hiring of Nigel Wright as Harper's new Chief of Staff, secured the contract for the F-35s.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's designated new chief of staff was until last week a director of a major U.S. aircraft manufacturer that is partnered with defence industry giant Lockheed Martin in a bid to sell a fleet of precision attack and reconnaissance warplanes to the U.S. Air Force. Opposition MPs are raising red flags over the link between Nigel Wright, expected to take over as Prime Minister Harper's (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) chief of staff in January, and the U.S. defence bid because of the controversial $17-billion sole-source contract Prime Minister Harper's Cabinet is awarding to Lockheed Martin to supply Canada with 65 stealth fighter jets.

And Canada recently won a golden lemon award for the purchase of these planes from an American foreign policy magazine.

The Golden Lemon Award goes to the Conservative government of Canada for shelling out $8.5 billion to buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters. According to Defense Minister Peter MacKay, “This multi-role stealth fighter will help the Canadian forces defend the sovereignty of Canadian airspace.” Exactly whom that airspace is being defended from is not clear.The contract also includes a $6.6 billion maintenance agreement, which is a good thing because the F-35 has a number of “problems.” For instance, its engine shoots out sparks, and no one can figure out why. It is generally thought a bad idea for an engine to do that.

They are junk that no one wants, so why not pawn them off on the Canadian taxpayer?

2. The "In and Out" election financing scheme that took place in 2006. The Conservative Party HQ deposited large sums of money into the bank accounts of candidates who would not be spending their maximum. They then used that money to buy national ads, meaning that they were able to spend over a million dollars more than the opposition, in direct violation of the Elections Act.

But to top it off, those candidates were able to claim those expenses as their own, receiving large cheques in the mail on behalf of us again. In one case a Quebec hopeful had only raised $ 1500.00 but got a nice bonus of over $ 12,000.00.

In April of 2008, at about the same time as the Friends of Science scandal broke, the RCMP raided the Conservative Party headquarters, as part of the investigation.

During the campaign, the Conservative party conducted a series of financial transactions in which it wire-transferred money to Tory candidates, who then returned cash to the party in the form of advertising purchases. One campaign official interviewed by Elections Canada staff referred to these transactions as “in-and-outs.”Many of the ads in question were for the national party and the only reference to the local candidates who paid for them were small tag lines at the end.

1. And my number one favourite Conservative misdeed, that has certainly flown under the radar, was the secret bailing out of our banks. This was necessary after allowing sub-prime mortgages to infiltrate our once sound banking industry.

And not only did Flaherty give them 150 billion dollars of our money, but they also tapped the U.S. government for 111 billion dollars more. And yet everywhere they go, Flaherty and Harper sing their praises.

And you would think that after such a generous gift, our banks would ease up on service charges. Nope. Instead they gave their execs bonuses of 8 billion in 2009 and 10 billion in 2010. Rewarded for the fine job they are doing.

In the November 2009 "Markets At A Glance" investment newsletter by Eric Sprott and David Franklin, they revealed:

"Acknowledging the leverage levels above, you may wonder how the Canadian banks escaped the 2008 meltdown unscathed. The answer is that they received significant assistance from the Canadian government. First, they received $65 billion in liquidity injections from the Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP), whereby Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) purchased insured mortgages from Canadian banks to provide additional liquidity on the asset side of their balance sheets. Next, the Bank of Canada provided them with an additional $45 billion in temporary liquidity facilities. Finally, a Canadian Bank (that shall remain nameless) also received assistance from the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) through the purchase of $4 billion in mortgages prior to the IMPP program, for a total government expenditure of $114 billion. For reference, the entire tangible common equity of the Canadian Banks in 2008 was $68 billion. Can you put two and two together? The Canadian government injected a sum through mortgage purchases worth more than the entire tangible common equity of the Canadian banking system!

The incident was reported on randomly in Canada when it hit 150 billion, but is now alleged to be in the neighborhood of about 186 billion dollars of our money (I haven't been able to confirm the additional 36). And another 111 billion dollars of American money.

So there you have it folks. My top ten. But let's not forget all the people Harper has fired, simply because they dared to cross him. Afghan Detainee abuse and the attacks on Richard Colvin. Two self-serving prorogations. Abolishing the mandatory long-form census. Selling us off to the Americans with an aggressive trade deal. Cardboard cheques ....

Maybe I'll need to make another list.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

More Lists:

1. My Next Top Ten List of Conservative Misdeeds

2. Another List of Conservative Misdeeds

3. Today's Top Ten Conservative Misdeeds

4. Ten More Conservative Misdeeds for TGIF

5. My Next Ten Reasons to Throw the Bums Out