I Was Right, I Was Right, I Was Right ... Damn, I Was Right. Sigh.

I've been posting a lot on Stephen Harper and neo-Conservatism, suggesting that balancing the budget or even repairing the economy, was not part of Harper's agenda. It was strictly dismantling the 'Welfare State' and paving the way for the corporate elite to make even more money.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was hoping I was wrong, but knew that I wasn't. If you followed Stephen Harper at all, you'd know what his ultimate goal was.

In fact, back in the day when his Reformers were first trying to sell themselves as a grassroots party, they lost the support of many seniors when they learned that they wanted to end the Old Age Security, Canada Pension and Public Healthcare.

We are now a majority away from losing everything we fought so hard to accomplish.

The left have got to get their act together, unite or stop fighting each other. Otherwise, they will be complicit in our demise.

I take little comfort in knowing that economist Eugene Lang, also sees through Harper's agenda. Now we just have to get Canadians to wake up before it's too late.

Big-spender Harper true to his neoconservative roots
Running big deficits while squeezing revenue is a way of reaching goal of smaller government

A new conventional wisdom has emerged. The Harper government has been labelled moderate, centrist – even "liberal." This characterization is due entirely to the large fiscal deficits that have emerged on the Harper watch – $56 billion next year alone – deficits the government admits with a shrug will extend for several years.

No self-respecting conservative government could tolerate such profligacy, or so goes the critique. The Harperites have lost their way, abandoned their guiding philosophy, sold out to those soft-headed, big government political parties for which deficits are regarded as a normal part of governing.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Harper government has, in fact, remained very true to its ideology. But that ideology is not "conservative." Rather, it is "neoconservative," and this makes a big difference on the question of deficits and fiscal policy.

For neoconservatives – the denomination that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s – balanced budgets are not a first-order priority. The overriding objective is to cut taxes; balancing the books comes a distant second or even third on the to-do list. Most neoconservative governments have never gotten around to balancing the budget ....

...So don't be fooled. There is nothing "liberal" about the Harper government's fiscal and economic policy. They remain true to their ideological roots, and can walk proudly in the footsteps of trailblazers like Ronald Reagan.

(Eugene Lang, a former senior economist at Finance Canada, is co-founder of Canada 2020: Canada's Progressive Centre and vice-president of Bluesky Strategy Group. Philip DeMont, an economist, veteran financial journalist and former Ontario government adviser, is co-author (with Eugene Lang) of Turning Point: Moving Beyond Neoconservatism.)

Out of Our Control. How Foreign Ownership Has Changed Who we Are

The above is Part VI of Mel Hurtig's documentary on YouTube; Who Killed Canada.

In part one he gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement; beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.

In part two he discusses the reduction in federal revenue that weakened spending in important areas. We learned that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs.

Part three deals with our increasing poverty, that coincides with the increase in corporate profits. And though these 'free market' gurus try to convince us that we should throw in our lot with corporate Canada, they have done nothing to advance Canadian interests or protect this country's citizens.

Part four discussed the fact that although neo-cons would like us to believe that we are overtaxed, Canada is actually 21st of 30 nations in terms of the amount of taxes we pay. It also discusses the fact that our history has been rewritten to erase the important role the First Nations played.

Part five dealt with NAFTA and what a horrible thing this was and is for Canada. We are basically under the control of the United States. We got very little from the deal, and in fact 11,043 Canadian companies have now become foreign controlled.

In part six Mr. Hurtig continues to discuss the effects of NAFTA on Canada and the fact that we have the most foreign owned corporations of any other developed nation. He also mentions the SPP and the fact that the media has not discussed what this deep integration policy means for us.

Following is a brief history of foreign ownership in Canada. Even some Canadian companies are now concerned that we are losing control of our resources and the fact that foreign companies are moving their head offices out of the country, taking jobs away, while contributing little to the betterment of Canada.

Foreign Ownership in Canada:

Foreign ownership is the result of investment by non-resident corporations in another country's companies in the pursuit of profit through control. It is incidental to the operations of transnational, multinational, or global corporations in setting up subsidiaries or branch plants. The recipient, or host, country can get the economic benefit of superior technology and management but at the possible political costs of dependency and susceptibility to foreign practice and policy.

For much of its history Canada has had, for good or bad, the highest level of foreign ownership of any country in the world—particularly high for a developed and industrialized country. This can be attributed in part to proximity to the United States, where multinational corporations are disproportionately headquartered, and to American demand for Canada's rich supply of exploitable natural resources. But it is also the consequence of conscious Canadian government policy to encourage foreign investment.

The high protective tariff of the National Policy of 1879 helped infant Canadian firms, but it also attracted American branch plants that were already spreading nationally throughout the United States and simply spilled over its northern border. Canadian politicians boasted to their constituents about the jobs created when branch plants came to their communities. The great prosperity associated with the economic boom prior to the First World War masked the higher costs of branch plants, which lost economies of scale by producing a full range of American goods for the smaller Canadian market. Whether this inefficiency was the result of the tariff or of foreign ownership was hard to sort out since the two were so bound together.

In the first decade after the Second World War, there was another great round of American investment in Canadian resources for American consumption. For the first time, a backlash manifested itself against the extent of foreign ownership. Walter Gordon , a prominent Canadian businessman and Liberal party guru, headed the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects, which, while admitting of the benefits, warned of the costs of foreign ownership in terms of economic and political sovereignty.

The stage was set for a sustained debate on how to devise policies that would increase the amount of Canadian ownership and at the same time would increase the benefits and decrease the costs of foreign ownership. As minister of finance in the Pearson government in the mid-sixties, Gordon proposed a tax on foreign takeovers, but it generated so much controversy it had to be abandoned. The best chance to deal meaningfully with foreign ownership was lost but the issue did not go away. In 1968 a task force appointed by the Pearson government and overseen by Gordon produced a comprehensive report on foreign ownership called the Watkins Report after its chief author, economics professor Melville Watkins . It endorsed a long-standing proposal of Gordon to create the Canada Development Corporation as an instrument to increase Canadian ownership, and proposed setting up an agency to monitor the activities of foreign-owned companies to increase benefits and decrease costs.

The Trudeau government commissioned another report under the direction of cabinet minister Herb Gray ; his comprehensive Gray Report ( 1972 ) laid the basis for action, particularly when the Liberals found themselves in a minority government situation in 1972 and needed the support of the nationalist NDP in order to govern. The Canada Development Corporation had been created in 1971 and the Foreign Investment Review Agency was set up in 1973 , though with far fewer powers than the Gray Report had recommended. In 1974 Petro-Canada was established as a Crown corporation to facilitate the Canadianization of the oil and gas industry. Foreign ownership fell relative to Canadian ownership in the 1970s and into the 1980s. This seems, however, to have had less to do with the foreign ownership policies of government—FIRA turned out to be quite toothless—than with the increasing maturity of Canadian business.

The election of the Reagan administration in the United States and then of the Mulroney government in Canada in the 1980s precipitated a sharp about-face on foreign ownership policy. The Canada Development Corporation and Petro-Can were privatized and FIRA was given the mandate of promoting and encouraging foreign investment. Out of the long debate on foreign ownership, little of substance remained, though rules limiting foreign ownership in the media have survived.

The free trade agreements struck in the 1990s contained ‘national treatment’ provisions that require all firms, regardless of nationality of ownership, to be treated the same, thereby ruling out policies directed at foreign-owned firms. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment that would have enshrined globally the rights of multinational corporations failed in its implementation in the late 1990s because of global opposition organized, in part, by the Council of Canadians.

Ironically, in the early years of the 21st century, the Canadian business community, which had mostly opposed any restrictions on foreign ownership, has expressed some concern about the tendency of American companies, in the era of free trade, to rationalize on a North American basis by closing the Canadian head-office of the subsidiary, thereby limiting decision making in Canada and eliminating some jobs. With tariffs gone, it would now seem that there may be some problems that inhere in foreign ownership itself.

More Postings on NAFTA and teh Selling of Canada:

1. NAFTA and the Selling of Canada. We Got a Raw Deal

2. Why we Must Continue to Fight For Our Sovereignty

3. Protecting Our Sovereignty and Rewriting our History

4. Good News and Bad News on the SPP

5. Harper's Free Trade is Managed Trade and All Wrong For Canada

6. Stephen Harper Managing us While Others Manage Risk

7. More on Harper's Failure to Govern Responsibly

In 2007 Amnesty International Warned That NATO Countries Were at Risk of Complicity in Torture

Though Stephen Harper is sticking to his story that there is no evidence that detainees handed over to the Afghan authorities were tortured, the evidence is mounting that he is either lying or really naive.

I have stated repeatedly, that while the Harper government is trying to pass this off on our troops, they are not the ones who could be charged with war crimes.

Prof. Mendes emphasized in an interview that international conventions and law governing prisoner treatment, which has been incorporated into Canadian law through the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, places the heaviest burden of responsibility on the chain of command rather than frontline soldiers."The notion of command responsibility that became entrenched in international humanitarian law is that if there is allegation of a serious crime in international humanitarian law, and torture is one of the most serious, it puts the heaviest burden on the civilian and military command structure," Prof. Mendes said.

Canada's original agreement with regards to detainees, was to hand them over to the American military. It made sense at the time because they were running the show and had already established their own detention camp at Bagram, where they would be interrogating terrorist suspects.

Then in 2005, the New York Times broke a story that the prisoners at Bagram were being horribly tortured, and two deaths at the camp were reported as homicides. Thirteen US soldiers were convicted in November of that year, forcing Hillier to change plans. In December, during an election campaign, he inked a new deal whereby those captured would instead be handed over to the Afghan authorities.

Reports of torture began arriving in early 2006, and the Harper government kept silent for a year and a half. Amnesty International reported in 2007, that there was evidence of torture, but their warnings were also ignored. You can read their full report here.

Major Manon Plante, a Canadian army officer, in a continuing-education thesis wrote: "Based on the Afghan human rights track record and its primitive prison capacity, how the Government of Canada came to the conclusion that the Afghan authorities had the capacity to detain personnel is perplexing," Maj. Plante wrote in her 105-page paper. "The decision may have been legal but it appears that it may not have been the right ethical choice."

And Tom Blackwell wrote in the National Post:

In an exhaustive critique, the author concluded Canada's decision to hand over suspected insurgents to Afghan authorities with a history of abuse violated Canadian ethical values, could turn ordinary Afghans against foreign troops and likely increased the stress of this country's combatants. The policy might even have contributed to the alleged mercy killing of a Taliban fighter by a Canadian soldier, she wrote.

SHOULD WE CARE?

According to the National Defence email, detainees captured by the Canadians are primarily people who have injured or killed NATO personnel or Afghans or are suspected, based on credible information, of planning attacks. No one suggests Canadian troops themselves have acted in anything but a humane, professional manner with detainees. Should we care, then, if murderous insurgents are roughed up in local prisons that have long been notorious for their abuses?

"We detained under violent actions people trying to kill our sons and daughters," Mr. Hillier said this week in rejecting suggestions that innocents were captured.

Amnesty International and other rights advocates, however, argue that any military operation in which Canadian troops are involved should be consistent with the country's fundamental values and its international legal obligations, such as the Geneva Conventions and UN anti-torture edicts. "It defines what kind of mission we're involved in," Mr. Taylor added ....

Hitler Youth and Other Young Radicals

The Canadian Manifesto: How the American Neoconservatives Stole My Country

In November of 1922, a Mr. K. Friedrich visited Harvard University to speak to their Liberal Club about post-war Germany.  He gave an animated account of a new phenomenon: the "Youth Movement" or "Gugenelbewegung."

"'The Youth Movement' expresses the new spirit in Germany. It feels that the old life was cold, hard and unprofitable, stifling all the better instincts of the young people of the nation. The old militaristic system could not be called culture.

"It was merely a mechanical perfection, wholly lacking in spontaneity. The 'Youth Movement' is embracing a different theory of values in the educational standard. The tendency is constantly towards a more liberal ideal. Its studies are more and more in the realm of Philosophy, Literature and Religion. The old shackles are being cast off by a new and spontaneous enthusiasm." (1)

When we think of a German Youth Movement, we automatically think of the Hitler Youth, and the disturbing images of indoctrinated children proudly giving the infamous salute.  However, the youth movement actually began before the War, as a vehicle for young people to commune with nature and escape the oppressive regime of Wilhelm II. Their hikes were intellectual and cultural endeavours, as they shared poetry; discussed and debated philosophy, current events and politics. And while many groups had uniforms, more common would be musical instruments and books.

During the war, the movement gained momentum, when shortages in essentials, resulted in many schools being closed; so for children and young adults, these hikes provided their education.  After the war, the groups began to organize and many became more political in nature; some even sponsored by political parties.

The German Zionist Youth Movement

Leo Strauss, the German emigre who inspired the neoconservative movement,  would become an active participant in the Zionist Youth Blau-Weiss, then led by Walter Moses.  And while the group enjoyed the typical hikes in the mountains, they were also very militaristic. Strauss would refer to it as pagan-fascism, and indeed Moses liked to imitate Mussolini, who had come to power in 1922.

It was here that Strauss claimed to have nurtured his authoritarianism, and the concept of a "clique", led by a dictatorial style leader. As early as 1923 he spoke of a preference for a quasi-totalitarianism, and detested “bourgeois” or “liberals” seeking to preserve their lives and comfort.

He would actually try to join the Nazi Party but was turned away because he was Jewish.  Said Strauss of Hitler, his “political theology” was hostile toward “me and my kind”. (2)

You Don't Have to be German to be a Hitler Youth

When civil rights activist, Tom Hayden, (formerly married to Jane Fonda) was a student at the University of Michigan, he became the editor of the Michigan Daily, and one of the founders of  Students for a Democratic Society.  SDS was in direct contrast to Young Americans for Freedom, and the two groups often clashed.

In one article of Hayden's in the Daily, he compared YAF to the Hitler Youth.  They were certainly cult-like, in their attempts to dress and act like William Buckley Jr., and accepted no opposition to any of their arguments, which they like Buckley, were always well prepared for.

YAF responded to Hayden's article in their own newsletter.  "Next to the Twist and barely knee-length skirts, the most fashionable thing of the season is the rousing , vitriolic attack on the so-called 'Extreme-Right'".

Buckley approved of the counter-attack, but privately he worried that  Hayden was right.  The John Birch Society, that was providing funding and moral support to the conservative youth group, had suggested in one of their reports, that if Barry Goldwater lost the 1964 nomination,  they would assemble forces in his [Goldwater's] fascist army. (3)

Leo Strauss would develop a philosophical argument which he called Reductio ad Hitlerum.  What he suggested was that not everything Adolf Hitler did was bad, and using examples like Hitler was anti-smoking, loved dogs and was a vegetarian, we can't automatically think of those things as bad, just because they were associated with Hitler.

Of course Hitler was not a vegetarian, but loved wild game, sausages and caviar, (4) and in 1926, apparently in order to impress Mimi Reiter, a 16-year-old girl, he whipped his dog so savagely that it terrified her. (5)

This does speak to another aspect of neoconservatism. The power to deceive, in order to create a public persona that the masses can get behind.

Strauss is right however, to suggest that not everything Hitler did was bad and in fact the political strategies that the neoconservatives adopted, were like time delayed synchronized swimming.  They followed his path to power, almost to the letter.  I'll be getting into that in more detail, later.

However, Hayden was not off the mark.

Two Burning Images

Undampered by a chilly drizzle, some 40,000 Germans jammed the square between Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelm University and the Opera House looking at a black mass of criss-crossed logs, insulated from the pavement by sand. A thumping band blared out old military marches. Toward midnight a procession entered the square, headed by officers of the University's student dueling corps in their dress uniforms: blue tunics, white breeches, plush tam o'shanters and spurred patent leather jack boots.

Behind them came other students and a line of motor trucks piled high with books. More students clung to the trucks, waving flaring torches that they hurled through the air at the log pile. Blue flames of gasoline shot up, the pyre blazed. One squad of students formed a chain from the pyre to the trucks. Then came the books, passed from hand to hand while a leather-lunged student roared out the names of the authors:

"Erich Maria Remarque [wild cheering]—for degrading the German language and the highest patriotic ideal!" (Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front, against WWI)

"Emil Ludwig—burned for literary rascality and high treason against Germany."

"Sigmund Freud—for falsifying our history and degrading its great figures. . . ."

On he went, calling out the names of practically every modern German author with whom the outside world is familiar: Karl Marx, Jakob Wassermann, Albert Einstein, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger. Arnold and Stefan Zweig, Walther Rathenau.

... While the flames flared highest, up to a little flag-draped rostrum stumped clubfooted, wild-eyed little Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment in the Nazi Cabinet, organizer of the great midnight bibliocaust. "Jewish intellectualism is dead!" cried he. "National Socialism has hewn the way. The German folk soul can again express itself!

"These flames do not only illuminate the final end of the old etra, they also light up the new. Never before have the young men had so good a right to clean up the debris of the past. . . . The old goes up in flames, the new shall be fashioned from the flame in our hearts. ... As you had the right to destroy the books, you had the duty to support the government. The fire signals to the entire world that the November revolutionaries [German Revolution that overthrew the Kaiser] have sunk to earth and a new spirit has arisen!" All over Germany similar pyres blazed with similar books. (6)

The Nazi youth were driven by anti-communism and anti-liberalism.  The anti-Semitism came about because of the popular belief that the Jews were working with the Communists to take control of Germany.

The conservative youth in the early days, were also fuelled by anti-communism and and anti-liberalism, but while they didn't resort to book burning, an  Indiana chapter of YAF, did make a very public display of burning baskets, alleged to have been manufactured behind the Iron Curtain.

However, there is more than one way to burn a book, or even a basket.  An affiliate of YAF, the Intercollegiate Society Institute, formerly the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, a paleonconservative think tank created by William Buckley Jr., publishes a list of the 50 worst and the 50 best books.

When describing the 50 worst, they use similar language to that of the young Nazis feeding the flames.

Alfred Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male -  "A pervert's attempt to demonstrate that perversion is "statistically" normal."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958) - "Made Americans dissatisfied with the ineradicable fact of poverty. Led to foolish public policies that produced the hell that was the 1960s."

Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) - "[The Church] should therefore strengthen the existing communistic institutions and aid the evolution of society from the present temporary stage of individualism to a higher form of communism." Eek!

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971) - "The hollow soul of liberalism elaborated with a technical apparatus that would have made a medieval Schoolman blush." (7)

And the list goes on.  Can't you just picture them being thrown into the fire?

Even those they don't metaphorically burn, they still use to take jabs at liberal tradition. From their Best list:

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1947) - "... reveals the true intent of liberalism"

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) - " ... her account of the peculiarly modern phenomenon of "totalitarianism" forced many liberals to consider the sins of communism in the same category as those of fascism, and that is no small achievement."

Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) - Every day, in every way, things are getting better and better? No, and Butterfield provides the intellectually mature antidote to that premise of liberal historiography." (8)

Book Burning Canadian Style

[Mark] Tushingham was just about to give a presentation on the science behind his novel Hotter Than Hell at the National Press Club. Released last November with little fanfare, it's about the Earth becoming so hot from climate change that America and Canada are at war over water. "I was entering the elevator 15 minutes before the event when I got a call on my cellphone," says Tushingham's publisher, Elizabeth Margaris at DreamCatcher Publishing. "[Tushingham] said, 'I've got bad news. I can't go.' He was told [by the Environment Minister's office] not to appear." While Tushingham himself was not available for comment, Margaris told Hour, "This is just outrageous. Mark can't talk but I can. They can't fire me. They can't gag me." (9)

Conservative MP Rona Ambrose forbid any promotion of the book by Tushingham, who worked for the Ministry of the Environment.  The book was fiction, though based on the results of inaction to address climate change, something the Harper government refused to admit was real.  Abrose was a former consultant for the Tarsands, so was protecting her clients.

In March of 2010, Senator Mike Duffy attacked the University of King’s College and other Canadian journalism schools for exposing students to Noam Chomsky and critical thinking. “When you put critical thinking together with Noam Chomsky, what you’ve got is a group of people who are taught from the ages of 18, 19 and 20 that what we stand for, private enterprise, a system that has generated more wealth for more people because people take risks and build businesses, is bad,” said Duffy (10)

King's College responded by saying that books like Manufacturing Consent were not  "part of the curriculum, though students do read some Chomsky."  What they should have said was that what journalism students read was none of his damn business.  How can we hope for future balance in the media, sorely lacking today, if students are only taught to think one way?

From their concerted attacks on Marci McDonald's The Armageddon Factor to Stephen Harper trying to stop the publication of Tom Flanagan's book Harper's Team (he was forced to edit out half of it), Canada's conservative movement is attempting to change the way we view ourselves and our place in the world, while creating a false public persona.

Critical thinking out.  American style conservative indoctrination in.

Sources:

1. MR. FRIEDRICH TELLS OF "YOUTH MOVEMENT" IN GERMANY, the Harvard Crimson, November 22, 1922

2. Enmity and Tyranny, By: Alan Gilbert, March 5, 2010

3. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, By Rick Perlstein, Nation Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-8090-2858-1, p. 154

4.  Hitler: Neither Vegetarian Nor Animal Lover, By: Ryn Barry, Pythagorean Books, 2004

5. The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, By: Robert G.L. Waite, Basic Books, 1977, ISBN-10: 0306805146

6. Bibliocaust, Time Magazine, May 22, 1933

7. The Fifty WORST Books of the Century, Intercollegiate Society Institute

8. The Fifty BEST Books of the Century, Intercollegiate Society Institute

9. Tories muzzle environmental scientist: Catch a fire, by Julie Fortier, The Hour – April 20, 2006

10. Mike Duffy slams journalism schools for thinking critically, By Paul McLeod, Metro Halifax, March 16, 2010

What Kind of Leader Tells His Country's Troops That the Majority of Parliamentarians Are Out to Get Them?

What a horrible display Stephen Harper has been putting on, suggesting that the Opposition do not support our troops, simply because they want to try to avoid our own soldiers facing war crimes at the Hague.

Under international law we must have a full public inquiry on this, or that is exactly what is going to happen. Clearly the Harper government is more concerned with saving their own butts than the reputation or indeed lives, of our men and women in uniform.

Since they have now been abandoned, it is time to bring our troops home.

Red tape and blank sheets
What are the feds trying to hide in Afghan abuse probe?
By GREG WESTON
November 29, 2009

For more than two years, Stephen Harper's government has been sitting on more than 1,000 pages of potentially key evidence in the widening fiasco over the alleged torture of Afghan prisoners.

The documents are the official results of Canadian military police investigations in Afghanistan, dating back to 2006, and go straight to the heart of the controversy gripping Parliament.

But like other documentary evidence surrounding this murky chapter in Canada's war effort, the military police reports remain under government lock and key.

All of which raises the obvious question: What is the government trying to hide?

The military police apparently probed allegations that Canadian Forces turned over Afghan prisoners to local security authorities, knowing the detainees faced a high risk of torture.

If true, Canada may have violated international convention, or worse, abetted war crimes.

On the other hand, if the military police found no such evidence, one would think the Harper government would have plastered those reports on every street corner.

It's not just the Canadian public being kept in the dark.

For almost two years, the quasi-judicial Canadian Military Police Complaints Commission has been trying to investigate the Afghan detainee issue.

Yet, it wasn't until May this year that the government even mentioned the existence of the military police probes.

Six months later, the Harper government still has not turned over any of the resulting police reports to the commission.

In fact, in the 18 months since the commission launched a public inquiry into the Afghan detainee issue, the government has yet to provide a single page of evidence of any kind. It hasn't been for a lack of trying on the part of the commission.

As the commission's chief lawyer recently said: "Despite numerous document requests and despite continuous assurances the documents would be produced ... the commission has not been provided with a single new document."

Instead, federal lawyers have devoted their efforts -- and no doubt staggering amounts of taxpayers' money -- to binding the commission in legal knots, intimidating witnesses, denying requests for documents and generally ensuring the inquiry goes nowhere.

So far, a parliamentary committee has been treated to the same stonewalling.

In recent weeks, MPs have been trying to pursue allegations by senior diplomat Richard Colvin that Canadian officials turned a blind eye to probable torture of Afghan detainees and then tried to cover up their inaction by claiming ignorance of the problem.

Colvin claims he repeatedly raised the torture issue in dispatches as Canada's deputy ambassador in Afghanistan in 2006. This week, the government trotted out a parade of generals and Colvin's former bureaucratic boss to forcefully refute the allegations.

Popular retired general Rick Hillier said he had recently reviewed Colvin's missives and there was no mention of torture. So why doesn't the government settle the issue and simply release all of Colvin's memos?

Last week in the Commons, the prime minister seemed to promise just that. Alas, if it seemed to be too good to be true, it was.

What Harper actually said was the government would release "all legally available documents" related to the Afghan detainee controversy.

He failed to mention the government has already made sure there is almost nothing on paper that is "legally available."

Instead, the justice department declared all of Colvin's memos to be matters of "national security" protected by secrecy laws and threatened to have him arrested if any leaked out.

The same "secret" stamp has also been slapped on the 2006 military police reports and on virtually every other shred of paper related to the Afghan detainee issue.

The feds are even trying to put a "national security" designation on a letter from Colvin's lawyer complaining about government secrecy and intimidation. Go figure.

Two years ago, the Harper government gave the complaints commission $5 million in special funding for the Afghan detainee probe.

Instead, most of the money so far has been spent by the federal commission fighting off federal government lawyers trying to shut down the proceedings.

One thing is already clear.

The Afghan prisoner fiasco is either an insidious government cover-up of official lies and misdeeds or the Harper administration is going to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about nothing.

According to Conservative MP Jacques Gourde There is a Scandal at Public Works

Or is there? Is there really a Public Works? Is there such a person named Jacques Gourde?

It's all a mystery.

The strangest story is coming from the Public Works department, that began when the Globe and Mail learned that there was apparently a police investigation in progress. That was on Wednesday.

Officials silent on mystery investigation at Public Works

Investigators have been called in to Public Works Canada, but the government is refusing to release any information on the matter.

In fact, government officials are even refusing to say which law prevents them from speaking about the situation.

"I can't even confirm or deny that there is an investigation, or even discuss under what law I'm not allowed to talk," a government official said.

Reformer Christian Paradis stated on the Public Works website:

Gatineau, November 27, 2009 – There have been a number of media stories regarding a potential investigation or probe at Public Works and Government Services Canada. I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

There is no investigation into the sale of federal government properties and no investigators have been called in to investigate this matter at Public Works and Government Services Canada.

And yet according to Reform Conservative MP Jacques Gourde, there is indeed an investigation taking place, though he refused to give further details. I doubt an MP would rat out his own party if there was nothing to rat out.

Conservatives finally confirm Public Works probe
Daniel Leblanc
Ottawa — Globe and Mail
November 27, 2009

Conservative MP Jacques Gourde apparently broke the law today as he finally confirmed that investigators are at work at Public Works Canada.

Federal officials had insisted all week that an unspecified law prevented them from either confirming or denying the existence of the investigation, first revealed in The Globe and Mail.

In answer to a question from Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay today, Mr. Gourde ignored the directive and finally shone a bit of light on the matter.

“As it stands, Public Works and Government Services Canada is aware of these investigations, but I cannot provide further comment,” Mr. Gourde said.

While Mr. Gourde did not provide details on the target of the investigation, his answer went further than previous comments from government officials.

“I can't even confirm or deny that there is an investigation, or even discuss under what law I'm not allowed to talk,” a government official told The Globe earlier this week.

During Question Period, Ms. Hall Findlay decried the mystery surrounding the investigation, which she said “relates to suspected irregularities in the government's selloff of federal properties.”

Back to: The Jacques Gourde Story: He Does Better at Pantomime

Vancouver Island North Have a New Liberal Candidate to Challenge the Bumbling John Duncan

This past summer when the Forestry Union protested at the offices of John Duncan, he proved what kind of man he was by attacking them in the press. They had legitimate complaints, but like a typical Reformer, they were union members and therefore the enemy.

I read Mike Holland's resume, and I think he will make a great MP for Vancouver Island North.

A tireless worker for just causes, he represents what this government is sorely lacking. Compassionate and intelligence.

As a life-long resident of the North Island, Mike Holland has spent all his life working to improve and build the community he calls home. Whether it has been as a Courtenay city councilor, a volunteer, or as a husband and a father, Mike has dedicated himself to our community.

Mike has worked all his life on the North Island, working at Elk Falls and Western Mines out of high school. For 25 years he has practiced law in Comox and built a reputation as a champion for the community, volunteering his time, energy and legal skills to advance vital issues of community importance.

When charities across B.C., such as Glacier View Lodge, faced the threat of losing their assets without receiving any compensation, Mike fought the legislation in court for four years as a volunteer, and he won won the battle. He was described by the B.C. premier as "a David, who single handedly took on the Goliath of government."

Later, when the promise to add 5,000 long-term care beds in BC was in jeopardy, Mike took up the cause, working with the community to ensure the provincial government kept its promise. And in the end, over 200 long-term care beds were built in Vancouver Island North.

Mike has been recognized for his contributions with the Comox Health Award, the George Muir Award for Courage, and the Glacier View Lodge "Volunteer of the Year" award.

Mike is a Charter member of the Crisis Center, Past Director of Lillian Lefcoe Society (for adults with mental disabilities), a past member of the Regional and St. Joseph’s Hospital boards, Rotary Club, Kinsmen Club and the Sid Williams Theatre Policy Board. He has served on the Comox Valley Water and Sewer Board and the Comox Valley Recreation Committee.

Mike has lived in the riding since 1959 when the Canadian Air Force sent his family to Comox. He is married and has two daughters

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