Vulnerable Children and Why Stephen Harper Should Never Have Rewritten Our Foreign Policy

I remember the singer Ricky Martin was on Oprah, discussing the trafficking of children from areas hit by disaster. From the tsunami to Katrina, many of those recently orphaned were being whisked away and sold.

It's a horrible thing to think about, especially since Stephen Harper rewrote our foreign policy, denying protection of these children.

Of course his reasoning was to remove any international involvement from the UN or International Criminal Court. It wasn't enough being a dictator in Canada. He wanted to make Canada an island, so we had few safeguards anywhere.

The terms "gender equality," "child soldiers," "international humanitarian law," "good governance," "human security," "public diplomacy" and "The Responsibility to Protect" have been blacklisted from government parlance ....

These terms were once championed by Canada, are in wide use around the world, and represent a wide range of international norms and precedent. Make no mistake, these semantic changes represent fundamental shifts to Canadian foreign policy. Each of the banned or altered terms carry with it significant policy implications, most related to the international human rights agenda.

For example, when speaking of the war in the DRC, where upwards of 3 million people have been killed, and rape is widely used as a tool of war, the terms "impunity" and "justice" can no longer be used when calling for an end to, and punishment for, sexual violence.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that stories from Haiti are just what Ricky Martin was talking about. Since humanitarian aid is being trumped by 'soldiering', it has me wondering what our priorities will be.

Many on the ground suggest that this massive build up of an army is more to protect corporate interests in Haiti. I know our own troops will act admirably because they grew up in a Canada where humanity was important.

But it still makes me incredibly sad and embarrassed. I guess this is who we are now. Bring in the army to protect our investments and anything else is secondary. The following report is from the UK because Canadians are not allowed to mention this.

Traffickers prey on hordes of Haiti quake orphans
By VIRGINIA WHEELER in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
January 28, 2010

THEY are orphaned, terrified and hungry - a lost generation facing fresh peril last night as hell-on-earth became a PARADISE for child predators. Babies and toddlers were among dazed kiddies being plucked by brutes from the rubble of earthquake-devastated Haiti.

Even those praying for sanctuary at medical centres set up in the stricken Caribbean nation were not safe - as aid workers warned child-trafficking gangs had sprung up across the shattered capital. Fifeen being treated were revealed to have been snatched by men later found not to be relatives ....

This CBS Story on Stephen Harper is Worth Revisiting

It's kind of interesting going back four years to stories that should have been a warning to us, about Harper's agenda.

Our own media rarely mention the Religious Right and their impact on the governing party.

But CBS journalist Arnie G. Seipel, hit the nail on the head when he suggested four years ago that we were travelling into unknown and dangerous territory.

We came, we saw, we burned the T-Shirt, and now we want our country back.

TORONTO, Nov. 9, 2006
Evangelicals, To The North
Nation: With Bush Ally As Prime Minister, Canada's New Christian Right Rises Up
By Arnie G. Seipel

When things get bad in the United States, it is reassuring to turn to Canada, a country with a high standard of living, a small military and a national health care plan. Canada always seemed to be, if a bit duller than America, also a bit saner.

But this is changing. The new Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, inspired by the neocons to the south, appears determined to visit the worst excesses of George Bush's presidency on his own country. He plans to pull Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol and expand military spending. He defended Israel's massive bombing of southern Lebanon, even as Israeli warplanes bombed a clearly marked U.N. observation post, killing a Canadian peacekeeper. He was the first world leader to cut off funding after Hamas took over the Palestinian Authority.

The decision was made despite Hamas having taken power after winning democratic elections that not only were recognized as free and fair but fulfilled demands made by the West.

Harper has extended the mission for the 2,200 Canadian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, where 42 have died so far. He has slashed $1 billion in funding that assists the most vulnerable Canadians, including cuts in adult literacy programs, legal aid to gays and lesbians, and measures to assist unemployed youth, despite a near-record surplus of $13.2 billion for 2005-06.

If the Bush Administration launches an attack on Iran, there is little doubt that Harper would line up behind Washington. When the Canadian prime minister was asked about Iran before his recent speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he called Iran "the biggest single threat the planet faces." And he sneers at Canada's long tradition of antimilitarism and generous social services, once calling Canada "a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its ... social services to mask its second-rate status."

But that is not the worst of it. The prime minister, who has begun, in very un-Canadian fashion, to close his speeches with the words "God Bless Canada," is also a born-again Christian. And Harper is rapidly building an alliance with the worst elements of the U.S. Christian right. Harper, who heads a minority government, is a member of the East Gate Alliance Church, part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a denomination with 400,000 members that believes in the literal word of the Bible, faith-healing and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

Women cannot be ordained in his church, homosexuality is a sin and abortion is murder. Canada, however, is unused to public displays of faith, and Harper has had to tread more lightly than George Bush. But many fear the prime minister is taking a cue from the Bush Administration and slowly mobilizing Canada's 3.5 million evangelicals — along with the 44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ — as a power base. Harper has spent the past three years methodically knitting a coalition of social conservatives and evangelicals that looks ominously similar to the American model.

"While the Ottawa press corps has been preoccupied with Harper's ability to keep the most blooper-prone Christians in his caucus buttoned up, he has quietly but determinedly nurtured a coalition of evangelicals, Catholics, and conservative Jews that brought him to power and that will put every effort into ensuring that he stays there," wrote Marci McDonald in the October issue of the Canadian magazine "Walrus."

Harper's combination of bellicosity, slash-and-burn attitude toward Canadian social programs and religious fervor makes many Canadians nervous.

Unfortunately for Canada, Harper has a lot of American help. James Dobson has set up a Canadian branch of his Focus on the Family three blocks from the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. The organization, called the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, provides political expertise to and otherwise supports Harper's allies in the bid to turn Canada into an Americanized Christian state.

Dobson, who rails against Canada's defense of gay rights and legalization of same-sex marriage, buys radio time in Canada to attack the nation's tolerance of gays and calls for legislation to roll back these measures. The proliferation of new Christian groups is dizzying, with organizations such as the National House of Prayer, the Institute for Canadian Values and the Canada Family Action Coalition, whose mission is "to see Judeo-Christian moral principles restored in Canada," publishing election guides, working with sympathetic legislators and mobilizing Canadian evangelicals in local and national campaigns.

These groups turn frequently to American Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, who came to Canada two years ago for an "Emergency Pastors Briefing" to rally 400 evangelical ministers against a bill before Parliament that included a provision making it a hate crime to denounce homosexuals. Other stalwarts, like former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed and televangelist John Hagee, have come north to spread their toxic message to the newly energized Canadian evangelical church.

And in the Harper government they have found not only a willing convert but an important ally. Harper's hold on power, like that of George Bush, is shaky. He too has no clear mandate to transform Canada, but this has not stopped his minority government from steadily undermining social programs and a once-enlightened foreign policy that liberal Americans could only envy.

The tools he is using are familiar to many Americans, who stood sleepily by as Pat Robertson and other religious bigots hijacked the Republican Party and moved into the legislative and executive branches of government. As I walk the windy streets of Toronto I wonder if those who push past me will wake up and see in Harper's government our own malaise or watch passively as Canada becomes a demented reflection of George Bush's America.

Conservative MP Andrew Scheer Upstaged by a Camel

One of the girls in our CAPP group is teaching in Oman, and sent us several pictures of her one Canadian protest rally in the country where she now teaches.

She was interviewed on a morning radio program in Saskatchewan. You can see the page, make comments to back her up, and listen to the podcast (Link on right)

Following her interview was Conservative MP Andrew Scheer, who remarkably is the Deputy House Speaker.

A Deputy House Speaker who has no idea how Parliament functions, and could not answer the simple question of why his boss cut and ran.

He stated that he would gladly debate anyone on the issue and we could contact him anytime. I did (you knew I would) Still waiting for a response, but I'll let you know.

You can contact him here and explain what democracy means to you. To him it doesn't mean much apparently.

This is CAPPs mission. We are going to take this country back by holding our politicians' feet to the fire. They will start to respect us again or they can hit the road. And that goes for any future PM who tries to pull a stunt like this. We'll be watching.

New Poll Puts Conservatives in Second Place. Time to Throw Them Out!

Stephen Harper had four years to prove to us that he didn't have an agenda, but it took just a four minute phone call to the Governor General to prove that he does.

Canadians were willing to give him a chance and he blew it.

We do have to remember though, that he has used every trick in the book to avoid accountability on the Afghan Detainee issue and the brewing lobbying scandal. It's time to throw the bum out.

However, if he does call the House back, we want all MEMOS UNREDACTED and a full accounting of the public works scandal.

Prorogation 'Aha! moment' punishes Tories in poll
January 28, 2010
Jane Taber

Tory tipping point Public anger over Stephen Harper’s decision to shut down Parliament is “the real deal,” EKOS pollster Frank Graves says.

And one way for the Prime Minister to recover is to recall the House.For the second week in a row, EKOS is showing the Conservatives and Michael Ignatieff Liberals in a dead heat - 31.6 per cent for the Grits compared to 31.1 per cent for the Tories - despite the accolades Mr. Harper and his team are receiving on their response to the Haiti earthquake crisis ....

Will Canadians want to 'throw the bums out'

The latest seat projections from EKOS Research show Stephen Harper’s reigning Tories as the Official Opposition with Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals sitting on the government bench in the House of Commons. Pollster Frank Graves calls this shift “eye-popping.” And he believes “aversion to an election has declined significantly. “ “There is a lot of throw-the-bums-out sentiment starting to percolate out there,” he says. ...

Yeah For Scott Brison Whose Talents Have not Gone Unnoticed

I really like Scott Brison. He's very bright.

I heard him speak in Kingston, and while I made an idiot of myself and almost gave the poor man a heart attack, I came away feeling confident that I had picked the right team.

We Liberals reaped the benefit of his former party's homophobia. You may remember that he crossed the floor because of the way that he was being treated by Harper's Reformers.

Scott Brison gets Davos nod
Jane Taber
January 27, 2010

It’s unlikely that Scott Brison, the Nova Scotia Liberal MP, ever imagined himself on stage with Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, and Conservative leader David Cameron, who everyone assumes will be the next British Prime Minister, when he was running his mini-fridge rental business as a young entrepreneur at Dalhousie University. But he’ll do just that on Friday in Davos, Switzerland. ...

Liberals Unveil Employment Strategy: Job, Jobs, Jobs!

One thing I really like about Michael Ignatieff, as revealed in the video above, is that he answers questions directly and honestly. He treats his audience with respect. A knee-jerk response to the copyright question, in a room full of young students, would be to promise to remove restrictions.

But he doesn't do that. He presents it from both sides, reminding them that artists need to make a living, so copyright laws are in place to make sure that they can. Otherwise, we would have few artists. Van Gogh used to trade his paintings for rent and groceries and Picasso once had a cabinet built for him simply by signing his sketches.

Artists need to be able to support themselves.

The other thing I like about Michael Ignatieff is that, although he has made the list of the world's top 100 thinkers many times, from a variety of publications, his greatest gift is in making us think. We are all in this together.

Liberals offer 3 proposals for job creation
January 27, 2010
CBC News

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff on Wednesday presented a three-pronged approach to generate long-term economic growth in Canada. (Remember the Barrie MP who states that Harper will never allow our economy to grow? That's not how neo-conservatism works.)

"Jobs are the priority for Liberals," Ignatieff told reporters on Parliament Hill. "We have to bring Canadians back to work."

Cash advance for some manufacturers

The Liberals' first proposal is providing a cash advance on the accelerated capital cost allowance (ACCA), a program that allows manufacturers to write off certain capital expenditures on new equipment designed to produce energy more efficiently or to produce energy from alternative, renewable sources. This proposal would help a sector that has been "particularly hard hit," Ignatieff said.

"The existing ACCA rules allow manufacturers to buy new equipment now and claim the allowance later when they're profitable, but that doesn't help if you can't get access to cash or credit right now," said Ignatieff.

Youth employment boost

The second proposal would tackle what Ignatieff called "the worst youth unemployment crisis in a generation" by providing financial incentives to companies to hire young Canadians.

The unemployment rate among those aged 15 to 24 was 16.1 per cent in December 2009, according to Statistics Canada, almost double the national average of 8.1 per cent. "We think this is a scandal," Ignatieff said. "You don't want the best and brightest in our country to start their working lives on the unemployment line."

The incentive would come in the form of an employment insurance holiday or straight grant. It would cost the government between $30 million and $100 million, said John McCallum, the Liberals' finance critic. The Canada Summer Jobs program, which provides funding to employers to hire students, should also be boosted, Ignatieff said.

Tax incentives for entrepreneurs

Finally, the Liberals suggested providing new tax incentives to encourage entrepreneurship in sectors like clean energy and the life sciences. "Encouraging venture capital investment is absolutely crucial to get improvement in our employment," said Ignatieff, adding that such investment is at a 14-year low.

Of the three, McCallum said, the first provides "a really good bang for the buck." It would cost the government initially between $20 million and $30 million, but the cash advance would eventually be paid back.

Together, the Liberals hope the proposals will "fire up investment" and get Canadians back to work, he said. Ignatieff also took a swipe at the Conservatives and in particular Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has suspended Parliament until March.

"We've shown you can walk and chew gum at the same time," Ignatieff said of his party. "[Harper] shut the place down, but Liberals are still working, and we hope our proposals will help this government to recalibrate, as they call it."

He said he hopes the Conservatives will consider his party's proposals when they prepare their next budget.

Going Green: Let's Talk Climate Change

As Rick Mercer suggested recently, Stephen Harper's idea of going green is turning his caucus into potted plants.

But in the meantime, just like the Afghan detainee issue and the lobbying scandal that have been put on hold; climate change and what our government plans to do about it, is also off the table for now.

But I'm afraid waiting for this government to do something, will be a very long wait.

While keeping our own media on a 'need to know, but they don't need to know much', basis; he told Bloomberg's when he was in Korea that he will “…use Canada’s co-chairmanship of next year’s Group of 20 countries meeting to urge members to put economic recovery before efforts to protect the environment.”

So where does that leave us?

The other parties want action now. Elizabeth May, as we know, is an expert on the issue. Jack Layton, though he made me angry when he campaigned against the Green Shift, is now ready to accept a carbon tax; and the Liberals new environmental platform is being lauded by climate scientists. All this while Stevie is sabotaging any negotiations.

The Montreal thinkers conference, scheduled for March will include many experts in the field, and will help the Liberal Party expand and fine tune their environmental platform.

Climate change a problem in desperate need of leadership
The Liberals would stand out by presenting clear environmental policies to Canadians
January 21, 2010
Désirée McGraw CO-FOUNDER OF LIBERAL RENAISSANCE

It is now an accepted fact here in Canada and around the world that our country has gone from being an environmental leader under former prime minister Brian Mulroney to a laggard under the Liberals – and now a pariah under the Stephen Harper government.

The recent UN climate change conference in Copenhagen made this even more painfully clear as we were given the dubious Fossil of the Year award for the third straight time and dubbed a "corrupt petro-state."

Copenhagen demonstrated an important shift in global geopolitics with emerging powers China, India and Brazil at the main table along with the U.S., while Canada was not even in the room. This is not surprising given Canada's failure to address the most important issue of our time: climate change.

Canada is the only country to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and then to wear its refusal to meet our international obligations under the agreement like a badge of honour. At first, the Harper government claimed we needed a "made-in-Canada" climate change plan (as if Kyoto precluded one when in fact it compelled one) and now it claims it cannot produce a Canadian plan without an international agreement in place. This hypocrisy undermines our credibility regarding environmental issues, but also other areas of international affairs, particularly as global warming affects the global economy and global security as well as the environment.

Canadians get it. A new survey commissioned by the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute found that Canadians believe climate change poses a significantly bigger threat to the "vital interests" of this country over the next decade than international terrorism.

Some provinces have responded to these concerns by putting their own plans in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This patchwork approach has pitted regions of Canada – particularly oil-producing Alberta and hydropower giant Quebec – against each other and has created great uncertainty for business.

This national leadership vacuum represents a real opportunity for the Liberal Party of Canada – provided it can get beyond its own uneven record on climate change.

Under the Jean Chrétien government, Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and then ratified it in 2002. The intervening five years of "consultations" were largely a wasted period of procrastination, equivocation and outright obstruction by the official Opposition.

The Liberals were strong on rhetoric and weak on action, as Chrétien adviser Eddie Goldenberg admitted in his book when he stated that the then-prime minister signed Kyoto essentially as a PR exercise. It was not until 2005 that a plan took shape under Paul Martin with Stéphane Dion as environment minister. This plan ("Project Green) was quickly discarded by the new Conservative government. Four years after their election, the Conservatives still lack a credible plan of their own.

This summer's meetings of the G8 and, in particular, the G20 – which comprise the world's major greenhouse gas emitters among both industrialized and developing countries – represent an opportunity for Canada to get global climate change negotiations back on track and, in so doing, reclaim our leadership on this critical issue. Although Canada will play host, the Conservative government is unlikely to take up this challenge because it does not want climate change on the agenda.

In anticipation of the G20 – itself the brainchild of former prime minister Paul Martin – the Liberals should present clear and compelling environmental policies to Canadians. This can be achieved by stating that Canada under a Liberal government would rejoin the international community and show leadership by working with G20 countries in forging a credible agreement on climate change.

Furthermore, a Liberal government would work with industry and the provinces to put real measures in place to reduce emissions. The Liberal party recently pledged to invest in green technologies, creating sustainable jobs for the future.

In contrast, the government's recent stimulus package missed a critical opportunity to make these investments (with Canada coming in second to last among countries that used stimulus funding to green their economies), while the EU and China made the most of theirs and the U.S. recently announced $2.3 billion in tax credits for clean energy technology development.

The goal should be clear: making Canada a green energy superpower. The Liberals have announced that they would use this period of parliamentary prorogation to consult on the economy as well as the environment. But Canada is well past the point of consulting on a climate change plan. The challenge now is to create buy-in from Canadians not for mere aspirations but for real action – starting with putting a price on carbon through cap-and-trade and taxing pollution.

The Green Shift fiasco of the 2008 election was rooted mainly in the Liberals' failure to communicate what should have been a straightforward policy: tax more of what you burn, less of what you earn.

The Liberal party must show Canadians that it can muster the massive political will and resources to successfully tackle seemingly intractable problems. The fiscal deficit of the 1990s provides a compelling case in point. The rationale presented was short-term pain for long-term gain – it would be irresponsible to leave such a burden on future generations.

The same logic applies not only to the ballooning fiscal debt, but to the ecological one. If Canada can mobilize around the fiscal deficit, surely we can make headway on the environmental deficit.

Désirée McGraw chaired the 2006 Liberal Renewal Commission's Taskforce on Environment and Sustainable Development. She is co-founder of Al Gore's Climate Project in Canada and lectures in international development and climate diplomacy at McGill University.