Politikos

Was Harper's Ego Simply Too Big For Lynton Crosby?

2015-10-17T19:46:00.000-04:00

Election 2015: And they're OFF...
in more ways than one...

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the beginning of "Horse Race 2015", marking the longest election campaign in modern Canadian history, it was believed to have been a strategic move.

The Conservative party had by far the largest war chest of any of the federal parties. This is what happens when you have corporate Canada in your pocket...or Corporate Canada has you in THEIR pocket. Which ever way you look at it, the Conservatives felt that they had more than enough cash to spend their way to another election victory.

Long time Harper confident and adviser Jenni Byrne was instantly dispatched from the PMO to the Stephen's campaign tent to manage what many believed would be the battle of a life time.

As an aside here, I have to wonder about the constant flow of personnel to and from the PMO and Conservative Party Central. To my mind, this has a profound effect on the nature of the governance of the country, given that the PMO, in it's current form, exercises vastly greater power over the country than the collection of elected MPs in the House. And that has led to the blurring of lines between where the Government of Canada ends and where the Conservative Party begins. To many observers, there HAS been no distinguishing between to two in the last nine years. But that's a story for another day.

Anyway, Harper's campaign got off to a less than glorious beginning. With Thomas Mulcair riding high on the afterglow of an NDP victory in Alberta, The Conservatives actually saw their popularity drop to third place in the polls at one point.

Like the Old Reform Party, who were the original incarnation of the

The Reform-a-Cons 2015

current Conservative Party (there are a great many who believe there is absolutely NOTHING Conservative about the way this collection of thugs does business), the Harper team tends to attract a great many "loud mouthed schnooks" (to quote Bugs Bunny). Hence Harper's need for constant message control, lest the loose cannons in the party demonstrate to the Canadian people, the insanely true nature of the New Conservative Party.

But even tight message control couldn't keep the spectre of angry old white men calling journalists "lying pieces of shit" on camera or being caught on video peeing into a coffee cup. Not to mention Conservative candidate Ryan Leef, jumping from behind bushes wearing camo to handcuff a woman. The loonies were getting loose.

Lynton Crosby: Master of the dark political arts.

So with the profound dip in the polls that accompanied the escape of craziness from Harper's asylum, poor old Jenni Byrne was sent to her room. It was at this time, that Maclean's Magazine announced that the "Lizard of Oz", spin doctor extraordinaire and master of the dark political arts of wedge politics and fear mongering, Lynton Crosby was taking over the Harper campaign.

It was not long after this report that Harper let slip the phrase "Old Stock Canadians" in a campaign debate. A comment which many have referred to as "Dog Whistle" messaging, meaning it was a comment sent directly to the ears of xenophobic, Anglo Saxon, Protestant Canadians. And soon there after, the debate about a woman's right to wear the Niqab surfaced along with a so-called snitch line for citizens to report "barbaric Cultural Practices" of their neighbours. Yet another swipe at Muslim Canadians.

These tactics seemed to have Lynton Crosby written all over them. And they seemed to be working. Riding a wave of xenophobic fear and racial tension, Harper and his Merry Band of Loonies jumped to a first place tie in the polls.

No Mr. Harper. Canadians aren't drinking your
cool aid this time.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the finisn line. The politics of fear and division began losing ground to a much wider debate about values and freedom. Harper began losing ground once again as Canadians were refusing to swallow his cool-aid.

So now, in the dying days of Election #42, it has been reported that the "Lizard of Oz" has abandoned Harper's sinking ship. Some, have speculated that this move may have been because of Harper's decision to seek the support of the "Buffoonic duo", Rob and Doug Ford in Toronto, which most observers regard as a supreme act of desperation.

Many Canadians like to feel that Crosby's racist tactics simply won't work here in Canada, so he packed up his didgeridoo and went home.

Others have speculated that the presence of Crosby in the Harper campaign has been greatly exaggerated in the first place. Curiously, no one in the Conservative campaign would either confirm or deny Crosby's involvement. But Election Canada saw fit to announce that it was ok for a "non-Canadian" to advise or consult with a political party in a campaign and that this was not contrary to the Elections Act.

My guess is, that regardless of the extent of Crosby's involvement, Harper's controlling, micro-managing, "my way or the highway" nature probably caused a clash of characters with Crosby who is probably himself, used to exercising complete control over campaigns or he wouldn't be doing what he's doing and wouldn't have gained his reputation as one of the top political strategists in the world.

Both probably have egos larger than some planetoids in our galaxy. We know this for certain about Harper. And with Crosby's winning record and way of doing business in both Australia and in England, it's not much of a stretch to infer that his sense of "self" is also probably "otherworldly". Both are probably used to sucking up every molecule of oxygen in every room they're in.

So in the end, there probably just wasn't enough oxygen in all of Canada to feed two such monstrous egos.

Harper's Hail-Mary History

2015-10-13T23:09:00.000-04:00

There is no shame in Harperland

As I write this, we are in the final week of Federal Election #42. If we are to believe the polls, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is running in second place behind Justin Trudeau.

Not that I put much faith in polls mind you. They failed to predict the last B.C. election, two of the last three Alberta elections, the last Quebec election or the "Orange Tide" in 2011.

But I would bet dollars to donuts that Citizen Stephen is keeping a "weather eye" on the polls. You see, at this stage of the game, it appears highly unlikely that he will grab another "false majority". And with both Justine Trudeau and Tom Mulcair saying there is no way they would prop up a Conservative minority (And equally unlikely that Elizabeth May would support him either), the chances of Harper governing, even with a minority, seem equally improbable.

Depending on how things play out in Quebec, Steve may be able to get into bed with the Bloc if things are close enough. But that also seems pretty unlikely.

It would appear that we are looking at the twilight of Stephen Harper. And Stephen himself, sees that same setting sun.

So we have to ask ourselves, would a power hungry, "win at all costs" kind of guy like Harper just sit back and let nature take it's course when faced with immanent death? Not likely. He will surrender 24 Sussex only under a cloud of tear-gas and a hail of bullets. Harper's own history has demonstrated that fact. Consider:

- In 2004, when Paul Martin was leading his own Liberal minority government and Steve was opposition leader, a potential non-confidence vote in the house of commons was so close, that it came down to one vote. Martin's government hung on the "yea or nay" of one independent M.P., Chuck Cadman.

But Cadman had inoperable cancer. Though he was still able to hold his

Chuck wouldn't take the bribe

seat in the House, his time on earth was rapidly coming to a close. So what did Citizen Stephen do in order to ensure he got his non-confidence vote and a shot at the Prime Minister's residence? He tried to bribe Cadman with a million dollar life insurance policy that named Cadman's wife as beneficiary. Cadman refused the bribe but nothing ever came of the whole sordid affair.

- In 2006, Harper finally got his shot at an election against Martin. It was a close run campaign, much like this current one. In the final stages of that election, the RCMP suspiciously announced it was investigating several Liberal Government personnel, including Finance Minister Ralph Goodale in what became known as the Income Trust Scandal.

Goodale and the Liberal Party were eventually exonerated in the scandal, but much too late. Harper rode the negative Liberal publicity to his first minority government. Then RCMP Commissioner,Giuliano Zaccardelli, was believed to have been "sympathetic" to the Conservative cause. He never explained the timing of his explosive announcement and was never held to account for it. Harper was Prime Minister by then you see.

Dion, an decent man but an
easy target for Harper's
hate machine

- In 2008, when Harper was contesting his second Campaign, also a close run affair, then CTV news journalist Mike Duffy, aired an interview with Liberal Leader Stephane Dion. After promising not to air the first dismal takes of the interview. Duffy broke his promise and what eventually aired, made Dion seem like a bumbling idiot. Many believe that interview was the turning point in the election. Duffy of course, went on to be appointed to the Senate by Citizen Stephan. And Duffy is of course, currently on trial for fraud as a result of his Senate shenanigans.He never answered for the damning interview with Dion.

- Also in 2008, shortly after winning his second minority government, Harper faced a Palace Revolt by the opposition parties that would have seen him turfed out of office and replaced by a coalition government. So what did Harper do? He prorogued government with the Governor General's blessing and waited out the storm. The coalition dissolved under Harper's relentless negative spin doctoring and he retained power.

A year later, Harper prorogued Parliament once again to avoid accountability over the Afghan detainee issue. Harper never accounted for the prorogation, nor the potential torture of the detainees.

- In 2011, when Harper knew he needed a Majority government in order to implement his ultimate agenda or face expulsion by his own party, we saw the largest case of fraud ever committed in a Canadian Election. The Robo-Calls affair. Despite damning evidence of a coordinated effort to thwart voters seen as hostile to the conservatives through the use of misleading automated phone calls, The Harper Government (as the Canadian Government is now called) never accounted for this misdead either. They went to great lengths to stonewall any and every investigation into the matter and in the end, the only one held to account was a minor Conservative party operative. Harper had his majority and he rapidly and ruthlessly began reshaping Canada in his own image.

So as demonstarted above, Stephen is not one to run a clean campaign when the stakes are high. And in Harperland, the ends always justify the means and there is no such thing as shame.

So we have to ask ourselves, with the stakes being just as high in this election - Harper's political life hangs in the balance - just what trump card does he have up his sleeve?

He brought in the "Lizzard of Oz", a divisive Australian spin doctor extraordinaire, to breath life into a sagging campaign. Initially, it seemed like Harper had pulled himself out of the fire one more time by use of the "Niqab" issue, thus stoking the xenophobic flames of discontent within a small portion of the Canadian population and diverting attention from his dismal economic record.

But to a certain extent, this ploy seems to have backfired as we are

now seeing a much wider debate based on the general issue of "values" - an area where Harper is at a distinct disadvantage with all but his most loyal base.

So what will Harper do in his final days in order to ensure his

continued existence? Will it be a terror based event? An arrest? Another dire warning from an alleged extremest group?

There is also a possibility that, like the Robo-Calls affair, we won't know what ace Harper played until after the election. But rest assured, Harper will not go queitly into the night. He is dying and he needs to play one last Hail Mary. One last desperate, loathsome gasp from a man with no shame.

So what will Harper's last big play be?

Just How Significant Is The Niqab Debate

2015-10-04T11:48:00.002-04:00

So who is more oppressive? The culture that
the Conservatives claim, compels women to
wear the Niqab, or the Conservatives who
Say they cant?

It is being said that the Niqab debate is nothing more than a "con-trap" - a wedge issue to distract Canadians from a dismal Conservative track record and a Prime Minister who has absolutely nothing of value to show for his nine years in power.

We say that there are more important issues to discuss, like healthcare. Which is indeed a critical issue and one that has been grossly mishandled by the Harper Government.

But the fact of the matter remains, that Harper, Kenney and I would think, a great many other members of the conservative caucus, are racist, misogynist pigs. And that should be a significant fact for many Canadians.

Do we, as a nation, want to be led by a bunch of angry old white men

Just another angry Old-Stock Canadian

who's values create varying levels of citizenship - that Old Stock Canadians are more - well - CANADIAN than several million newly arrived people? Do we want leaders who are as misogynistic about women's rights to their own bodies and what they wear, as the culture they claim oppresses them? Are women now, also second class citizens?

This exclusive, male domineering, racist mind set sits at the core of the conservative ideology and it becomes reflected in everything that they do, such as how they treat first nations, how they remove health care for refugees in need, by use of racist slogans, rather than elevating the level of health care for all Canadians - How they support harassment of women who seek abortions. Not to mention how foreign aid for Maternal Health Care denies support for countries with exploding populations but permit abortions.

We don't cotton to them kind
of folks is these here parts!

So maybe there are more pressing issues to discuss, but this one speaks to the nature of the beating heart of the man who would be our Prime Minister for four more years.

The Less Money I Earn, The More Taxes I Pay

2015-06-06T15:15:00.000-04:00

Ok, so why is it that the less money I seem to make, the more I seem to be paying in income taxes? Oh yeah, it's because I can no longer afford those TFSAs and RRSPs etc. So I guess the message is clear. It's not the upwardly mobile folks, those with the BMWs parked up their arses who are contributing the lion's share to our social programs via our taxes. It's the people who need them most.

To start off with, I was divorced several years ago. I won't get into the details, but let's just say, my wife got the house and the kids, hence the tax deductions. I got the guinea pig. I think I need to have a word with my lawyer.

Anyway, about a year after the initial separation, I also lost my job. And because of the circumstances, I didn't qualify for E.I. So I spent several month's living off of my credit cards until I could find another job. Those several months created a credit "monster" that I'm still dealing with.

And one just doesn't walk in off the street into a good paying, permanent job anymore. You start off on low paying contract positions with no benefits. I finally landed a permanent position after about two years. And from those I've spoken with, that's GOOD!

In the mean time, my credit monster got bigger and bigger, and the banks, who used to love me to pieces and constantly offer me new and creative ways to give them money, suddenly became my worst enemies. I went to my old friends, the CIBC to be precise, the folks who I had faithfully done business with for over 30 years, with cap in hand, asking for help. But seeing that I was no longer in a position to give the nice banker-lady money in all sorts of new and different ways, I was told to take a long walk off of a very short peer. All of which reminds me of the quote by Robert Frost: "A bank is a place that offers you an umbrella in fair weather and asks for it back when it begins to rain".

Anyway, the make a long story even longer (as my dad used to say), I've had to make a deal with the devil (in this case, the federal government) in order to slay my credit dragon and keep Tony the collection guy from harassing me. But I will be paying this credit debt off for a long time to come and in the mean time, I have no credit rating what so ever. The only people who will look at me even sideways anymore are the legalized loan sharks, Money Mart. But I am earning money again albeit, much less than I was before. Which brings me back to my original statement about income tax.

As an upwardly mobile middle-classer with a combined six digit income, the million dollar family, a house, RRSPs etc, I never paid one red cent in income taxes. The government was always giving me (us)money back. Which was great at the time. But now that I am bringing in only a tiny fraction of what I used to make, the government seems to be hitting me up big time for tax money on a regular basis. I, and all my border-line poverty level friends with no tax shelters available to us, seem to be the ones who are covering the cost of our once proud social programs.

I can say that as a middle-classer with tons of opportunities to shelter my money - legally - I contributed zip-doodah to the welfare of the nation. And I (we) were small potatoes. I can only imagine what the REAL movers and shakers with some serious cash can get away with - legally or not. I think of those billions of dollars those guys have squirreled away in off shore accounts and those massive corporate tax breaks that have resulted in zero trickle down. So I know that they aren't contributing diddly to the nation's welfare either. If anything, they're sponging off those taxes you and I contribute.

And I say "once proud" social programs because they are slowly being gnawed to death by the many headed hydra known as the corporate welfare state. It was recently revealed that the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs failed to spend a billion dollars earmarked for social programs for indigenous people. But what happened to that money instead? Oh yeah, there was that whole balanced budget thing. Have to keep Moodies and all those other big bank type guys who establish credit ratings happy.

And I see those all pervasive "Economic Action Plan" signs everywhere. They're made in the States or so I've been told. I imagine they don't come cheap. But instead of my tax dollars going toward improving healthcare or education or eradicating poverty, they seem to be going towards free advertising for the ruling party. "Merde"!

Oh, and going back to that whole balanced budget thing, It seems that a HUGE chunk of the money that was used to make the books look all nice and orderly, came from OUR E.I. fund.That money ISN'T supposed to be TAX money. It's supposed to be OUR insurance policy against hard times such as I and the 40% of all claimants who never get a chance to collect experience . I guess that's because OUR collective welfare isn't as important as having well sauteed books. But that's a story for another day.

So as I said in my opening paragraph, it appears that the lion's share of contribution to our once proud social programs seems to be being covered by the people who can least afford to do so. And the more they pay into it, the less service they get, because you know, signs and illusory balanced books and all are way more important. So don't tell me the system isn't stacked against us. Don't even THINK of telling me the game isn't rigged. The whole system is rotten beyond belief. And the rot is so deep and so old and so ingrained by folks who care more about votes and their own personal bottom lines that it can never be fixed from within. In my own humble opinion, the whole damn thing needs to be blown up and we need to start from scratch, kind of like what Iceland did. They bailed out the people, put the banksters in jail and rewrote their constitution.

In My Canada, No One Gets Left Behind.

2014-11-22T20:00:00.000-05:00

*Thao immigrated to Canada from Vietnam in the mid 90s. He had no special skills except for the fact that he is a hard worker. He is good, kind, decent and honest. In every way, reflective of those values we like to think of as "Canadian".

He came to settle in my home city of Hamilton and with the support of the Chinese and Vietnamese communities, was able to gain regular work and was able to establish himself as a brand new Canadian citizen.

Sometime after that, Thao was able to return to Vietnam in order to marry *Kim, whom he had corresponded with since coming to Canada. He was able to bring his new wife back to Canada where they set up a home together in the heart of the Chinese/Vietnamese community and in 2003, Kim gave birth to a baby boy and bestowed upon him, the English name of *John. They were living the dream.

Thao continued to work hard. Despite the fact that he was an unskilled laborer, he has never been without work. And though Kim did possess some abilities, having worked in a camera factory in Saigon, it was decided that she would stay at home to raise John. They lived a humble, but honest life. And with the arrival of their son, it was an extremely joyful one.

But as John began to grow, Thao and Kim noticed that all was not right with their little blessing. He was not attaining all the usual developmental milestones. He was not learning to talk or to communicate in any of the expected ways. And according to Kim, John remained cold and distant. He did not appear "attached" to her in the same way that other children might. He remained non-verbal and seemed perpetually anxious. He was aloof and distant.

John began attending Junior Kindergarten at the school where I work at age four. It became immediately apparent that something was not right with John and even though most of us recognized the telltale signs of Autism, there was no diagnosis. Kim blamed herself for John being the way he was and she and Thao had hoped that the school would be able to teach him to speak. There had been no other "intervention" or support for the family prior to that. Mostly because being relative newcomers to Canada and existing primarily within the Vietnamese community, their English was limited so they had no idea that support of any kind beyond school even existed.

The school was able to eventually help the family make the appropriate connections with community agencies. Coming from Vietnam however, Thao and Kim remained hesitant and wary regarding any involvement with government services. So they were slow and frightful of obtaining any kind of help beyond school. Kim continued to believe that she was for some reason, to blame for her son's disability. Some in the community had suggested that John's condition might be the result of her sins in a past life. She believed them.

Finally, though, an official diagnoses of Autism was arrived at. And with a diagnosis finally in place, the appropriate school supports could be accessed. This is where I became involved with John. My job was to support him in school. By this time, he was in grade one. He was achieving absolutely nothing except to be an overall disruption to his class and to the school in general with his frequent and violent "melt-downs". Everyone in school knew John by his screaming tantrums.

With the implementation of structure and programming geared to his needs, John began to improve somewhat. He became less of a disruption and he seemed to be actually learning some very basic literacy and numeracy skills. But it was clear that remaining in a "mainstream" setting was not the most efficient or cost-effective way to go with John so he was eventually transferred to another school which had a self contained classroom for children with Autism.

In the meantime, The family was able to access more and more government sponsored services such as IBI (Intensive Behaviour Interventions), ABA (Applied Behaviour Analyses) and the help of a dedicated Social Worker in order to help the family to "navigate" the system and to advise on in-home behaviour strategies.

It became apparent that in-home support was required in order to assist Kim and Thao to manage with John. My services were enlisted once again due to my previous school connections with John. Though my function was originally to provide "respite", to enable the parents to have some rest from the 24/7-365 ordeal of raising a severely autistic child, it has morphed into a multi-faceted role that now includes friendship.

I have worked with John and his family now for five years. Kim no longer feels that she is to blame for John's condition, though she continues to go to temple once a week to pray for him just as any Christian mother would do. Thanks to school and the help of government funded community services, John is progressing to the level of his ability, which means that he is learning some basic self-regulating skills and means of communicating his wants and needs. But John is still severely autistic and will always remain so. His future continues to be unclear, especially with regard to when he becomes an adult and Kim and Thao age and become less able to provide for John's basic needs. He is so reliant on them.

Kim has often indicated to me that if she and Thao had remained in Vietnam, she doesn't know what would have become of John. She says that services like IBI are available there, but are limited to those who can pay for them. She feels that she would have had to give up guardianship of John by now if she had not come to Canada. And she cries. But even here, everyone acknowledges that without Kim, John would be in residential care by now.

-------------------------

Six months ago, Kim was diagnosed with a brain tumor. All of a sudden, all bets were off regarding John and his care. The future seemed to come crashing home much faster than anyone was willing to admit. And this loving little family was thrown into crisis.

But after multitudinous tests and evaluations, none of which would have been available to Kim in Vietnam, it was determined that her tumor was benign but operable. If she did not have the surgery though, she would go blind.

Last Wednesday, Kim had her surgery. It was an innovative procedure that is less intrusive than actual brain surgery and was performed by some of the best doctors in the country. She is currently receiving world class follow up care in hospital (though she's not overly thrilled with the food). In addition, social services are providing additional assistance with John in his home so that Thao can continue to work and spend a little time with his wife in hospital.

Thao told me that in Vietnam, none of the services that his wife has received would have happened. And even if they were available, there would have been no way they could have afforded them. Kim would quite simply have gone blind. And there would have been no way Thao could have provided support for his son and work as well. He would have had to give John up to the state. He hinted that John might have ended up in a "sweatshop" but I can't verify the validity of this claim nor would Thao elaborate. But it's safe to say that he would no longer be living in a loving home and being given the best quality life possible for a child with autism.

But thanks to Government sponsored social services and health care, Thao and his family are being given every possible opportunity to continue to live and thrive together. One day, John will most certainly have to go off to live in a group home of some kind. He will never be able to live independently, but at least he will never end up in a sweatshop. But right now, the day when John will have to leave his parents seems quite far off and he is being given every conceivable opportunity to remain with his family as long as they are physically able to care for him.

And Kim will not go blind and will be able to continue to care for the son she has dedicated her life to. All because her family lives in a society that believes everyone, not just the privileged few, has a right to education, health care, community supports and social services. And despite the shortcomings of our current xenophobic, narrow minded, self serving federal government, Canada remains a kind, caring all inclusive family, just like Thao's family. And in this family, no one gets left behind.

*************************

* The names of family members have been changed in order to protect their privacy. I chose the name "Thao" for the father , because it means "courtesy" in Vietnamese. And this man is one of the most courteous, decent, honorable men I have met.

I chose "Kim" for the mother's name because it means "gold" or "brilliance" in Vietnamese, which is certainly reflective of her value to the well being of her son and partner.

I chose the English name of "John" for the son as it means "grace" or "mercy", which the child has received in abundance thanks to the caring and inclusive nature of our society.

A Brief Comment on the Conservative Lie About Welfare Fraud and Bogus Refugee Claimants.

2014-11-15T16:28:00.000-05:00

If this picture angers you, it's because it should...

Judging all people who use social services, be they immigrants, refugees or of Canadian birth, by the actions of those few who attempt to defraud the system (approximately .7% of all recipients according to the Guardian UK) is like judging all Canadians, according to the actions of a hand-full of Milhaven's most notorious. We can no more, righteously stand in harsh judgment of the 99.3% of welfare and social assistance recipients who are in need of help, claiming they are nothing but lazy fraudsters than we can fairly judge Canada to be a nation of thieves and murderers.

We just can't paint all social services recipients with the same brush. To do so is blatantly unfair to the vast majority of legitimate claimants and tends to stigmatize them, thus making it even more difficult for them to get back on their feet. And to politicize social services recipients and refugees as a bunch of freeloading bums does nothing but play to our negative emotions and is quite frankly, bigoted. And it makes for bad policy. It makes us an exclusive rather than an inclusive society.

Gulf War III. It's All About The Oil...Still!

2014-10-05T18:03:00.002-04:00

Burning oil wells in Kuwait. Circa 1990

Well Citizen Stephen has got us involved in yet another war. Canada has been at war now for almost all of Mr. "H"s entire tenure. He came to office waving the bloody flag of nationalism and it appears he intends to go out in very much the same manner.

Granted, His Harperness didn't get us into Afghanistan. That was Jean Chretien's doing. That was the so-called "righteous" war, the response to the 9-11 attack. But Stephen kept our Men and Women in uniform in Afghanistan long past their best-before date. Our involvement there just ended a mere six months ago.

Of course, before that, there was Libya and prior to that, Gulf War II. If Herr Harper had been in power then, we would most certainly have been involved in that disastrous debacle that commenced in 2003 and only just wrapped up (at least from the U.S. standpoint) in 2011.

And long before that, there was George Bush Senior's Gulf War I which of course, Canada did participate in. Brian Mulroney was responsible for our presence there.

While the Western coalition involved in the first Iraqi conflict used that country's invasion of Kuwait as an excuse for military action, we all know that war was about the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. It is telling that as his forces withdrew under fire, Saddam Hussein's army chose to torch oil wells, not town's, villages or other strategic locations that might have been of service to his enemy. He wanted to deprive the West of its life's blood.

It was only once Saddam had been effectively neutered as a threat to the West's supply of oil that the Americans backed off and sent in their "wildcatters" to douse the burning wells. Big Oil's interests in that area were safe for the time being.

Sometime after that, huge deposits of oil were discovered in the Caspian Sea/Turkmenistan area. This was a huge deposit. An estimated 60 billion barrels of crude. It was SO huge that the two planned pipelines to the west via the Black Sea were not deemed to be sufficient to move all that much needed oil to Western markets. Also, the belligerent nature of bordering Iran at the time made the continuous flow uncertain via those two lines.

So in response to this dilemma, the U.S. attempted to negotiate with the Taliban Government in Afghanistan for a third pipeline that would run north to south through that country, through Pakistan and finally ending at the Indian Ocean.

Negotiations between the Taliban and an international consortium led by Unocal of California were going swimmingly until the bombing of two American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, allegedly by Osama Bin Laden who claimed to have had the blessing of the Taliban regime. Negotiations ended at that point.

Three years later came the 9-11 attack in New York, also allegedly perpetrated by Osama and his Al Quaida network who happened to be based in Afghanistan.

America and the Western world as a whole were terror struck. They

Map of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline.
To be completed in 2017.

now had the moral excuse to go into Afghanistan in force to hunt for the terrorist general... and to make sure that pipeline got built. Of course, Canada was also there to help fight the good fight against evil and tyranny... and to protect that pipeline.

It is interesting to note that the puppet president that the U.S. installed to lead the new Afghan government was Hamid Karzai, a former Unocal employee. And as Uri Averny of the Daily Ma'Ariv in Israel pointed out, it was quite telling that the majority of American operational bases in Afghanistan were located along the same route as the proposed Tran-Afghanistan pipeline.

So while Canada was helping to fight the war on terror by putting "boots on the ground" in Afghanistan, it is coincidental that we were also helping the best interests of Big Oil and the West's insatiable thirst for petroleum.

Then came Gulf War II. Riding on the coattails of the "Righteous War" farther to the east, George Bush Junior invaded Iraq, supposedly to finish off his father's work.

He used the pretext that Saddam Hussein was supporting the terrorists and was producing weapons of mass destruction. Of course, Saddam had no tolerance whatsoever for the terrorists and wouldn't let them operate in his country. And as we now know, there WERE no weapons of mass destruction. It was all a flimsy excuse for going back into the region.

Whether it was because the Americans felt that Saddam was growing too unreliable once again or because it feared neighbouring Iran's belligerence, or both, they needed to ensure the continued flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. And they had their excuse. Thus began an ugly eight year war to protect the flow of crude to the West.

Mercifully, Canada took a pass on that whole affair. Chretien and subsequently, Harper, were content to stick with the "Holy" pipeline war in Afghanistan.

But then came yet another despotic ruler to self righteously topple. Muammar Gaddafi, ruler of Libya which is home to the fifth largest oil reserves in the world. Gaddafi had been a thorn in the West's side for decades and It was rumored that the U.S. had plans to take him out shortly after 9-11.

But after 9-11, Gaddafi made efforts to mend fences with the West and actually denounced the New York attack. There was then, no mask of righteous indignation for the Americans and its allies to hide behind until the Arab Spring came along in 2011. The West finally had an excuse to send in their bombers.

And Canada was there to help keep the oil spigots open.

Now we have Gulf War III. ISIS, an Islamic army that was born and funded covertly by the Americans in order to topple the regime in Syria have marched into Northern Iraq and are threatening the oil fields there.

Map of Exxon holdings in Northern Iraq.

ISIS operations in Iraq are concentrated in the Northern area known as "Kurdistan". Oil reserves there are so large that if that region were ever to declare it's independence, it would be home to the ninth largest reserves in the world. America's first bombing missions in this new war against "terror" where to defend the city of Erbil which is considered to be the nerve centre of the Kurdish oil fields and home to Exxon, Chevron and Mobil's local operations.

So while the fight against terror is once again the impetus for war - ISIS having circulated videos of various Westerners being beheaded by an operative who curiously, has an English accent - one has to look no further than the interests of Big oil and the West's continued need for vast amounts of petroleum in order to keep their societies running.

And Canada is there once again, helping to save the day from "Islamic Radicals", much like the Government of Harper is keeping close tabs on "Environmental Radicals" here at home. It's all about serving the best interests of Big Oil and fueling our ongoing lust for crude.

So don't for a minute buy the nationalistic clap trap and fear mongering that Citizen Stephen and leaders like him are foisting upon us in order to justify our colonial misadventures. The wars of the 21st century are- always have been - and until the world breaks it's addiction to petroleum - always will be, about oil.

Without The Media, Harper Would Have No Message

2014-09-28T17:44:00.000-04:00

At the gathering of the Conservative clan in Calgary in 2013, several of the good folks of the mainstream media bemoaned their treatment at the hands of the Harper faithful.

They were penned into a corner with no water to drink (at first) and no wi-fi access. But even though these professional journalists were rudely shoved to the side and belled like cats with inordinately LARGE press credentials hanging from their necks so as to warn the clan's delegates who NOT to talk to, they were still in plain enough sight for the Cons to laugh and point their bony fingers at as though the press were thieves pilloried in the stocks.

You see, the Conservatives in general and Stephen in particular don't think very highly of the mainstream media. They consider them to be the enemy in much the same way that His Harperness has declared the Courts to be the enemy of Senate reform. You see, every populist kind of guy needs an enemy that justifies his crusade. Even if that enemy happens to be nothing more than a road-side windmill.

But the Conservatives disdain for the media was best expressed by

Harper "Lickspittle" Marjory LeBreton.
Better wipe your chin there Margy.

former Tory Leader in the Senate, Marjory LeBreton when she denounced the Ottawa Press Corps as being nothing more than a bunch of Liberal "lickspittles". Though it was plain to see that the discoloured drool that dripped from Marge's wrinkly chin plainly belonged to Stephen himself. But the Cons have never let a little thing like hypocrisy get in the way of their rhetoric.

Stephen you see, really hates to be held to account. He and the clan's spin doctors have gone to great lengths to portray Harper as a really smart guy so being stymied by really tough questions - well - makes him look just plain stupid. Hence the incessant spin and regurgitation of vapid talking points from Steve and his bobble heads, most of whom he has little or no faith in to not shoot themselves in the foot. Or worse, accidentally wing Stephen with a misplaced, unscripted comment.

He gives Parliament the same treatment, not that he cares a whit about Parliament. It is merely window dressing behind which he maintains his autocratic rule. But there are actual CAMERAS and real live reporters in the press gallery. And the fear of looking foolish or being caught with his pants down in front of the media simply terrifies Citizen Steve.

"Get thee back most foul and odious
seekers of truth"!

So Harper, as he does with all his detractors, bashes the media and attempts to discredit them as being "Liberal Elites", the enemies of the common man. But the fact is, when reporters such as Terry Milewski press Stephen for answers to tough question, he is simply doing his job. He has done nothing less with any previous Prime Minister. And sometimes, he made them look foolish too.

But credibility has always been a concern for Harper ever since the days

The Gospel according to
Fred Flintstone.

of the Reform Party when members routinely made themselves look ridiculous in front of the national media ("man walked with dinosaurs" comes to mind). No credibility translates into no votes and Harper has gone to great lengths to paint what currently passes for a Conservative party as credible. At least enough to con as many as 38% of voters. And many of those 38% voted for Steve himself because of the "smart-guy" persona that he has portrayed.

So there are no more Prime Ministerial press-scrums for fear the Liberal intelligentsia posing as reporter's might cause Stephen to look foolish or worse - Negligent or dare I say, crooked.

As long as the media keeps giving face-
time to the Harpernaughts, Canadians
will be giving face-time to their palms.

But it is a sick and twisted relationship Citizen Stephen has with the press. You see, as much as he claims to loathe the media in general (with the possible exception of his incestuous relationship with Sun News), he needs them. Without the boys and girls in the Press Corps, The P.M. and his underlings would have no vehicle with which to convey their tightly controlled, highly scripted and mind boggelingly banal messages. Yet he abuses them at every opportunity. And like a beaten dog, the whipped media follows Herr Harper around looking for fallen crumbs and the remote possibility of a pat on the head.

I've asked media types why they continue to allow Stephen and the Harper Youth to abuse and humiliate them the way they do. But I'm conscious of the fact that I'm questioning people who are stuck in a cycle of abuse and I need to be careful not to blame the victims here.

I've pointed out to them that if they just stay away, stop covering Harper's Follies, the shabby treatment would stop. The only people covering the Gestapo in the PMO would be Ezra Levant and his crew and nobody watches them anyway.

But The Boys and Girls of the Press Corp - to a man and woman - have babbled about their professional duty and that they've taken oaths and all that. So they wear their "whipping boy" persona's like badges of honour and continue to allow Harper to use them like he would a cheap whore.

But there was one day in 2013 when the Cons were holding a caucus meeting, Stephen would only allow cameras and TV into the soiree on the condition that no questions would be asked. In essence, this was to be nothing but a photo-op. From out of nowhere, the Press Corps, seeming to have had enough of being kicked around, decided to boycott the event. The only coverage was from - you guessed it - Sun News.

Of course, Harpers Spinners turned the brave stand by the media types into a fundraising opportunity. It may or may not have been a successful cash grab. But that's neither here nor there. The important things is that the MSM stood up for themselves that day and said in unison and in a loud and clear voice: "ENOUGH". And for an excruciating moment in time, Harper's world shook uncontrollably.

We've since gone back to the old relationship in which the press are throttled into being Harper's reluctant messengers. But with the next federal election just around the corner, lets hope the Media remember the day they stood up to the Emperor and embrace the notion that without them, Harper is nothing more than a sparrow-fart in a wind storm. No one will hear him.

If Harper gave a press conference and nobody
bothered to cover it, will he still have made
a noise?

Is Thomas Mulcair's $15/hour Minimum Wage Empty Politicking?

2014-09-14T14:57:00.000-04:00

The "Bearded Wonder" certainly
has folks abuzz this weekend.

Well good old Tommy certainly has folks all abuzz this weekend with his talk of introducing a federal minimum wage hike to $15 per hour.

After a rather tepid summer for the NDP in which their only newsworthy announcement was their parroting of the Reform-a-Cons indecent position on the willful destruction of Gaza, this comes as some good news.

Yes, they've definitely scooped the Cons and the Libs with a truly positive suggestion for reducing wage inequality (at least a little), reducing poverty (somewhat) and giving consumers more ability to consume (which in the end, is good for the economy...right?) They even have a catchy phrase to go along with it: "People who work full time shouldn't have to live in poverty".

So the "Bearded Wonder's" plan is to introduce this bill in Parliament within the next few weeks and folks from coast to coast to coast are all enthusiastic that something good might finally be coming their way from Ottawa.

But hold on a moment! The Reform-a-Cons have a majority in the House, which they tend to wield like a sledge hammer. Everyone knows they are pro big business, free markets, privatization, small government and definitely against anything remotely Socialistic. Mulcair's bill, even if it has full Liberal support (which it won't, most of them will probably have someplace better to be when it comes time to vote) doesn't have a western journalist in Syria's chance of survival. So what the hell is he thinking?

Stephen Harper's collection of
festering Bridge Trolls!

Well, that's the beauty of being the opposition party in a majority government. You can introduce any kind of bill, no matter how outlandish - a free pony to every child born in the month of May for example - knowing full well it will be voted down and you'll never be held responsible for it. The purpose is to make the Government look like a nasty bunch of festering bridge trolls...which they are of course.

So is this little ray of hope and sunshine from the NDP nothing but an empty gesture aimed at playing politics at the expense of the Evil Empire? Well of course it is. But it's a little more than that too.

Since the Cons have introduced the notion of the perpetual campaign to the Canadian political scene, all three main party's have been jostling for the limelight. Thus far, the charismatic and photogenic Prince Justin seems to have done the better job of this with his perpetual message of "hope, hope and more hope". He's not really saying what exactly we're hoping for as yet, but hey, anything is better than four more years of Harper and his merry band of bobble-heads.

All the while, Mulcair has been plodding along, being perhaps, the best Opposition leader in recent memory. But being good at roasting the government in Question Period doesn't really score a lot of points with the GP (general public). NO one watches CPAC (except for journalists and political junkies) so most folks don't really "get" just how good Tommy is at his job.

So with 2015 just around the corner, this $15 minimum wage bill is certainly a good way of getting the GP talking about the NDP again and you can bet that it will be a central plank in their 2015 election platform. And by forcing the Cons to unanimously vote the bill down, you can also bet Mulcair will be reminding us at every turn how Citizen Stephen and the Harpercondriacs don't want Canadians to make a decent living wage. Because they're evil and all.

So then, what are the chances of this bill ever receiving any serious discussion? Well, none in the current Parliament. But there is a very good chance that the next Government will be a minority, so if the Dippers can hold on to the momentum they gained in 2011, they could well be in a position to wield some significant clout. If they're not the outright governing party, they could be the ones holding the votes that sustain whom ever is in the driver's seat. And with the skillful use of "give and take politics", that's a pretty good place to be sitting.

So in the short term, Tom's minimum wage bill might seem like some empty politicking, but in the long term, there might actually be a glimmer of hope of him actually pulling this off. But to do this, he has to keep his momentum going and keep people talking about the NDP. This weekend, he's done just that.

An idea who's time is long overdue?

Do No Harm: The 10 Commandments, Redux or 10 Simple Guidelines for a Peaceful Co-existence.

2014-09-07T20:37:00.000-04:00

Being that I don't subscribe to any one religion in any kind of traditional way,I guess it could be said that I'm somewhat of an atheist. It's not that I don't believe in god. It's just that I don't believe in him/her in the "biblical" sense.

That being said though, I do like the concept of the Ten Commandments. A simple, codified set of rules to suggest how we can all live together in peace and harmony. Whether you believe they are the actual word of God or that Moses was just significantly pissed with the behaviour of his people and went off into the mountains to devise a way of dealing with them, they aren't a bad set of guidelines for civilized co-existence.

The problem is, I feel, that "the ten rules for civilized behaviour" were etched in stone thousands of years ago when - let's face it - the world was a different place. We and our civilization have evolved since then, in some ways for the good and in others, not so much. Events in the world today - the horrendous way we are treating each other, including in the so-called "Holy Land" itself, indicates that we have very much strayed from our rules of civilized behaviour. So having a universal set of guidelines for governing our co-existence is still a good thing, but the ones we have might seem redundant because of their archaic nature.

With this in mind then, I have attempted to update our universal guidelines to make them a little more relevant to our modern world. They can be applied to EVERYONE, even atheists. So readers can ponder them, share them, or disregard them as they see fit. But remember, they aren't so much "commandments" anymore because anti authoritarian types like myself hate to be commanded to do ANYTHING. They are merely ten simple guidelines for civilized co-existence.

***************

1) The old: Do not worship any other god than the one true God.

The New: It's all good! You can worship any god you want, or no god at all. Just remember, everyone is entitled to live their life their own way so long as they don't harm anyone else because of it. And no one has the right to inflict their way of life or system of beliefs on others, or to stand in judgement of anyone else because of their beliefs. So live and let live and do no harm.

-----

2) The Old: Do not make idols or images in the form of God.

The New: Who gives a fuck about Kim Kardashian! We tend to idolize people in our world simply because they are famous and pretty, be they pop singers, actors or athletes. Most of these people contribute nothing whatsoever to our society except avoidance, distraction and a devalued sense of self worth and are about as deserving of our adoration as common garden slugs. Remember, when you are trying to decide whether to buy food this week or pay your rent, they are sipping champagne at an exclusive night club somewhere. And YOU paid for their life style with your worship.

-----

3) The Old: Do not treat God's name lightly or with disrespect.

The New: Respect all people's concept of God. It just isn't cool to disrespect other people's concept of God or lack thereof.

-----

4) The Old: Dedicate or set aside a regular day each week for sabbath rest and worship.

The New: Work to live, don't live to work. It's great if you have a career that you love. Most of us don't. We have jobs that pay the bills and put food on the table - period! For many, we work more than one of these jobs. It's called survival. But whether you have a satisfying career or simply a means of paying the bills, take time to be grateful for whatever it is you have and to smell the roses. Take time for your family and friends. Jobs don't enrich our lives. People do.

-----

5) The Old: Give honor to your father and mother.

The New: Acknowledge your roots. Your parents might have been nothing but drunken, abusive fucks. But they gave you life, even if they didn't intend to. And life is the greatest gift in the universe, even if it doesn't always seem like it. So Even if your parents didn't do shit for you in any other way and you can't stand them otherwise, be thankful that because of them, you exist. And appreciate where you came from, be it a country, a culture, a religion or just the old neighbourhood. It's part of who you are. So never be ashamed of your roots or where you come from. Embrace it. By doing so, you are better able to love yourself.

-----

6) The Old: Do not deliberately kill a fellow human being.

The New: Everyone has a right to exist. Taking another human life is a crime against nature and the universal order of things. So murder is murder, whether it be a street crime, state sanctioned execution or war. No one has the right to deprive another person of their inalienable right to exist.

-----

7) The Old: Do not have sexual relations with anyone other than your spouse.

The New: Responsible sex. Originally, people had sex strictly for the purpose of procreation. Which is cool. But sex in itself is also a pretty cool thing. What ever the reason for two people being intimate, the bonding of two consenting humans is a beautiful thing. But it is something that should not be taken lightly. Respect your partner. Treat them with decency, courtesy and tenderness. Protect yourselves whether it's from disease or unwanted pregnancy. And No means No. Nobody has the right to force themselves on another. Remember Do No Harm. Also, there are many different definitions as to who or what a spouse is now. But if you've entered into a trust relationship with someone else, the quickest way to kill that trust is to fuck around on them.

-----

8) The Old: Do not steal or take anything that doesn't belong to you.

The New: Jail sucks! So if you don't want to go to jail, don't take shit from people who measure their own self worth by the amount of stuff they have. Anyone who values their shit more than people, will see you in jail quicker than you can blink your eyes. In some less than civilized places, they might also shoot you though this is clearly not in keeping with the spirit of Do No Harm.

-----

9) The Old: Do not tell a lie about someone or bring a false accusation against another.

The New: Don't talk shit! This is definitely a lesson our politicians should learn. A lie is a lie, but so is a half truth or a misrepresentation thereof. And gossip kills so don't talk shit about someone behind their back. If you hear someone else doing it, stay out of it, walk away. Just think about what they might have to say about you behind your back. Always remember, Karma is a bitch so do no harm.

-----

10) The Old: Do not desire anything or anyone that does not belong to you.

The New: Never place anybody or anything they might have above you or your own personal happiness. The measure of your own self worth has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. By being envious of someone else's possessions, status or station in life, you are simply diminishing your own personal value and creating spiritual inequality. Remember, no one is any better than anyone else, no matter what they tell you or how they act or what kind of car they drive. In fact, people who collect a lot of expensive shit probably have a pretty poor sense of self worth so pity them.

***************

Please bear in mind fellow space travellers, that these amended guidelines are simply my own opinion. They've probably been expressed by countless others in many different and vastly more coherent ways. So take what you want from my humble offering, or take nothing at all. But if there is one message I do sincerely hope that readers embrace from the above regarding their coexistence with others, it is this: Do no Harm!

What John Baird Said In His Latest Speech (Video)

2014-08-15T22:29:00.000-04:00

Gaza As A Ballot Box Issue In 2015

2014-08-01T19:04:00.000-04:00

Our home sweet Gazan home!


So being enraged by the senseless slaughter of innocent people in Gaza - children bombed while they sleep in supposedly safe U.N. schools, children being killed while they play soccer on the beach, the destruction of schools, hospitals and Mosques, children being murdered as they play on swings in public parks - I decided to voice my opinion to our leadership who have been anything but leaders regarding this horrific state of affairs.

Our government has steadfastly stood by the Israeli state, claiming that it's Israel's right to defend themselves, so "oh well" about the collateral damage. "It's all the terrorists fault". I'm quite sure none of those sleeping children were terrorists. This reminds me of the case in the States recently where a guy shot and killed a pregnant women who attempted to burgle his house. The overarching opinion of folks south of the border seems to be that it was the woman's own fault for being caught committing a crime. The man was simply defending his home so he had a right to "bust a cap into her baby belly". No one there is talking about murder or the un-justified use of lethal force.

Anyway, Our Government is in no way seeking an end to the slaughter, merely stoking the flames of discontent by pointing the "flying fickle finger of fate" at the very people who are dying in their hundreds. It's their own fault for supporting Hamas so "fuck em"!

I would expect nothing less from our Conservative Government. They have displayed nothing

There are only friends and enemies to
Citizen Stephen. Friends can do no wrong
and enemies can do no right.

even remotely close to a balanced approach to affairs in Israel. Stephen Harper is incapable of that kind of response. He sees the world as black and white, friends and enemies. It's connected to his mental health issues. And the fact that Citizen Stephen dismisses out of hand any condemnation by the U.N. regarding the bombing of Gaza, is also not surprising. He's been at war with the U.N ever since Canada was denied a seat on the security council in 2010, thus placing the U.N squarely in the enemy's column.

So the response from Harper and his hand-puppet, Bellicose John Baird, while reprehensible, is not surprising. But what about our Opposition leaders? Why does Justine Trudeau, the great hope for a new and different Canada seem to follow lockstep, Harper's unmitigated support for Israel's war crimes? The official statement on the Liberal Party website regarding Hamas as being a terrorist organization and Israel having the right to defend itself, parrots almost to the letter the Harper response. Hardly the stance of a progressive Liberal leader.

The "Once and Future King" has
lost his way.

And what about Thomas Mulcair, leader of the opposition and Canada's traditionally most progressive party? Well Mr. Mulcair's stance was somewhat more balanced, but he still chose to point a bony finger at Hamas, saying it's "all their fault" while declaring Israel has the right to defend itself. No mention of excessive force, breaching of international law, illegal occupation or, heaven help us, the "G" word (genocide). Just like the Conservatives and Liberals. I somehow doubt that this is the kind of response we would have seen from Jack Layton's NDP.

Which brings me to Elizabeth May and the Greens. At their recent convention, the Green Party voted to adopt a resolution which decried the illegal occupation of Palestinian land. This was a good start. But then the president of the party, Paul Estrin, put out a rambling, poorly written statement (possibly penned whilst in a drunken stupor?) That actually goes beyond Harper's and Trudeau's highly political statements about the Gaza crisis. He declared he openly felt sad that Israel simply had to take the steps it's taking to defend itself and claimed that it's methods were highly "moral". Ms. May quickly distanced herself from these comments while defending Estrin's right to his own opinion.

So like many, many Canadians, I am beyond anger and frustration regarding our collective leadership's lack of a balanced, neutral approach to the current Gaza humanitarian crisis. One that not only expresses discontent with rockets fired from Gaza (which have killed very few civilians by the way) but the ones fired indiscriminately into masses of defenseless Palestinian civilians. There's nothing wrong with one friend (Canada) saying to another (Israel): "hey, we're still your friend, but what you're doing is wrong". So I emailed each of the four leaders mentioned above plus my Member of Parliament, NDP Deputy Leader David Christopherson, to highlight my extreme displeasure with their lack of leadership and unbalanced positions regarding Gaza. So far, the only person who has responded is Elizabeth May. Here is what she had to say:

Even the Greens are divided

"Thank you for writing about the situation in Gaza and Israel.

I am heartbroken to watch such death, destruction, and violence with seemingly no end in sight. In recent days, the death toll has soared to unspeakable numbers, mostly civilians. With each death, the prospect of a lasting peace seems further away.

I firmly believe that Israeli children and Palestinian children have an equal right to grow up free of bombardment. This should not be a controversial statement. While I, of course, condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization for sending rockets into Israel, the Israeli retaliation and the invasion of Gaza violates international law and humanitarian norms. The death and destruction in a place that was already experiencing a humanitarian crisis is simply unjustifiable.

At the recent national convention in Fredericton, the Green Party of Canada passed the following emergency resolution:

"Be it resolved that the GPC urges the immediate cessation of hostilities between Israel and Palestine. The GPC will adopt a posture of engaged neutrality, opening all available diplomatic avenues in both Palestine and Israel to press for a peaceful resolution to the conflict consistent with the GPC’s commitment to justice and custom of speaking truth to power".

The people of Israel and Palestine desperately need a ceasefire. They desperately need this battle to end so that they can return to resolving the enduring issues in this conflict. The people of the Middle East cannot afford to have this flare up so tragically every few years. The issues of the blockade of Gaza, settlements in the West Bank, permanent borders, refugees, and terror, will need to be dealt with in a cooperative and comprehensive manner, so that Israeli and Palestinian children can grow up without fear and without hatred.

Canada can and should play a constructive role in this process. A one-sided stance on this issue forfeits any opportunity for Canada to be a useful mediator. Canada needs to stand up for human rights and international law wherever they are violated. Canada should continue to condemn Hamas rockets and terror but any Prime Minister of Canada worth his or her salt would also say, as a friend and ally of Israel, “you’ve gone too far - you must move to peace talks.”

Thank you again for writing.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth May"

2015 is fast approaching fellow citizens. While the tragedy that is now taking place in Gaza is a world away, how our leaders react to this humanitarian crisis speaks volumes regarding their views about Canada and it's place in the world. If they can't be trusted to be the voices of justice in times of international crisis, how can they be trusted to be the voices of justice here at home? So keep this in mind fellow Canadians when we go to the polls in October of 2015.

Wynne's Win: Did Ontario Vote FOR Kathleen Wynne Or AGAINST Tim Hudak?

2014-06-13T20:17:00.000-04:00

We'll have to wait and see what the
"Lady in Red's" true colours are.

Well Ontario has a new Premier. Or I should say, the same old Premier we had before this cockamamy election, just with a majority now and a blank cheque to govern with impunity.

But I have to say I'm somewhat relieved. At least Ontarians didn't opt for the "Uncommon Nonsense Revolution" Part II. That would have been an unmitigated disaster. Still, I would have much preferred a "progressive" minority government in Ontario. With a minority, there is, at least theoretically, more room/need for collaboration - for all parties to get along, to work together if the government hopes to survive every vote of confidence that comes along. In this way, there are more checks and balances. There is more accountability, though Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty have demonstrated that all you have to do to avoid accountability is to prorogue Parliament.

So now we have to wait and see what kind of Progressive Ms. Wynne really is. Is she a Liberal with a distinctly social conscience or is she just a "Red Tory" in sheep's clothing? And will the abuses of power continue or will the "Lady in Red" be able to put an end to her party's attitude of entitlement? Time will tell. I'm not relaxing just yet.

But really, based on the history of corruption within the Ontario Liberal Party, this was Hudak's contest to lose. And he did, unequivocally. So was this a victory for Wynne then, or an indictment of Hudak and his hysterically austere "Million Jobs Plan"?

Time for soul searching,
not for sour grapes...

Every comment I heard from the PCs at Hudak's campaign headquarters on election night spoke of Wynne running a negative campaign and blamed the "Big Unions" for attacking the Conservatives. It sounded like sour grapes to me and failed to take into account the failings of their own campaign and the impact it had on the collective psyche of Ontario voters. Perhaps, if the PCs hadn't openly threatened so many people with their jobs, the "Big Unions" might not have been so vocal. And maybe if their leader was a little better at math.... In the final analysis, I think many people (with the possible exception of old white men) probably held their noses and voted for "Anyone But Hudak".

I like the lady, but she wasn't destined
to be the chosen one.

As for Ms. Horwath... well, I like the lady personally. I had the opportunity to meet with her a few times professionally when she was a lowly MPP. We discussed advocating for the rights of special needs children. In my opinion, she was extremely responsive and actively supportive of the subject. She proved to be a valuable ally. I liked that.

But as leader of her party, Horwath went out on a very shaky limb by inducing this election. She probably had the most to lose of any of the top three leaders and lose she did, more so than Hudak and his tea-sipping cronies. While the NDP ended up with the same number of MPPs as they had before the election, they lost the big stick that comes with holding the balance of power. And Horwath took a lot of flak, both from inside and outside of her own party for what many viewed as an arbitrary decision to spark this election. And quite frankly, even though it's been 20 years since Bob Rae, Ontartians are still not yet ready for another NDP Premier.

Something to be proud of.

But I have to say, I am extremely proud that Ontario was not only able to elect it's first female Premier, (regardless of her party) but one that is openly gay. And not ONCE in the entire campaign did the dreaded "L" word (rhymes with thespian) get raised by ANY of the candidates or the mainstream media. I Can't say I even saw anything about it in the on-line community either. It was entirely, a non issue. So that restores my faith in the electorate to some degree. They voted on the issues while the politicians and media chose not to resort to gutter-sniping. Good for them.

Of course, there's still the argument about a majority government being formed with only 38.5% of the popular vote, which is the exact same figure Stephen Harper won his questionable majority with. So the faults of our "first past the post" system are being called into question once again. But that's an argument for another day. For now, I will breath a little easier and tonight, I may sleep a little more soundly.

How can anyone claim that 38.5%
of the vote share equals a majority?

Hudak Aims To Recreate "Harper's Follies"

2014-05-28T18:38:00.000-04:00

Hudak's bad math has been under a
microscope since day one of this campaign.

No matter how you add, subtract, multiply or divide Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak's bogus "Million Jobs"numbers, the outcome would not be good for thousands of Ontarians.

Hudak is, of course, proposing the slashing of 100,000 public sector jobs - one out of every six public employee in the Province. This would include teachers, educational assistants, paramedics, welfare workers, child protection workers, occupational therapists, behaviour therapists, group home staff, probation officers, jail guards, personal support workers, speech and language pathologists, communication disorder specialists, nursing home staff, water safety inspectors (think Walkerton here) and the list goes on and on. These are highly trained, dedicated people who make a difference in our communities.

Hudak wants to eliminate these
dedicated people who make
a difference in our communities
in favour of a 30% corporate
tax cut

This "public sector genocide" would, of course, supposedly offset the gigantic loss of revenue that would occur as a result of reducing corporate taxes in Ontario by 30%. Hudak's conservative ideology would have us believe, that this tax break to big business, would "trickle down", thereby creating a million jobs and reinvestment in the Province.

It's a quaint fairy tale that, but Mr. Hudak either doesn't understand or doesn't care about the devastating impact of his destructive platform, either on the middle class of this Province (a great number of those public service jobs are middle class), or the vulnerable and needy people whose lives depend on the hardworking public servants he wishes to fire.

The truly sad part is, that there are so many citizens who take the Conservative leader's numbers at face value and also don't understand the devastating course Hudak is plotting. They simply don't grasp that what he is proposing, is nothing less than a crime of colossal proportion against our Province, our communities and the citizenry as a whole.

But Hudak's corporate tax cut theory has already been disproved by circumstances at the federal level.

In 2005, the year before Stephen Harper came to power, unemployment in Canada stood at 6.8%

After drastically slashing corporate taxes across the country to record low levels and imposing similar crippling cuts on the federal public service that has devastated the lives of multitudinous Canadians (such as our veterans), unemployment currently sits at 6.9%. And this does not include the 39% of unemployed Canadians who have simply "given up" looking for work. Since Harper's tax breaks then, Canada has seen a net increase in unemployment of +.1% nation wide over eight years. So there are actually slightly more people unemployed now (discounting the 39% who have given up) than there were before the massive tax cuts. What happened to all the jobs?

Well aside from the fact that there was a recession midway through those eight years which saw unemployment peak at 8.3% in 2009, jobs have been slow to rematerialize in the five years since then. There has been no evidence of "trickle down" and in fact, corporations are sitting on any savings they may have gained from their tax breaks. All of which prompted former Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney to call on corporate Canada in 2012, to reinvest the vast amounts of "dead money" they were sitting on. In essence, big business has been hoarding it's savings from lower taxes rather than using them to benefit the economy and the country.

And recently, The Conference Board of Canada has found that cuts to corporate taxes alone will not create new jobs without Government stimulus. In fact, they discovered that government spending on it's own, will create more jobs than reducing corporate taxes. But Harper, clinging to his Calgary School dogma, has already implemented what Hudak is proposing - austerity measures that are just the opposite of The Conference Board's findings and that have proven to be detrimental to our economy and to our society as a whole.

But what Harper has succeeded in achieving, is the creation of a large number of part-time "McJobs" with no benefits, no retirement savings and low wages. Hardly the kind of employment that is suitable for Canadian families. And Mr. Hudak is proposing the exact same thing for Ontario. The PC's plan would guide Ontario down a dark and foreboding path that would lead to large scale, long term suffering. Our economy would experience immeasurable if not irreparable damage.

And in the meantime, those 100,000 out of work public servants would end up selling their homes and slinging burgers at McDonald's in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. And only God knows what would happen to the people who used to depend on them. But it's a safe bet that their diminished and discontinued services would likely result in thousands of them ending up on the streets, in hospitals and in our jails, thereby negating any savings Hudak ever hoped to gain from terminating their supports.

Ontario's most vulnerable would be hurt the worst.

The Enemy Within: Fear And Loathing In Harperland

2014-05-04T21:12:00.003-04:00

Harper "snubbed" Chief Justice McLachlin when
she tried to warn him about issues relating to Marc
Nadon's qualifications

It should come as a surprise to no one that Stephen Harper has decided to pick a fight with the Supreme Court of Canada, particularly with Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin.

Citizen Stephen has recently claimed that it was "improper" for Justice McLachlin to attempt to contact him regarding the appointment of Marc Nadon to the high court during the evaluation phase of the process.

What Harper fails to mention in his spinning of the whole Nadon debacle, is that McLachlin was merely doing her job by advising the Prime Minister of the presence of "red-flags" regarding the qualifications of a potential appointee. He also doesn't mention, that McLachlin also subsequently swore Nadon in as a Justice of the Supreme Court. It was McLachlin's peers, led by previous Harper appointee, Quebec Justice Richard Wagner, who, in ruling on a Constitutional Challenge from Toronto Lawyer, Rocco Galati, determined that Nadon was not qualified to sit on the high court as a member from Quebec.

But Harper had been stung by five straight rebuffs from the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of some of his ham-fisted attempts to change the way Canada does things. And as I pointed out in this article about my belief that our current Prime Minister suffers from a significant mental illness, he does not forgive a slight. Ever!

To this day, Steve carries a grudge against the Liberal Party, Pierre Trudeau and anyone who happens to bear the name Trudeau, as a result of the National Energy Program in 1980. Thirty four years is a long time to carry a grudge.

Harper also carries a mean "hate-on" for the United Nations for turning

Stephen has all but declared a
"shootin war" on the U.N.

down his bid for a seat on the Security Council in 2010. Since then, Stephen has paid little heed to any recommendations the UN has made, has outright blocked many of their initiatives and has undermined them at every opportunity. He has chosen to align himself with fellow NATO cold-war allies when dealing with international crises, so gone are the days of Canada as world leaders in peace keeping. Harper has even gone so far as to suggest that the U.N. is redundant and should be done away with.

But as Toronto Star journalist, Chantel Hebert points out, this is how our Prime Minister deals with those who attempt to apply checks and balances on his autocratic rule. He and his spin-doctors attempt to smear and to discredit them and to generally declare war on their very existence.

Stephen Harper, a prisoner of his own paranoid
delusions. The problem is, he's dragged us
right into the cell with him.

Yes, mental illness can be a bitch. You see the world as a decidedly hostile place. You are surrounded by enemies and you are constantly on the lookout for the next conspiracy. You see yourself as constantly being the victim of the intentions of shadowy figures and you trust no one. Former Harper mentor, Tom Flanagan, who is now "persona-non-grata" in Harperland, recently said that Stephen's erratic behaviour can see him swing from incidents of "white hot rage to long periods of depression where he is incapable of making a decision".

But getting back to Stephen's feud with the Supreme Court, he declared at the Conservative Convention in Calgary last November that the courts are the enemies of his vision for a reformed Senate. There's that word, "enemy" again. Senate reform has been one of Harper's central goals and the high court's ruling that he didn't have the authority to unilaterally alter the make up of the Senate, how Senators are chosen or how it does business, was a major setback. To him then, the Supreme Court Justices are evil conspirators, out to quash his heroic efforts at remaking Canada in his own delusional image.

The truth is, the Supreme Court never said the Senate can't be

The SCOC never told Harper the Senate
couldn't be reformed. Just not HIS way.
Rule of Law Stephen, rule of law.

reformed, or even abolished. But there is a formula for doing so as stipulated in the Constitution. They merely said that Harper's idea of reform can't be achieved in the manner in which he was attempting to do it - unilaterally and without consultation with, or input from, the provinces. And since Harper is incapable of building consensus (hence his refusal to attend First Minister's Conferences) his dream of Senate reform went up in a puff of smoke.

And that the SCOC blew Harper's half-cocked efforts out of the water based on the Constitution (which he automatically loathes because it is a Trudeau invention), was probably more than he could handle. Hence his shot across the bow of Chief Justice McLachlin.

So it's no wonder then that Stephen blames the Supreme Court for his failures. He see's them as treasonous villains for upholding a law (the Constitution) he views as being purely sinister. Just as someone with Paranoid Personality Disorder would do. So he will seek to have the "Supremes" tried, convicted and executed in the court of public opinion just as he has with all other transgressors. Which is all the justification he needs to attempt to invoke change within the high court as well.

So if Stephen's ruinous tenure survives past 2015, look for Vic Toews to be elevated to the highest court in the land. And may God have mercy on us all.

If Stephen has his way, look for this man to be
elevated to the SCOC. Yes, this is Vic Toews,
he of the "impregnated baby sitter".

On the passing of Jim Flaherty

2014-04-12T15:23:00.000-04:00

I intended to say nothing out of
respect for his family. But.....

As my Dad used to say, "if you can't say something good about somebody, then say nothing at all". Good advice for the most part that I've admittedly ditched in my mad rantings about the evils of Stephen Harper's Reform-a-Cons in this blog. But when one of the enemies of the state pass, it's only good etiquette to suspend the vitriolic volleys out of respect for the family of the deceased.

So with that in mind, I had resolved to say nothing at all regarding the late Jim Flaherty. I didn't like the man in life, but the passing of any human being is a tragedy of mammoth proportions to the family of the deceased. I know this from personal experience. So do most people my age. So I suspended my twitter attacks on the Harpercondriacs for a good 24 hours out of respect, not for the passing of the man himself, but out of respect for his grieving family.

The Opposition parties were suitably solemn as one would expect them to be when any of their colleagues buy's the farm. Hell, even Harper himself was positively magnanimous about the departure of the late Jack Layton, offering to allow him a state funeral. But knowing what a cold hearted heel Harper is, this was probably not as much out of respect, but thanks for the surge in Laytons NDP in 2011 that may well have helped Harper win his fraudulent majority government.

But now the undeserved accolades for Flaherty are pouring in. Mostly from the

Jim Flaherty, Friend of the 1%.

mainstream media who hypocritically seem intent on canonizing the very man they routinely lambasted (and rightly so) in their columns. It is one thing for Citizen Stephen to heap adoration on his co-conspirator, calling him a "great Canadian". One would expect that. But for the supposedly unbiased news media, this is absolutely intolerable.

The Ottawa Citizen said that Flaherty was: "a steady hand on the tiller", a phrase taken directly from the "Harper spin-doctor" play-book. The Halifax Chronicle Herald claimed that Flaherty had: "...a reputation at home and abroad as a capable minister" (I'm sure the Euro Zone won't much miss ol Jim's finger pointing and vacuous lecturing). The Globe And Mail even went so far as to say that: "Jim Flaherty helped save the world from economic meltdown". Puleeeeze!

All old Jimbo did, was to take credit for the work Paul Martin did in stabilizing our economy and regulating our banks against just the sort of meltdown that did occur in 2008. If you'll remember, Jimmy denied the very existence of the recession at first. And even prior to the 2008 crisis, he had already squandered the $16 billion dollar surplus he had inherited from Martin on tax cuts that every expert in the field had advised against. And when Mark Carney left the Bank Of Canada for England, Flaherty seemed absolutely lost.

Put the fucking homeless in JAIL!

I can go on ad nauseum as to why Mr. F was nothing like the "Great Canadian" he is being made out to have been today. But think Austerity (ever notice that Flaherty and austerity rhyme?). Think vindictive cuts to the CBC. Think about the attack on the jobless via EI. Think about the attacks on the CPP and universal health care. Think about those mammoth, undemocratic, Omnibus-budget bills of his. And Think about the man who wanted to jail the homeless as Jimmy wanted to do when he was a Harrisite in Ontario. And while we're on the subject of Ontario, I'm sure there are thousands of families in Walkerton who will never forget nor forgive what Flaherty, Harris and Clement did to them.

For more detail on Flaherty's record, see what the good folks at Progressive Press had to say when Uncle Jimmy stepped down as Finance Minister last month: What's With All The Praise For Jim Flaherty's Record

Well I've done a fine job of not heeding my father's advice once again. I didn't wish to speak ill of Jimmy at this time. It goes against the grain for me. So can't we just get by with saying Jim was "a good family man with a sense of humour" and leave it at that? Do we need to get all hypocritical and, well, LIE about the man? He was a career public servant, yes. But there are many, many, many Canadians today who wish he hadn't been. So lets just be respectful of the family and drop the Bull Shit. Ok?

The man who said "there's no such thing
as a bad job" never worked at a "McJob",
harvested tobacco, or slaved in a factory.

10 Wishes For Canada In 2014

2013-12-29T22:46:00.000-05:00

Nope, no reviews or predictions here!

As a rule, I don't much care for "year end reviews". I find them to be a waste of time.

While I consider myself to be a student of history, I find that looking backwards to rehash what has happened in the near past isn't nearly as constructive as looking ahead. What has happened in the past has already happened. We've already lived it for better or for worse.

Yes, I believe it to be true that he who fails to heed the lessons of history is doomed to repeat it's mistakes, but hey- 2013 has shown us oh so many mistakes- at least as far as Canadian politics is concerned- we all know what they were. In this age of 24/7 news coverage, they've been all too glaring and impossible to ignore. So lets move on already.

And don't get me started on predictions. None of us has a crystal ball and none of us is, to my knowledge, psychic. The best any of us can do regarding the year ahead, is to make guesses, educated or otherwise.

So no, I won't be titillating anyone with my prediction that Stephen Harper will suffer from male pattern baldness in the next year and end up wearing a hair piece that makes him look like Donald Trump, hence leading to his continued slide in the polls and his eventual ouster as P.M. But we can hope.

So no, no rehashing of the high or low lights of 2013 and no Ouija board induced glimpses into 2014 from this corner. But what I CAN offer, are some of my hopes, dreams and wishes for Canada for the coming year. So here is my list of top 10 things I hope happens in 2014:

1) While vacationing on his yacht in the sunny Caribbean, Gary Bettman is

"Arrrr Billy, Have yea ever been to sea"??

kidnapped by a merry band of homosexual pirates. The Pirates attempt to ransom Bettman, but no one seems willing to cough up the money for his safe return. So the price the pirates are asking for the "Tiny-Perfect Person" keeps getting lower and lower until finally, Don Cherry offers the sum of $1.95. The Pirates accept the deal but ultimately, Gary, who ends up changing his name to Sherry, refuses to leave the company of his new shipmates.

2a) In the absence of Bettman, the NHL seems to come to its collective senses and cancels an impending expansion franchise that would have seen Boise Idaho land a team which the city had intended to call the "Ice Taters".

2b) The league then decides to place franchises in Hamilton, Saskatoon, Quebec and Halifax and subsequently creates a Canadian and American conference so that each year, the Stanly cup is contested by an American club and a Canadian club.

3) Justin Trudeau continues to have good hair days. Much as they try, the ReformaCons can't seem to find a bad picture of Justin who on his worst day, still exudes more charm and charisma than Helmet-Head Harper on his best.

Harper was never able to pull off the
Clint Eastwood look.

4) Thomas Mulcair keeps his beard which gives him a Clint Eastwoodish kind of persona in Parliament that suits his shoot from the hip, rapid fire style of questioning. In keeping with this theme, Thomas's handlers eventually talk him into wearing a poncho and chewing on a cigar stub during question period while occasionally uttering the phrase "go ahead, make my day".

5) Elizabeth May becomes Prime Minister. Hey, if you're going to dream, dream big.

6) Ezra Levant accepts an offer to be a celebrity rodeo clown at the upcoming Calgary Stampede. Once there however, Levant becomes upset with a particularly confrontational Bull who he accuses of being antisemitic. The Bull subsequently launches Levant into orbit and was last seen streaking past the International Space Station where resident Cosmonauts claim to have heard the ex-lawyer screaming "I'LL SUE"!

7) Mike Duffy puts a curse on the entire Conservative caucus so that every time one of them attempts to spout empty talking points and twisted rhetoric, their lips spontaneously combust.

8) Rob Ford, deciding he needs a vacation from the stress and strain of his own stupidity, goes on Safari in deepest, darkest Africa and attempts to poach wild elephants so that he can sell their tusks for a tidy profit. However Ford's brother Doug, (who is also on this vacation, because the Ford brothers can't seem to do anything on their own), mistakes Rob for one of their prey and accidentally shoots him. Rob, eventually recovers from what turns out to be a flesh wound in the posterior and subsequently blames the Toronto Star for his ordeal.

9) In an extremely rare moment of contrition, Stephen Harper invites Stephane Dion to lunch at an outdoor cafe in Ottawa. As Harper is about to apologize to Dion for ruining his career, a puffin flies overhead and poops on Harper's head to which Dion comments: "Karma is a bitch eh fat boy"?

10) Canadians finally wake up and realize that our country's experiment with conservatism was a horrendous mistake and we can all go back to being a respected, progressive nation again.

James Moore Let The Cat Out Of The Bag

2013-12-16T17:39:00.000-05:00

Jimmy Moore reminds me of that fake signing
interpreter at the Mandela funeral.

On Friday, Federal Industry Minister (and hopeful Harper successor) James Moore told a Vancouver radio station that child poverty is not Ottawa's problem.

He pointed a stubby finger at the provinces and accusingly said it was THEIR problem that one in seven Canadian children is living in poverty and that it's not HIS job to feed his neighbor's children.

And then Little Jimmy went on to spout ReformaCon talking points about fighting poverty through "jobs, growth and long term prosperity" (or as Canada's poor might suggest, long term austerity).

And therein lies the foundation of the Conservative mindset.

Our Straussian Neo-con government would still have us believe in the rather whimsical, mythical creature known as the "invisible hand of capitalism".

According to this tall tale, prosperity in business equals prosperity for everyone. That the wealth and success realized by the business class will "trickle down" to the peons laboring in the fields, thus stimulating greater consumerism and a very Merry Christmas for one and all.

But of course, the Invisible Hand is as much a children's tale as is Santa Clause. The truth of it is, the success of big business has resulted in unprecedented hoarding of grotesque sums of cash in offshore tax free havens. None of that manna is trickling down any further than the CEO's yearly bonuses.

And if that weren't enough to purchase a yacht or two for the affluent 1%, they are colluding with our Government to kill organized labor and drive down wages across the country. And in the process, they want to cut huge holes in our social safety net that has taken decades to weave.

Let's not forget that for years, citizen Stephen (Harper) was president

Colin M. Brown
Rich Insurance Magnet
And founder of the NCC

of the National Citizen's Coalition. This highly secretive lobby group which represents the interests of the business class, was founded by a rich insurance man who felt that our national health insurance program was undercutting his bottom line.

But since Canada still tends to be a rather progressive place with strong progressive values (as opposed to Stephen's assertion that the Conservative party's values are Canadian values) Mr. H and company have had to soft-peddle their Neo-Con rhetoric in order to implement incremental change in the fundamental way Canadadians look after one another and do it in such a way that was hardly noticeable. Hence, Stephen's hard line on talking points and message control lest one of his apostles accidently lets the cat out of the bag regarding the Conservative agenda as Moore did Friday.

Let em eat cake!

Today, Jimmy Moore apologized for his heartless comments. But it is a case of too little too late. In a moment of weakness (or strength depending on how you look at it), Moore spoke his mind and gave us all a glimpse inside what the Harper Government REALLY thinks.

Two Tiered Medical Care In Canada As Seen Through My Fuzzy Eyes.

2013-12-07T20:47:00.000-05:00

Me and Bubbles. Brother's from
different Mother's

I walk into things. Driving at night is terrifying. I can't distinguish faces at a distance which is rather embarrassing when I chase people for blocks, calling them by name, only to realize when I catch up to them that the person in question is a complete stranger. Worse still, that they aren't even of the appropriate gender in relation to the name I'd been calling them.

I have cataracts you see.

Nowadays, Cataracts aren't a big deal. A quick in and out day surgery and "Bob's your Uncle". They don't even put you out to slice your eyes open and insert the new and improved synthetic lenses. They just load you up on happy juice and stick a needle in your eyeball. It's common surgery.

Thank god we live in Canada eh?

Then why do I get the distinct impression that good vision is not for the working poor such as eye.... I mean, "I"?

It has taken a full year from the first time I went to the optometrist and paid the $80 for the appointment that wasn't covered by OHIP, (only to learn that there was nothing they could do for me), to next week, when I get to lay on the operating table, stoned to the gills as the surgeon puts my peepers in the ball washer.

I guess there are a lot of us folks chasing strangers around the block. So there's a pretty long wait list.

When I was being assessed by the surgeon, I was told that they needed to take accurate measurements of my eyes, most specifically, the old worn out lenses. This made sense to me. I wouldn't want the good doctor to be replacing my lenses with teacups.

The Doc told me there were two ways of accomplishing this measurement. One was with lasers, which were quite accurate but weren't covered by OHIP, or the second which, if I recall, involves the use of a rusty tape measure, which IS covered by OHIP.

Well seeing as vision is rather important to me, and I am employed full time with benefits (lucky me), I opted for the $85 an eye laser measurement.

Turns out my benefits don't cover the laser measurement either. So I was out $170 that I could ill afford to spend. This equalled several tanks of gas and impacted greatly on my food budget. Oh, and it also sent me to the legalized loan sharks for a pay-day loan at 25% which in turn, caused me to be late in paying my rent which resulted in receiving several nasty letters from the management company that owns my building with the word EVICTION written in bold letters all over them. I figure the bold letters and caps was in consideration of my cataracts.

Well I finally got caught up and still have a roof over my head. But I now get surly looks from the Super whenever I see who I think is her. But then, with my eyes, it might be just a fire-hydrant with a trollish demeanor that I'm seeing every morning.

My employer, the local Board of Education, needed a letter from my

Thank goodness the Doctor was willing to provide
that $35 letter. I wouldn't want my employer
thinking I was having THIS done to me just to
get the time off work.

Surgeon as proof of my need for getting my eyeballs fixed (yeah, like I'm going to volunteer for this procedure unnecessarily) and that I will need so many weeks off for recovery. So I contacted the Doc only to learn that OHIP doesn't cover that kind of thing either and that the Doctor required $35 for providing proof of my impending ordeal.

I should point out here that the surgeon in question has a very lovely family. There are pictures of he and his brood all over his office, mostly cavorting about on a sailboat on some tropical sea. I can see why he needs the $35. Sailboats don't come cheap. But for me, it was another week and a half of gas to drive back and forth to work and hey, a week without meat in my diet was probably good for me anyway.

Well then it came time to select the lenses that I would have inserted into my eyes. OHIP DOES cover the bargain basement lenses. I think they're made from old coke bottles. Or, for $70 an eye (that's $140 total for those who may be mathematically challenged) I could select the next rung up which meant I might actually be able to function without glasses or chasing strangers around the block for the first time since I was 15 years old. I should add that the high-end lenses, the ones reserved for the more upwardly mobile and which probably glow in the dark, go for about $1,300 an eye. I chose the $70 implants.

Well as it turns out, I was in error when I assumed my benefits would cover these next to bargain basement lenses. When I read in their brochure that they would cover "post cataract surgery corrective lenses", they meant a new pair of glasses.

So it seems that both OHIP and the insurance company are perfectly fine with my having imperfect eyes despite the corrective operation. Perfection so it seems, is reserved for those with the money to pay for it.

Anyway, it's back to the Shylocks' I go for another pay-day loan to cover for my new lens implants. I should probably inform my corporate landlords that caps and bold lettering will no longer be necessary for any future threatening letters they may choose to send to me.

I suppose I should be counting my blessings that much of my impending operations are in fact covered by OHIP and that my eyeballs won't get repossessed for non-payment of any hospital bills. But I'm still left with the feeling that there are two distinct tiers of service when it comes to this kind of procedure. The high-end Cadillac of services where those with the money can purchase good eyesight, and the one reserved for the rest of us who, while we may no longer have cloudy lenses, will still be chasing strangers around the block for the rest of our lives.

But whatever happens to me, I am at least comforted by the warm fuzzy image in my head of the good doctor, sailing off into the sunset once again.

In 2015, Who Will Be the Voice of Hope For Working Class Canadians

2013-11-10T02:11:00.000-05:00

It's as plain as the smarmy grin
on Harper's face that the CPC
are the champions of the 1%

Well we are now past the half-way point in Stephen Harper's dark and sinister majority mandate. So you can expect little in the way of actual governance between now and the next election.

Not that there was much in the way of any real management of the country since May of 2011. There HAS been a whole hell of a lot of politicking however from the party that currently claims to be the Canadian Government.

The Government of Harper has created solutions (and bad ones at that) to problems that don't exist. A tough on crime agenda for example, at a time when Canada's crime rate is at its lowest level in over 40 years. But hey, his base LOVES the idea.

He used the 2008 economic crisis to unnecessarily spend us into the largest deficit in our history. Previous Governments had insured that our banks were adequately insulated against the kind of madness that occurred in the States. But the financial crash was a wonderful excuse for Mr. H to throw cash around (mostly in Conservative ridings) like a drunken sailor in a brothel, all in an effort to win over future votes.

With Stephen, it's always been about the next election. Damage control, political spin, attack ads and scoring points with his ideological base has replaced day to day management of the country. In essence, we have no real Government. We have a self-serving political party that has been given the keys to the family car and has been on a reckless road trip for the past seven years while you and I pay for the gas.

But now that Stephen has reached a critical juncture in his mandate (complete with a brand new directionless throne speech), expect the madness to escalate to dizzying heights. He will be going overboard in his efforts. Not to manage the country responsibly, but to score political points. Everything- EVERYTHING he does from here on in will be about 2015. It's all about the party. It's all about HIM. It has nothing whatsoever to do with you or I. He could "care less".

So in his effort to stake out his "turf" in the war to come, his

Harperness is attempting to return to his populist roots. He is trying to paint himself as the outsider, the "everyman", a Timmies double-double kind of guy who is taking on the down-town elites.

And Citizen Stephen might well win a vote or two with this "little guy" shtick of his. But it doesn't take much of an effort to see through the charade. In fact, it's probably the ONLY thing about his current reign that is in any way transparent.

We know the Emperor is wearing no clothes. It's as plain as the

Stephen is Bullish on the One Percent

smarmy grin on his face that he is the envoy of the 1%. The oil patch lovin, Bay Street humping corporate Elites. Yes, "Elites", which makes Harper's down-home, humble pie routine all the more pathetically transparent.

You see, the "Elites" Mr. Harper is at war with are the educated class. The doctors, the professors, teachers, the artsy-fartsy set, and most especially, the media. Not to mention scientists or anyone who gives a flying fig about the environment. You know, the ones who could potentially throw a monkey wrench into his corporate agenda.

So despite his circus-like antics, it's pretty plain to see who Harper speaks for in this Canada of ours and it's pretty safe to say they rarely visit the local Tim Horton's drive through.

But what about the "other" guys? For whom in this country do Mr Trudeau and Mr. Mulcair speak?

Prince Justin: Charming, Likable, In
every way, the Anti-Harper. But does
he represent ALL Canadians?

Well it's pretty clear that Prince Justin has staked out the traditional Liberal territory in the middle of the pack. Canada has, by and large, been a pretty middle of the road kind of country historically, never straying either too far to the left or too far to the right. And the driving force behind this has been a healthy middle class. Progressive, but not too progressive. Pragmatic, but not too pragmatic. This is why the Liberals have been dubbed Canada's "natural ruling party".

So Trudeau has quite emphatically shouted to the folks residing in the Centre of Canada's economic and political spectrum: "Hey you! You in the middle class! Yous is my peeps". If he can keep from shooting himself in the foot on a regular basis, this is territory he might well conquer between now and 2015.

But the middle of the road is a place that ALL the parties want a piece

Tom Mulcair channels the late Jack Layton

of which is why Stephen pretends to be your next door neighbor and Thomas Mulcair has taken to calling himself plain old "Tom" and has made sure HIS party has dropped any and all references to "Social" Democracy in its Mission and Vision statements. Those middle of the road folks don't cotton to none of that "Bolshevik" nonsense.

So JT will have his hands full trying to win battle-ground suburbia. It seems that EVERYONE is simply tripping over themselves to look after those folks in the middle class. Which is terribly nice for the folks in the middle class. They are Canadian citizens and deserve to be looked after. And Stephen already has a lock on the 1%, which is real nice for them as well.

Just because an unemployed single mom doesn't
donate to a political party, is she less deserving of
our politician's support?

But I have to wonder who speaks for the REAL "Everyman", the one who is now less and less likely to be a middle classer. He's the guy just a few notches below that hallowed ground. He's the guy who's carrying more debt than income. The guy with two jobs. The guy who can't afford to put his kids through college. And as often as not, that guy is a girl. And equally likely, a single mother to boot.

And who is staking claim to the unemployed as well as the working poor, the homeless, the mental health patients, the drug addicts, the elderly and all those folks that we here in Hamilton would refer to as "North Enders".

Well Tom's party USED to be the ones who claimed to represent the lower class. And they represented the working class as well, the REAL Timmies folks. But lets face it, the poor rarely vote. I mean, how the hell do you enumerate homeless people and drug addicts? And the poor NEVER donate to political parties. And thanks to Stephen The Terrible who has eliminated subsidies for political parties, donations are the ONLY way parties can survive now. Which of course means the lower class don't matter a rat's ass in the big game of politics.

So with Stephen being the hand puppet of the 1% who NEEDS a sizable chunk of the middle class to win. And with Justin having pitched HIS tent squarely in the middle of the road. And Tom eyeing that same territory, just who the heck DOES speak for the lower class anymore. Who really gives a damn about a truly "just" society or about unprecedented income inequality? Who cares about that Everyman who is forced to pay a visit to Money Mart more often than he cares to admit because he owes his left testicle to the bank? Who really gives a shit about the welfare recipient who has to make that monthly decision between paying the rent or feeding her children? What about those 800,000 Canadians who still rely on food banks? Are they any less important because they can't contribute to the coffers of our political parties?

Yes, I've heard some lovely lip-service coming from the three amigos with regard to poor and working class Canadians. But lets face it folks, in reality, Stephen is positively revolted by the peasantry while Justin is pretty much playing it safe and Tom, well dear old Tom wants to be PM so he'll play the political game to the hilt. I'm just not seeing anyone who is claiming to be the right and true advocate of the poor/working poor, the ones with no light at the end of the tunnel, just more darkness. Until we see some real commitment there, someone who can lay claim to be the voice of ALL Canadians, I'm not sure any of the three above mentioned gentlemen are deserving of my vote or yours.

And who will be the champion of the unemployed?

Canada's Big Heart

2013-09-28T17:41:00.000-04:00

I used to be an educational assistant working at an inner city school in Ontario Canada. So my job was basically to assist physically, developmentally or emotionally challenged children gain access to their universally recognized right to an education and to help them to realize their full potential.

That in itself is a pretty special thing. I've been a child and Youth worker for over 30 years now and have worked with a lot of different kids in a lot of different kinds of settings. The consistent theme of my career has been the challenge of working with some of society's most vulnerable and neediest young people despite living in a world that is appearing to be less and less willing to help the helpless. It has done much to shape my political views over the years.

But the job I used to do in the school where I used to do it, was extra special. It has a mammoth population of immigrant and refugee children. It isn't a big school. An elementary school - JK to eight - with about 400 students. But among those 400 students, there are 53 first languages spoken other than English. It has kids from Mayanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Eritrea, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and a particularly large Somali population. And yes, it used to have Roma kids as well.

Of those kids who have come from far away places, I would say that the majority of them are refugees from war-torn, highly impoverished places. They've come from the squalor of UN refugee camps. They've escaped wars. Many have stories of fleeing their homes in the middle of the night to escape death squads. They've seen family members- parents- killed before their eyes. They've all lost loved ones or been forced to leave them behind. They've all experienced violence on a level we can only imagine. Some were born in jungles. Many have never been to school before.

But these kids come to school every day. And they have smiles on their

Safe for the first time in their young lives.

faces. They are eager and willing to learn. The various cultures, ethnicities and religious backgrounds melt together and play together. And they are safe, perhaps for the first time in their young lives. And they are happy.

"...and I wonder which ones would not be alive today".

I used to look around at all the smiling young faces and sometimes wonder which ones would not be alive if they had not been brought to Canada, if they had not been given the opportunity to live in the kind of place with the same kinds of rights and guarantees of personal health and safety that we tend to take for granted. And it made me so very proud that our society has such a big heart- that it is willing to give all these wonderful children the opportunity to live the same kind of life as my children. That it gives these young people a chance at life itself.

Canada has a long and admirable reputation as being a good global citizen. It has contributed often to the greater good, whether it be through peacekeeping, international aid, diplomatic missions in war-torn countries or by opening itself to adopting the world's neediest, by welcoming them and enveloping them in it's warm embrace like we were global foster parents. But these days, a chill wind is beginning to sweep over the land.

As I said above, there used to be Roma children in my school. I doubt

These Roma children are apparently
not deserving of our kindness.

there are any left now. A part of our otherwise warm heart froze over when the previous Conservative government decided that Roma kids were not worthy of our kindness. They were accused of being freeloaders and bums - here just to take advantage of our social assistance. But I looked at the kids, and I knew otherwise.

We had a little Roma girl in grade two, a happy young child who had lived the majority of her life here in Canada. Her entire school career to that point had been in the school where I worked. She was born with no right hand. She had been assessed and was in the process of being fitted for a fully functional, state of the art, prosthetic hand. Courtesy of our collective good will. But then that dark, cold part of the Conservative government decided that this beautiful little girl was not worthy of our generosity, that the money being spent on giving her a better quality of life, could probably be better spent on gazebos and self aggrandizing advertisement. And the little girl with the smiling face became sad, and she disappeared one day. And one by one, all the little Roma children who lived in the safety of our protective society disappeared. And something died in all of us.

So when I hear people complaining about the immigrants and refugees, that they are just coming to Canada to sponge off our good will, I just shake my head and think of the children. These are the beneficiaries of our helping spirit. These are the ones who will remember our helping hand and will grow up to become proud members of the nation that opened it's heart to them.

One of our grade eight students who had spent much of her life in a refugee camp in Thailand was asked one day what she wanted to be when she grew up. She didn't say she wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. She simply said: " I want to be someone I can be proud of". And I knew then that our collective kindness would be paid forward one day. And I knew that despite the ignorance of the political ideology of a few cynical and disconnected men, that our country remains a place where the worlds needy children can come and live in peace and become the kinds of citizens that have become the very soul of our caring society. The kind of people we can be proud of. Thank goodness for Canada's big heart!

So When Did Welfare Become a Dirty Word?

2013-09-22T02:18:00.002-04:00

"Stupid fucking Canadians"!

In 1997, Stephen Harper made a speech to a group of uber-conservative Americans in which he made several derogatory comments about Canada and Canadian society. He claimed that Canada was: "...a Northern European Welfare State in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it"- like this was a bad thing or something.

The terms"Welfare" and "Welfare state" have of course, become dirty words in our society. They have come to mean that the recipients of the state's good will are nothing but bums and sponges who are a drain on our economy and a lead weight around the necks of the middle and upper classes.

And the term Welfare State is connected to and often confused with "Socialism". Socialism, as I understand it, is an economic and political school of thought while Welfare is the notion of the state's duty to provide for the economic and social well being of it's citizens.

Socialism has been around since the industrial revolution and has spoken to the inequality of our society for generations. It has acknowledged that the affluent few, the 1% as they are referred to today, have an obligation to help improve the lot of the laborers who slave to make them rich.

Welfare on the other hand, refers to a system of progressive taxation that compels the richer classes to contribute proportionately to the state's largesse in order to create greater social and economic equality. Citizens who are able, might pay more personal taxes, but by and large, a more equitable society is created where everyone has the same rights to quality education, health care and benefits in the event of unemployment, old age or personal hardship. In Canada, we have come to refer to this as our "Social Safety Net".

But Socialism and Welfare are today regarded as being inextricably connected and Socialism has, of course, been connected with what the west has called the "scourge" of free will and individual rights known as Communism. This despite the fact that Socialism can and regularly does, exist in free and open democratic nations.

No, neither of these men are
Stephen Harper. But he may
have learned a lesson or two
from them.

We'd have to go back to pre World War II Europe and take a peek at what was going on in order to understand where all this started. Nazi Germany was being governed by a party that- as many right-wing commentators today like to point out- referred to itself as Socialist while Russia, which considered itself to be Communist, was being governed by the controversial Joseph Stalin.

Despite his cold, callous brutality and the numerous deaths attributed to his tactics, many in Russia still regard Stalin as a hero and a recent poll has claimed that fully a third of Russian people would vote for Stalin if he were alive today.

But while Germany was, of course, no where near being a true socialist country, the Soviet Union under Stalin, still adhered to many Communist principals but has since been painted by the west, rightly or wrongly, as a blood-thirsty totalitarian regime.

It wasn't hard then for countries like the U.S., who adhere to their constitution with the same religious zeal that Christians adhere to the ten commandments, to demonize these concepts as purely evil. There was no separation between what these countries purported to be and what they really were. Which caused one post-war British M.P. to declare that: "It is probably true that Western Europe would have gone socialist after the war if Soviet behaviour had not given it too grim a visage". Hence, Stalinist Communism and Socialism are not yet sufficiently distinguished in many minds." In other words, Socialism was getting a bum rap.

Our "Betters" would
have us believe that
Communism would rot
our teeth and stunt
our growth!

But of course, even without the bum rap, America is and always has been an ardent capitalist society who's every institution and politician is driven by the rich and the well placed. There was no incentive whatsoever for them to embrace the concepts of social equality and duty of the state to it's citizens. Since birth, every American citizen had, and continues to have, the myth of the righteousness of free enterprise and the myth that anybody can be anything they aspire to be through hard work, driven into their heads. Armed with these popular notions, it wasn't hard for the American elite to persuade the masses of the evils of Socialism. They wrapped themselves in the flag of nationalism, pointed their bony fingers at the Soviets and shouted "j'accuse"!

Then came the era of McCarthyism where hundreds of thousands of Americans were wrongly accused of being Communist sympathizers. But of course, by then, Communism and Socialism were considered to be one and the same and both were believed to be the enemies of the "American Dream".

But Canada went in a decidedly different direction. Despite living next to the most powerful country in the world, we had our own ideas about what society should look like and to what extent the state owes a sense of duty to it's citizens. Over successive generations since the second world war, Canada embraced the concepts of Welfare, universal health care, unemployment insurance etc. And we all became stubbornly proud of the way we looked after each other. And this all occurred without ever once referring to ourselves as a Socialist country. We were just a democracy with progressive social ideals.

Then one day, one of our neighbors to the south looked at what was going on up here and loudly proclaimed that Canada was a Socialist state. And the notion took off like wildfire. And in shocked disbelief, we looked around at each other and said "Who? Us"?

But in fact, what Canada had become is a Welfare state, in the BEST sense of the word. Successive post-war governments took very seriously their duty to the citizens who elected them and took the concept of equality to heart. We are, if nothing else, a very fair minded lot. But to most observers, Socialist and Welfare States are one and the same, and Socialism is, of course, thanks to suffering from several generations of a bum rap, the same thing as Stalinist Communism, the antithesis of the capitalist notion of freedom as espoused by the world's power brokers.

Enter Stephen Harper and his merry band of pranksters. Stephen was

"Fuck health care, fuck EI,
fuck welfare and fuck
the people who use it"!

weaned on notions of the purity of the English tradition (sound familiar?) and the dogma of the American Neo-Conservatives. According to this dogma, human beings are mostly inert creatures. They are motivated only by pain or pleasure. So if not faced with either the pain of hunger or the pleasure of great reward, they become essentially inert. Unproductive. Useless.

So then to Stephen and his like, concepts like Welfare and the Social Safety Net are "demotivators". The over-riding belief is that those who are poor, deserve to be poor and are undeserving of government assistance. They should use their hunger and that of their children as motivation to work at one or more poverty level jobs hundreds of miles from home. In this way, they are useful contributors to the economy and remain both beholden to, and subservient to their betters, namely their employers. So Stephen WANTS there to be inequality and distinct classes of citizenry. None of this "duty of the state" nonsense.

How the western corporate
elites would have us view a
Welfare State

So it's no wonder that Stephen and the other elites consider the phrase "Welfare State" to be a dirty word. It goes against their system of beliefs and generally, undercuts their collective bottom lines. Hence the billions of dollars corporations have squirreled away in offshore accounts safely out of reach of governments who, if able to levy taxes on it, might actually be able to do some good with it. Nope, these companies and rich folk earned this money damn it and they aim to keep it. "Fuck the employees, fuck the poor and fuck their bastardly children to boot"!

So then it's worth it to the ultra right wing tea-party-like conservatives to blaspheme the concept of "Welfare" and to declare that it's recipients, the country's poorest and most vulnerable people, are useless slugs who are a burden on the hard working citizens of the country, never mind the fact that most Welfare States have considerably lower levels of poverty and hence, more consumers than their counterparts.

Politicians like Stephen campaign on such notions and drive home this divisive and derisive notion about Welfare. And the right wing media (think Ezra Levant here) eats this kind of stuff up and regurgitates it for the evening news, thus proliferating the distorted perception of Welfare and the Welfare State.

Now it may sound like I'm blaming Stephen Harper here for the bastardization of Welfare in Canada. Stephen is guilty of many societal ills but this is one crime I can't pin on him alone. He is but one of many faces in the Welfare lynch-mob.

A better case could be made against former Ontario Premier Mike Harris. During his tenure, "Hatchet-Man Mike" was responsible for slashing Welfare by a whopping 21%. Ontario's poor have never recovered from this crippling blow. But then, Harris and Harper are joined at the hip by ideology when it comes to the treatment of society's poor and most vulnerable. They view them with the bitterest of contempt and would sooner see them enslaved or worse, imprisoned.

And the rich get richer and the poor go to jail!

Senate Reform: Thinking Outside the Box

2013-08-03T00:04:00.000-04:00

"Duffy-Gate". A useful crisis

Well, Stephen Harper has his "useful crisis" in his alleged ongoing quest for Senate reform. Ironically, it comes as a result of misdeeds perpetrated by his own appointees. Kind of makes you wonder at the "coincidence" of the whole affair.

So now his Harperness, buoyed by this crisis and aided by his Strausiann lick-spittle, Pierre (Skippy) Poilievre, is hell-bent on unilaterally imposing change on the Upper House.

Of course, Harper wants to do things unilaterally because he lacks the ability to negotiate as illustrated by all those "successful" free trade deals and pipe lines he's negotiated. Changing the Senate in any way, shape or form is supposed to be a constitutional affair requiring participation of the provinces. But of course, Stephen has never once sat down at a table with all the Premiers.

Harper is not a consensus builder. He seems to lack that ability. Unless the deck is heavily stacked in his favour and his opponents are sufficiently restricted in their ability to challenge his will, he doesn't enter into the game. Hence his desire to change the Red Chamber his way.

Of course, the PM doesn't want the Senate abolished out right as the

NDP advocate. Once he sufficiently had it stacked in his favour during his minority governments, it was extremely useful to him as illustrated by the Upper House outright killing an NDP environment bill. So even if he didn't have a majority in the House of Commons, he could still control the game by keeping the Red Chamber under his thumb.

But is Stephen really pushing for any kind of real substantive change? He wants fixed terms and elected Senators. All fixed terms does is make it easier for successive governments to change the balance of power in the Senate. On the surface of it, this may sound like a good thing. But if Steve didn't think it would in some way benefit him, he wouldn't be going there.

And elected Senators. While this too may sound like a noble idea, it has the potential to produce legislative gridlock as one elected body vies with another for supremacy and for the bragging rights as to who is the true "voice" of the people. For more thoughts on the notion of an elected Senate, click here.

Unlike the NDP, I am all for retaining the Senate and reforming it. You see, I believe that a right and true house of "sober second thought" is a good thing - a body that could put the brakes on when Parliament becomes nothing more than a rampant house of partisan ideology, devoid of any real political debate and rational decision making - much as it is now. This was no where better demonstrated then the recent decision by the Senate to kick Harper's Union Transparency bill (and make no mistake about it. It might have been presented as a private member's bill, but this was Harper's baby) back to the House of Commons. You see, it's the Senate's job, when they get ill conceived legislation such as the Union bill, to either send it on to committee for further study and/or to kick it back to Parliament to rethink. It's a matter of providing checks and balances which is not such a bad thing when we have such a closed minded, power-tripping majority Government as we have today.

But do fixed terms and elections go far enough to change the real problem with the Senate? Not by half. Like most of Harper's so-called democratic reforms, these are nothing more than cosmetic changes - window dressing that might look good and give him something to hang his hat on - a quasi-legacy that his current seven year tenure is completely devoid of. But these reforms do nothing to change the functionality of the Red Chamber. It doesn't change how they operate. And if future senators are elected Stephen's reforms do nothing but provide the promise that the he will honour the elected Senatorial Candidates in each region. There is nothing to hold him to that promise and we all know how credible Steve's word is.

A Pack of Partisan Monkeys

But regardless of how these Senator's are chosen, if they perform no better than a pack of partisan monkeys when they get there, taking their cues from and owing allegiance to their respective political party's, then nothing is going to change. The Senate will remain a useless appendage.

So this is where the whole "thinking outside the box" thing comes in. If we're going to talk real Senate reform and we want to talk about it being a true House of "Sober Second Thought", then lets think big. Lets change the paradigm.

First of all, let's talk about Senators being members of the same political parties that infest the lower house (more on my opinion of political parties here). If we expect our Senators to be completely free of the political rhetoric of the Lower House, then they need to be free of those parties. So in my opinion, Senators, regardless of their previous incarnations, should be made to relinquish any and all party affiliations when being sworn in. They should be first and foremost, servants of the citizens of Canada, not extensions of the House of Commons, party ideology or the PMO.

So then like the Auditor General is and the PBO should be the Red Chamber should be a completely arm's length non-partisan legislative body that is 100% independent of the Lower House. It should be, as it was with the recent Union bill, the sober body that looks at legislation and either recommends changes, passes it back to the House of Commons or rubber stamps the bill. Therefore the Prime Minister should have nothing whatsoever to do with the appointment of the Senator's, elected or otherwise.

I would incidentally, completely remove the power of veto from the Senate unless a proposed piece of legislation is found to be unconstitutional. Even then, I would recommend that rather than being able to veto said bill, the Senate would be compelled to return it to the Lower House for more thorough scrutiny. But with the Senate being an independent "thoughtful" body, legislation from the Lower House would do well to be more thoughtful as well - legislation they submit should be better discussed and debated rather than having "closure" imposed on it thus ensuring half-assed bills aren't kicked upstairs and that gargantuan omnibus legislation isn't crammed into law without proper scrutiny.

So then lets look at where Senators would in fact come from if not from the Prime Minister himself. Why not from the Governor General? Our Head of State, who would have the power to enable an independent selections committee who would in turn make recommendations back to the GG rather than to the PM. In this way, appointees to the Upper House would have absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Minister nor Parliament and aren't faced with the prospect of owing the government of the day for their position.

Senator "Mom". Hey! Why Not?

And just who would these future Senator's be? Well I would recommend Canadians from all walks of life. Professor's, political scientists, Doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers, mothers, former aboriginal leaders, volunteers: all people who have performed service to their communities, their Provinces and to the country itself. Almost anyone but former politicians.

I'm sure there are plenty of arguments for and against my ideas for Senate reform as I've presented them. But they are not intended to be the last word on reforming the Upper House. But what I hope my ideas will do is to stimulate thought and to provoke discussion. To get Canadians thinking about what the real problems are with the Senate and why they exist. My solutions may not be the best ones, but by stepping outside the box in search of remedies, by shifting the paradigm, we can maybe start thinking about and imagining what our democracy can be. Maybe we can start a revolution of electoral and democratic reform that will ensure that we will never again be plagued with destructive autocratic governance and that together, we can eventually make Canada's democracy the envy of the world. Is that too much to hope for?

Doesn't Canada Deserve Better than This?

Stephen Harper and the Ministry of Truth.

2013-05-26T18:38:00.000-04:00

Bafflegab -Language whose purpose is to obscure, confuse, or mislead.

Doublethink -The act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. It is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Somewhat related is cognitive dissonance, where the two beliefs cause conflict in one's mind.

------------------------------------------------------

We all know that Stephen Harper is an adherent of the Orwellian arts.

For example, we know that whenever a member of the Government of Harper uses the phrase "finding efficiencies", we know he or she is talking about firing people, nailing doors shut and pulling funding. (Bafflegab). It usually involves killing programs that don't meet Harper's ideological agenda such as the Experimental Lakes Area who's research could be used to undermine the progress of the Tar Sands and points to Harper's abysmal record on the environment.

We know that between 2008 when the Parliamentary crisis occurred through to the 2011 election, Harper and his bobble-heads repeated the phrase "coalition governments are undemocratic" so many times that it became an accepted truth (Doublethink) even though a good number of the world's democracies are coalitions and are far more representative of the will of the people than Harper's fraudulent majority government of today.

During that same Parliamentary crisis of 2008, Harper went on ad nauseam about Stephan Dion jumping into bed with the "Separatists and the Socialists" even though just a few scant years before, he was prepared to do the exact same thing in order to topple Paul Martin's minority government.

While leader of the opposition, Harper lambasted the Liberal Government for implementing Omnibus Bills that may have been 50 or so pages in length, yet when he attained his much coveted majority, he rammed through not one, not two, but three giant Omnibus Bills (C-10, C-38, C-45) that could match Tolstoy's "War and Peace" for they're verbosity and complexity.

While in the United States recently to make a sales pitch on behalf of the big oil companies who's mandate it is to scour every last bit of tar from Canada's pristine wilderness, Harper spoke of Canada's policy of "responsible resource development" and it's exemplary record on the environment. These comments were of course, bold-faced lies, but here was the Prime Minister, saying these things with a straight face and in calm and even tones, with all the conviction of a Sunday preacher delivering the Gospel.

These are just a very few examples of Harper's use of "Doublethink" . The list of course, goes on and on. What he said yesterday or the day before never happened. It's what he says today that counts. We know full well what he did and said yesterday, we saw it, we heard it. But through his use of language and distortion of the facts, not to mention his use of pom-pom waving back-benchers who applaud his every word and his multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the truth gets twisted, distorted and turned on it's head. Up is down, black is white and night is day.

But this is not Nineteen Eighty Four and Harper doesn't have Winston Smith working for him in the Ministry of Truth rewriting history. Though we have to wonder, with his announcement that he is launching an all out review of Canadian history, if Mr. Harper hasn't finally found where Winston has been hiding all these years.

There is ample documentation and proof of all that Mr. Harper has said and done in the past. He has used the arts of Bafflegab and Doublethink to obscure these facts and to make us forget about them. He has lied on such a bold and grand scale as to actually sound believable. But the historical records remain.

The recent surfacing of this video on YouTube is living proof of his thoughts and feelings while Leader of the Opposition on the scandal that rocked the Liberal Government. In it, he very succinctly states that "...if I were Prime Minister, I don't understand how I could not expect to have to resign the very next day". He goes on to state: "...he (Paul Martin) is a leader and as a leader, he is responsible for the actions of the people he leads. If he had a right or honourable bone in his body, he'd admit that and resign immediately".

Of course, Mr. Harper is now embroiled in numerous scandals of his own. The "misplacing" of 3.1 billion dollars and no accounting for it's where abouts whatsoever. The recent Federal Court ruling that there was a systematic campaign of electoral fraud in the 2011 election that favoured the Conservatives and of course, Duffy-gate and it's ties to Harper's own office. All of these things that, taken together, make the Sponsorship scandal look like a couple of kiddies who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

But suddenly, Mr. Harper's damning indictment of Paul Martin doesn't apply to himself. To Harper, these major ethical imbroglios aren't damning indictments of his leadership. They are "distractions" and he knew nothing about them. Therefore he is innocent of all wrong doing. Never mind his 2006 comment about Martin being a leader and being responsible for the people he leads.

But this is not just mere hypocrisy on the part of the Prime Minister. This behaviour is far more sinister. It points to his systemic use of "Doublethink". Even though there is ample proof of his words and deeds when he was responding to a previous government, his actions and words of today would have us believe history as we know it never occurred. And if he continues to have his way unabated, Canadians won't know their own history by the time Mr. Harper is done changing it.

Harper Not The Master Strategist He's Made Out To Be

2013-05-18T14:39:00.001-04:00

Is Stephen Harper a true Chess Master
or is he just really good at cheating?

It's been said of Stephen Harper that he always presents as the "smartest man in the room". My question is: "so what does that say about the other people in the room with him"?

Pundits and political observers, despite how they feel about Harper and his style of politics have - to a man or woman- begrudgingly dubbed him the "master strategist", "the consummate chess player". I'm not sure where this myth originated - either from one of Harper's media people or with Harper himself - either is equally likely. Too bad it's just a myth - yet another by-product of the "Harper spin machine".

The purpose of the myth is, of course, abundantly clear. It goes toward painting an image of the man. That even if he is a cold hearted bastard, he is deserving of respect and admiration- that he is the "Great Navigator", the genius who sees things others can't and that he quite simply, doesn't suffer fools gladly. But of course, that's all hog-wash.

There is nothing to admire in a man who tries to recreate the world in his own image through the well financed use of thuggery, fraud, intimidation and by disemboweling the democratic process.

A Chess master becomes so by mastering the game, not by rewriting

Harper is certainly a "Man for the Ages" -
The dark ages.

the rules and by bribing or intimidating officials and opponents in order to compensate for his own lack ability.

One only has to look as far as the marketing of what is arguably, Canada's most valuable commodity- Oil. Mr. Harper and his talking heads have repeatedly stated that they want Canada to become an "energy superpower". They of course, mean "Oil" superpower. Other forms of energy simply don't enter into the equation.

The Government of Harper has done everything in it's power to make it easier for the big oil companies to scour every last molecule of black-scum from Alberta's tar-sands and to get the resulting sludge to market. They have eviscerated laws that protect our delicate environment, said "too fucking bad" about endangered species, silenced the scientists who could speak to the irreparable damage being done, bullied First-Nations and their treaty rights, sought to discredit anyone who disagrees with their agenda - calling them radicals and un-Canadian, launched multimillion dollar ad campaigns in support of Canada's sewage, they have withdrawn from or sabotaged every international effort to set sustainable limits on green house gasses and they have lied through their teeth about all of it.

Whenever Harper or his bobble-heads are questioned on their agenda, they don't give legitimate answers. They attack. They try to discredit their adversaries, they give hyper-partisan talking points and when all else fails, they present false facts and political spin.

The problem for the Oil Moguls now, is that people are rebelling. Citizens, scientists, First Nations, environmental groups and even some politicians of conscience in parts of the world where Harper has no reach, are waking up and saying "hey, what you're doing is wrong". So Canada is left with a wealth of black-goo and struggling to find ways to get it to market.

"Snake Oil... I mean...
Alberta Oil for sale...CHEAP"!

So now Harper and his brigade of "talking-point regurgitators" are blanketing the globe, posing as snake oil salesmen. The problem is, because of Harper's "strategic" ways of doing business, neither he, nor anyone in his government have any credibility. Nothing they say can be believed. Their lengthy history of lying and denying have given them all the believability of used car salesmen. And their complete and utter lack of diplomacy and statesmanship on the world stage has earned Canada a reputation as a "rogue nation" and our government has few if any international allies. We are now the pariahs of the Western World .

Great strategy that Mr. Harper. You behave so badly that no one wants what you're selling, no matter how many millions of dollars of tax payers money you spend trying to sugar-coat your blasphemies. So I ask you oh Greatest of the Great Navigators: "Did you see that coming"?

Can "The Great Navigator"
really see things we
mere mortals cannot?