The last couple of weeks of legislative activity in Ottawa have been distressing to say the least. To call it an all out assault on Canada and Canadians is an understatement.
The Harper Government has been ramming through a series of legislation that comprise the single most overt attack on all that is good and reasoned in Canada.
I've already discussed my thoughts regarding Bill C-36, the Conservative response to the Bedford ruling on prostitution. Unfortunately, what the Harper Government is ramming through is a more overt piece of legislation that makes a mess out of far more than prostitution. It stands to make just about anything to do with sex illegal - from therapists to sex toys.
Then there is Bill C-24, which gives the Minister of Immigration rather broad powers to strip Canadians of their citizenship. Quite rightly, a lot of Canadians are very concerned about this legislation. This gives the politicians rather broad powers to strip people of their citizenship without any kind of real recourse in the courts. Yes, they are talking about people who hold dual citizenship, but why on earth would we want to create an environment where there are two "grades" of citizenship?
It's been centuries since any civilized country engaged in banishing citizens who broke the local laws.
Bill C-13 is another piece of nasty legislation. Framed in the rubric of addressing online bullying, this legislation gives the government unprecedented powers to engage in broad, invasive surveillance of Canadian citizens and their online activities. In committee, Randall Garrison put forward an amendment which would have added gender identity to the hate crimes statutes (which are being amended by C-13). To defeat that singular amendment, the Conservatives swapped out two CPC members on the committee who they thought might vote for it.
All of these are pieces in a larger mosaic of legislation that the Harper Government has put forth, sometimes as single issue bills, sometimes buried in the depths of omnibus "budget bills". This government has been gradually attacking Canadian rights and freedoms at every turn. Sometimes using subtle means, other legislation is much more blatant.
My guess is that Harper is doing all of this with an eye to wrapping up his legislative agenda (the one that he doesn't admit to) well in advance of the next election. He's no doubt going to try and get Canadians to forget all of the legislative evilness that he has foisted upon Canadians in 2014.
The Harper Government has been ramming through a series of legislation that comprise the single most overt attack on all that is good and reasoned in Canada.
I've already discussed my thoughts regarding Bill C-36, the Conservative response to the Bedford ruling on prostitution. Unfortunately, what the Harper Government is ramming through is a more overt piece of legislation that makes a mess out of far more than prostitution. It stands to make just about anything to do with sex illegal - from therapists to sex toys.
Then there is Bill C-24, which gives the Minister of Immigration rather broad powers to strip Canadians of their citizenship. Quite rightly, a lot of Canadians are very concerned about this legislation. This gives the politicians rather broad powers to strip people of their citizenship without any kind of real recourse in the courts. Yes, they are talking about people who hold dual citizenship, but why on earth would we want to create an environment where there are two "grades" of citizenship?
It's been centuries since any civilized country engaged in banishing citizens who broke the local laws.
Bill C-13 is another piece of nasty legislation. Framed in the rubric of addressing online bullying, this legislation gives the government unprecedented powers to engage in broad, invasive surveillance of Canadian citizens and their online activities. In committee, Randall Garrison put forward an amendment which would have added gender identity to the hate crimes statutes (which are being amended by C-13). To defeat that singular amendment, the Conservatives swapped out two CPC members on the committee who they thought might vote for it.
All of these are pieces in a larger mosaic of legislation that the Harper Government has put forth, sometimes as single issue bills, sometimes buried in the depths of omnibus "budget bills". This government has been gradually attacking Canadian rights and freedoms at every turn. Sometimes using subtle means, other legislation is much more blatant.
My guess is that Harper is doing all of this with an eye to wrapping up his legislative agenda (the one that he doesn't admit to) well in advance of the next election. He's no doubt going to try and get Canadians to forget all of the legislative evilness that he has foisted upon Canadians in 2014.
2 comments:
My take on the outcome is a little bit different. I don't believe he intends to be or that those running the system want him to be reelected rather I expect this is being rammed through as multiple successive minority governments put Canada seriously behind schedule in integrating into the new world economic order being established.
If we use Bush and the U.S. as our example, Bush rammed through a whole bunch of very similar legislation which as we've now learned was implemented to be used by and fully supported by the president of "hope and change".
Here in Canada we have an oddly similarly worded campaign, "hope and hard work".
Mark my words, by the time Harper gets out of office his purpose there will have been served and the stage set for successive governments to utilize and never revert this legislation. Harper will get his job as some director on some banking or resource company board and his real career will have begun. This is just a stepping stone.
Canada isn't the US, and the Canadian response to what Harper has been doing may be quite different than the US.
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