Fire Tony Clement - and Harper Can Go With Him

I'll give Mr. Clement one thing - he's nothing if not consistent. However, his words at the party the Canadian government put on at the DNC Convention are beyond the pale.

The Canadian government sponsored a swish lunch reception at its consul-general's Denver residence.

The food included bite-sized bits of beef, shrimp, tortellini and potatoes gratin. Health Minister Tony Clement, whose absence from Canada during the tainted meat crisis has not gone unnoticed, was there and introduced himself:

"I'm Health Minister Tony Clement, and I have to say I approved this food."

Fire the heartless SOB. NOW. 15 DEAD CANADIANS IS NOT A JOKING MATTER - under any circumstances.

Tony Clement Doesn't Know When To Shut Up

Somebody needs to take Health Minister Clement out behind the woodshed and give him a clearer understanding of what the word ethics means.

"I find the ethical considerations of supervised injections to be profoundly disturbing."

Hold it right there, Mr. Clement. Are you a doctor? Have you got any background at all in medical ethics, or even basic medicine? I thought not.

"We specifically take issue with the minister using that phrase," Dr. Day told reporters after Mr. Clement's speech.

"The minister was off base in calling into question the ethics of physicians involved in harm reduction.

"It's clear that this was being used as a political issue."

Bingo. Not that anyone should be surprised - it's hardly the first time Harper's puppets have substituted ignorance and bluster for actual thoughtful reasoning.

Insight into Conservative Policy

The HarperCon$ have prevaricated repeatedly on the subject of Vancouver's safe injection site (InSite), and as is so typical of the HarperCon$, very closed-mouthed about what their official stance is.

Until Tony Clement opened his yap in the wake of a ruling from the B.C. Supreme Court.

“We disagree with the judgment,” Mr. Clement told reporters in Ottawa.

“Our government believes that the best way to deal with the health issues of drug addicts is to offer treatment and indeed to prevent people from getting on to illicit drugs in the first place.”

Mr. Clement also strongly suggested the Conservative government was opposed to the facility's continued operation.

“We don't consider it the best health outcome to keep people in a position where they continue to use the illicit drugs, to inject the illicit drugs.”

Well, that's a nice objective Tony, but how pray tell do you think that an absolute erasure of narcotics from the streets can be accomplished? Hell, your own micromanaging boss can't even get his foreign affairs minister to keep either his lips or pants zippered - what the heck makes any of us believe that the standard conservative mantra about "getting tough" on drugs - a technique that the United States has tried with astonishing failure.

Meanwhile, the studies of Insite all reflect the success of the program - something the HarperCon$ claim to be "unconvinced of". But, like Pierre Poilievre, I don't think that Tony Clement is about actually solving problems - he's about regulating people whose issues and challenges he cannot understand or cannot be bothered to try understanding.

I cannot imagine the drive of the drug addict to seek out that next fix, and how personally destructive that drive must be - I simply haven't been there. I do know one thing - the techniques the conservatives espouse simply have not worked at all.