Nasty, Just Plain Nasty

It's not like it comes as a big surprise that the Harper Government is nasty.  But the extent of their vileness continues expand.

First, the Harper Government seems to have decided to shut down basic literacy programs across Canada.  The claims of the Harperites on this matter are the usual "we don't believe these programs are useful in their current form".  Basic literacy is always useful, unless you're a Conservative and you like the idea of having an underclass of people who aren't in a position to think about what's happening to them because they're struggling just to get by in near slavery conditions.

But that's not all of it, not by any means.  This week, Harper is hosting a "summit" on Child and Maternal Health, following up on the 2008 G20.  In a fit of almost laughable hypocrisy, he said that people should pay attention to the science on vaccination.  Coming from a Prime Minister who has been systematically dismantling science research in this country for several years, the admonition is laughable.

It gets even better.  When confronted on the fact that the government is restricting the availability of funding under this program to organizations that do not provide abortion services, he replied:

"We're trying to rally a broad public consensus behind what we're doing, and you can't rally a consensus on that issue, as you know well in this country," he said. 

"It's not only controversial here, it's controversial and often illegal in many recipient nations."Harper doesn't agree with the suggestion that he is exporting his beliefs abroad to other countries by not funding abortion services. 

"We're really not taking a position on that. We have taxpayers' money and we have great needs," he said to Thibedeau. 

"And frankly, there's more than enough things that we can finance, including contraception, without getting into an issue that really would be extremely divisive for Canadians and donors."

The government is taking a position.  Once again, we find Harper's often denied but impossible to ignore social conservative agenda.  He keeps talking about "not opening the debate", but then he allows his back-benchers to put forward legislation on the matter (which the front bench mysteriously votes for until it would become a political liability).  On this matter, he is essentially taking the anti-abortion stance that once a woman is pregnant, she has no say in the matter after that.

None of this is surprising, but that doesn't change the fact that this government is continuing to be fundamentally dishonest with Canadians on a variety of fronts. 

That Credibility Thing

Who are you going to believe - members of a governing party which has been caught out in more lies than any other in recent memory or Auditor General Sheila Fraser?

The confidential draft by Sheila Fraser concludes the government misinformed Parliament to win approval for a $50-million G8 fund that lavished money on questionable projects in Industry Minister Tony Clement's riding. And it suggests the process by which the funding was approved may have been illegal.

How shocking. The Contempt Party of Canada was lying to Parliament...again.

Then there's attack dog Baird's comments:

Conservative cabinet minister John Baird reacted quickly, saying the contents of the final report are different from the draft report. Specifically, he said the final report doesn't say the government “misinformed” Parliament.

Hmmm...really - you've seen this report already, Mr. Baird? Even if I believed that, I still think that Ms. Fraser's draft is closer to the truth when it accuses your government of lying.

... and just to add to the outrage, why did we spend enormous amounts of money upgrading public washrooms 20 km away from the conference site?

The draft reveals that a local “G8 summit liaison and implementation team” – made up of Mr. Clement, the mayor of Huntsville, and the general manager of Deerhurst Resort which hosted the summit – chose the 32 projects that received funding. It says there was no apparent regard for the needs of the summit or the conditions laid down by the government.

Among the questionable projects funded were:

» $274,000 on public toilets 20 kilometres from the summit site.

» $100,000 on a gazebo an hour's drive away.

» $1.1-million for sidewalk and tree upgrades 100 kilometres away.

» $194,000 for a park 100 kilometres away.

» $745,000 on downtown improvements for three towns nearly 70 kilometres away.

That's one hell of walk for conference attendees to take care of the morning's coffee, don't you think?

G20 Protests - You Expected Anything Different?

While I can't say that I'm impressed by the behaviour of protesters demonstrating against the G20 and G8 conferences being held in Toronto this week, I can't exactly say it surprises me either.

When an over-the-top set of security "measures" turns a large chunk of Toronto into a fortified bunker zone, disrupting the lives of thousands of Torontonians, it created a powderkeg situation.

Quite frankly, the security preparations around the G20 and G8 conferences - an expenditure of some $1 billion of taxpayer's money - serve only to isolate these so-called leaders from the very people they allegedly represent. It seems to me that there is something very, very wrong with a situation where our political leadership goes to such great lengths to avoid the public that they are allegedly accountable to.

I won't excuse those protesters who engaged in violence and destruction - they deserve to face our criminal justice system. However, the government(s) that demand such dramatic measures to "protect" their leaders also hold a degree of responsibility here. The "need" to isolate themselves entirely from the public that they are responsible to gives the extremists the excuse to become violent. The disruption of life in downtown Toronto this week is an excellent example of how an overweaning desire to create absolute security in fact creates the volatile situation that we see unfolding.

I've said it before about these types of situations - the most effective security is the security that nobody sees or experiences directly (except the violators). When you create what is so obviously a police state, that does not promote the peace and security that is sought, it provokes the very violence that we are seeing.

Sadly, I doubt that our government - either Mr. Harper or Mr. Toews - will understand or admit to their role in creating this powderkeg. Even more depressing is the lack of accessibility to our political leadership means that the politicians will go even further to isolate themselves from the public - and become even more disconnected from the people they purport to govern.

The Conservative Talent Pool

AKA Lake Harper's Folly.

So much for the much ballyhooed Conservative "money management" talents - talk about "tax and spend" - sheesh!