The Alberta Sovereignty Act: A Pas a Deux With Danielle Smith and Stephen Harper

I’m not going to use the full title of that act - partly because it’s ridiculously long, and like many things out of the UCP, utterly devoid of real meaning. 

But, I do want to make some speculative comments.  Others have already pointed out that within the context of Canada, the fundamental assumption of the law is simply wrong-headed.  We already have mechanisms in place for examining whether a given Federal law is “overreach” or not - it’s called the courts, and those cases get very high priority in the first place. Smith, is of course playing on the fact that every case Alberta has brought in the last decade has ultimately failed at the SCC.

Is this law merely sour grapes?  The act of a populist legislator who wants to continue to feed on the simmering grievances of Alberta’s often civically illiterate population?  Pandering to those who prefer simplistic bromides about how things should work instead of the subtle complexities of actual law and politics of compromise that underpin confederation? I do not think it is so simple. 

Ever since Smith first uttered her promise of an “Alberta Sovereignty Act” during her campaign for the UCP leadership, there has been a steady stream of provincial conservatives adopting variations on the same line.  This is not a coincidence. 

Back in 2015 when the conservatives botched their campaign so monumentally, and Stephen Harper all but rage quit elected politics, I figured he was going to resurface with a different game plan.  If he couldn’t make conservatives “The Natural Governing Party” of Canada (especially with himself at the helm), then I figured that he was going to attempt to blow up Canada instead. 

I don’t think I was wrong in that speculation.  Bear with me while I spend a few minutes walking through the post-2015 timeline. 

Two major events occurred in 2015 that are important to this discussion:  

The first was Stephen Harper’s CPC losing the federal election.  The second was Rachel Notley’s NDP winning in Alberta - long considered “Fortress Alberta” by conservatives because of a decades-long dominance of that province’s politics both provincial and federal. 

That provoked one of the biggest “rage campaigns” that I’ve ever seen in my life. From 2015 onwards, the politics in Alberta were a constant barrage of attacks on Trudeau, and attacks on Notley.  Death threats became normal for Notley, and similar attitudes were often expressed towards Trudeau. 

By the end of 2015, Jason Kenney had stepped out of his job as MP in Ottawa, and began campaigning in Alberta to weld the PCAA and WRP together.  Kenney spent much of his time campaigning slagging Notley, and associating Notley with Trudeau by talking about the “Notley-Trudeau Alliance”.  Also, Kenney spent a lot of time whipping up “separatist sentiment” in Alberta - and while in power, he continued to foster so-called “western alienation”.  Whatever you say about Kenney, he’s a tireless campaigner - he clearly loves it when he’s got a room paying attention to what he says. 

Behind the scenes, Kenney and Harper were meeting with considerable regularity.  It’s no secret that both men were “old friends”, but I suspect Harper was playing a significant role in helping Kenney strategize the formation of the UCP.

The UCP represented a new brand of conservatism in Alberta. It was much more rooted in the individualist populism (“pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”) that were central to Western Canada Concept (WCC), Reform, and Wildrose Party politics than the Lougheed-era PCs. Add to that a significant portion of the party has strong connections to rural religiosity (which tends to be very fundamentalist), and you have much less negotiable form of politics. To put it mildly, the Kenney-led UCP spent a great deal of political capital playing the cities as the great rival to rural interests, and likewise also spent much of its time trying to drive a wedge between Alberta and confederation with constant attacks on Trudeau.  

Why the attacks on Trudeau?  Didn’t he rescue the TMX project when it was on the verge of collapse, and KXL remained very much up in the air?  Yes, he did.  You cannot underestimate the depth of the long fostered hatred for the Trudeau name that conservatives in Albertas have fostered. Since the 1980s they have continually banged on that drum to Alberta voters.  The spectre of Pierre Trudeau rising from the grave to implement another NEP had become standard fare whenever the people of Alberta might have started to talk even remotely favourably about Ottawa.  In fact, conservatives in Alberta have long equated the name Trudeau, and the NEP, with the identity of “Ottawa” as the capital of Canada. It’s a political tool for them. 

To put it mildly, anyone who was steeped in Alberta conservative politics for any length of time utterly loathes the fact that Canada has another Trudeau for a Prime Minister.  That’s why there is this constant stream of invective aimed at him from this province.  Harper’s dislike of Justin Trudeau is no surprise. Perhaps even more so than Kenney, Harper seems to view Justin Trudeau with a particular disdain. 

Elsewhere in Canada, we have seen a wave of increasingly “libertarian-right” conservative Premiers - Scott Moe in Saskatchewan, Brian Pallister in Manitoba, Doug Ford in Ontario, Tim Houston in Nova Scotia, and so on.  

Scott Moe in particular is interesting to this discussion.  About a year after he was elected, his government signed a contract with Harper and Associates for consulting services.  That contract appears to be the turning point. Up to there, Moe was a relatively quiet Premier on the federal stage, and while I disagree with much of his policies, he wasn’t actively working to undermine the federal government.  Once this contract with Harper and Associates appeared, he started working in concert with Jason Kenney, Doug Ford and so on - often copying Kenney’s lead, and more recently borrowing from Danielle Smith’s “sovereignty act”.  

If that isn’t enough to make you go “hmm”, it should be.  It ties together key facets of the picture, and connects things back to Harper.  Harper may not be in elected office any more, but that doesn’t mean he is less influential within conservative circles.  He remains a formidable force, and arguably has as much to do with why party leadership has been as shaky as it has these past few years - everybody is looking over their shoulders to see what Harper is up to. 

I'm fairly certain that after his 2015 defeat (to Justin Trudeau, no less), Harper decided that if he couldn't rule over Canada, he was going to find a way to blow it up.  Feeding Alberta's simmering separatist movement was an easy starting point, and frankly the COVID Pandemic proved a very fruitful opportunity to shove disinformation and foment anger in Alberta.  The fact that he had access to several other conservative premiers who would follow Jason Kenney's lead in undermining the Federal Government's attempts to manage the situation. 

Which brings us to Danielle Smith.  I'm not certain how close Smith and Harper are, but Smith's actions continue to be consistent with a larger overall push to isolate "conservative Canada" from the "rest of Canada".  There's no question that the "Sovereignty Act" is clearly designed to be divisive, and it contains a veritable wish list of asserted powers that sounds an awful lot like those demanded in the infamous "Firewall Letter" of so many years ago. 

That isn't to say that Harper is controlling the whole show - I think he's directing it though.  His goal has always been to eradicate the Liberals, and failing doing that successfully after a decade as Prime Minister clearly stings.  I think he's now decided that failing that, he's going to isolate the Prairies politically, and he's now pushing to break Canada by undermining the institutions of government.  It won't hurt his feelings to do so - again, partisan conservatives in Canada have long chafed at the 1983 Constitution not only because it is the work of a Trudeau, but because the way it is written is basically antithetical to how they look at power and governance. 

Reflections On The Post-Harper CPC

Whatever else you say about the results of the election on October 19, it was the end of Stephen Harper's career as leader of the CPC and Canada's Prime Minister.

By all measures, this election was the CPC's to lose.  They had control over the government and its messaging, they had a financial warchest rumoured to be many times the size of their competitors, and they had control over the timing.

So, what did they do wrong?  Lots.

Harper had spent his entire time as leader of the CPC consolidating his control over the party and its top ranks.  It had become the Stephen Harper Party, for better or worse.  Personal brand of the leader is often a powerful force in making a party's success.  Making the party all about the leader is never a good idea.  Leaders sooner or later lose their legitimacy, or they become tired of what they are doing and lose their "touch".  Although the CPC appeared unified behind Harper, that doesn't mean Canada was unified behind them.

The first thing that Harper did was run a campaign that was about fear and division.  He lashed out at Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, snidely calling him "Justin" at every turn, claiming that he had neither the smarts nor the experience to be the next Prime Minister.  He played the classic socialist bogeyman arguments against the NDP.  All this is pretty normal fare in Canadian politics, but somehow Harper took it to new lows - borrowing tactics from US Republican / Teaparty politics.

When attacking his peers didn't get him the traction he wanted, Harper turned on his own campaign manager, Jenni Byrne and brought in Australian Lynton Crosby.  Shortly after Crosby's name was floated, we got two gems out of Harper - "Old Stock Canadians" and the Niqab issue.  Both were distinctly vile to Canadian sentiments.  While they briefly got traction, they both backfired on Harper.  Yes, a somewhat ham-handed response by Mulcair destroyed his support in Quebec, that support didn't come Harper's way to any great extent even in Quebec.  Canadians saw this for what it was - KKK style racism, and they turned on Harper in droves.

Then, when Crosby jumped ship to save his "professional reputation" (as a purveyor of division and racism, I might add), Harper turned back to his usual stock approaches to campaigning, hoping desperately that Canadians wouldn't put together what his government was doing.

Harper ran a most un-Canadian campaign.  He threw people under his political bus.  His candidates weren't to be found campaigning on the ground in most ridings, even his cabinet ministers were nearly invisible most of the time.  That made the campaign all about him, and Canadians don't _like_ Harper.  They might have voted for him previously, but really that was because the Conservative attack machine had managed to assassinate their characters before the election - in essence, making Harper the least unpalatable option.

It didn't do the CPC any favours that in the last four years they had accrued the baggage of repeated scandal (Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau, Bruce Carson and others), a reputation for not answering questions in the House and a legislative agenda that more and more Canadians rightly saw as mean-spirited, if not downright malicious (Bill C-51, Bill C-24, the "Fair Elections Act").  No amount of sweater vests and kittens can overcome the shadow that casts.

So, what does the CPC need to do to rebuild?  A lot, and very little of the post-election analysis out of CPC members has even broached the realities.  MPs need to recognize that they are intelligent, thinking beings who should speak out for their constituents, not just act as party brass dictate they should.  A decade of "Harper's Trained Seal Act" has left the party with a deficit of ideas and original thought in the senior ranks.

Further, the party has to acknowledge that it has acted in an incredibly racist manner.  Yes, Jason Kenney (Minister of Curry in a Hurry) built up a lot of support within Canada's various immigrant communities, but he did so while part of an organization which gained much of its backing by playing off mistrust between groups, rather than unifying them.  The niqab issue, like the turbans in the RCMP 20 years earlier, is incredibly divisive and destructive.  It was a "throw an entire vote under the bus" moment, and the government's continued appeals even after losing the case in the courts merely cemented the overt racism of Harper's campaign.  The CPC cannot be seen to govern for all Canadians until it acknowledges that.

Further, legislation like Bill C-24 and the "Barbaric Cultural Practices" act are vile.  C-24 created a two tier citizenship.  Anyone who holds, or is eligible for, citizenship in another country is suddenly subject to further punishment, not at the discretion of the courts, but at the decision of the minister - making it a political decision.  I'm still not sure how many Canadians really understand how vile that really is.   The "Barbaric Cultural Practices" act was another part of the Conservative war machine.  It was designed specifically to attack the most visible crimes associated with the Muslim community (for acts which we already have laws against).  It was unnecessary, and again overtly racist - designed to whip up public outrage and fear, not to address a real gap or problem in our society.

If the CPC wants to come within striking distance of the keys to 24 Sussex again, they will have to acknowledge how they became the Harper Party, and what they did as that party.  Then, and only then, can they start to make the broadly inclusive coalition that is needed to ascend to power.  

On Senate Reform - Harper's Way

Earlier this week, Stephen Harper basically tried to make Senate Reform in Canada the province's problem to sort out.  More or less, he said that he wasn't going to appoint any more senators until the provinces come up with a plan to reform or abolish the Senate.

Harper has finally figured out one thing - namely that Senate reform cannot be done by legislative fiat, nor can he simply bully his way through.  Any meaningful reform has to have actual leadership to drive it.  Harper doesn't want to lead, he wants to dictate.

Basically, what Harper did was a "Halt or the dummy gets it" hostage taking approach.  This is not the approach of a leader, but rather that of a manipulator who doesn't understand how to build consensus.  Consensus among the provinces is not easy to build.  It will take being open to negotiation and careful consideration.

Harper has had the last decade to build consensus between the provinces and get the reform process rolling along.  Instead, he has treated the provincial premiers like dirt, tried to play them off against each other and generally has acted as a force of division.  On the Senate file, he stuffed it full of cronies and bag men, it blew up in his face.  Then he tried to "reform" it by proposing to do so through legislative fiat rather than through the Constitution's amending formula.  When the Supreme Court pointed out how every one of his proposals was unconstitutional, he gave up and went into a sulk.

Now, after watching Mulcair rise far above his expectations in the polls, Harper comes out with a passive-aggressive "it's not me, it's you" approach to the Senate file.  This is not leadership, it is a gross failure to lead.  

On Recession Economies

So, today the Bank of Canada lowered its prime lending rate to 0.5%.  Supposedly, this signals that Canada is sliding into a recession.

Those of us who have been watching have long ago figured out that the minute the bubble burst on oil prices, Canada was going to slide into a recession.  Arguably, if you aren't in the oil patch, Canada has been in a recession for the last four or five years.  What am I talking about here?

Jobs.  Sure, the government has posted "new jobs growth" regularly, but let's be honest with ourselves here.  Most of the jobs involved have been service jobs.  Jobs that pay poorly, have terrible hours and don't even provide a subsistence level of income.  If you're a skilled knowledge worker, you might luck out and get a contract job.  But guess what?  Contract work is unstable, and instead of paying a premium for your skills, you'll be lucky to get the same dollars you made as a full employee.

So, how do we end up with a long running "jobs recession" but still have economic growth for the last few years?  It's not really difficult to see.  If you have money invested in companies, they end up looking like they are posting profits, and the GDP numbers improve.  Basically, we're measuring two different things.  Growth in the size of the economy has become the rising tide that only floats the boats of the truly wealthy.  The rest of the "boats" are so far away from the water that the tide isn't even going to reach them.

Lower interest rates?  Well, it makes it easier to borrow money, right?  Sure ... except you need to have the income in the first place to support the loan.  So who benefits?  Once again, it makes it easier for business to borrow.  Oh, great, that means they can create jobs, right?  They could, but in today's world, they have been funnelling those funds into projects which eliminate jobs like automation projects; and as much as possible, new work that requires people gets shoved offshore wherever it is cheapest, or (until recently) assigned to temporary foreign workers instead of Canadians.  

The net effect of Harper's lovely little war on the middle class has been that those who aren't part of the privileged classes are screwed.  Lose your job?  Chances are the next one won't replace your previous income, and most certainly won't have any stability to it.  The problem is that business has decided that people are a risk, not an investment.  They are no longer willing to invest in people to solve problems.

Harper can deny that we're in a recession all he likes.  The cold, brutal reality is that we have never recovered from the consequences of the 2008 downturn, and the current crude oil price war being waged by Saudi Arabia and others is going to continue to keep things depressed.  Business may well post profits, the GDP will seem to grow, and workers will continue to be left behind.  

About That October Election

Everybody in the media seems quite convinced that there is going to be an election scheduled for October 19, 2015.

Don't be so sure about that.  Harper has more than a few cards that he can choose to play.

The basis for this October date is the "Fixed Election Dates" act that Harper pushed through parliament in 2006.  Let's be abundantly clear - this act does not oblige the Prime Minister to request the dissolution of parliament in time for this date.  It essentially orders Elections Canada to set up for polling on that date, but there is nothing whatsoever which constrains the Prime Minister or the Governor General's powers with respect to dissolving parliament.

What are the other options that Harper can play out?

1.  Let the current Parliament run through until the mandate dissolves automatically in Spring 2016.

The last election was in Spring of 2011, and therefore the 5 year limit in the Constitution comes into play.  This is an almost unavoidable wall for Harper, as the Constitution doesn't make the dissolution a discretionary power of the Governor General at this level.

2.  Prorogue Parliament Until Dissolution

If Harper decides to let the current mandate run out in 2016, he may decide to prorogue parliament rather than give the opposition a place to readily beat the government over the head with.  Rather than bother with that possibility, he's quite likely to prorogue parliament and then continue to spend taxpayer dollars on his ongoing propaganda campaign.  (He can do all that using "Order In Council" to keep things going)

3.  Drag Canada Into A Shooting War

Harper has been trying to drag Canada into one of several conflicts.  Right now there are two hotspots he's playing this card in - Iraq/Syria/ISIS and Ukraine.  Harper has been pulling out all the stops to make ISIS as terrifying as possible, with the latest volley coming from an obscure Senate committee report.

Other than his ongoing desire to play "War PM", why would Harper be doing this?  Simple - there's a little clause lurking in the Constitution which allows for the current parliament to be extended if there is an "apprehension of war".  Harper has to convince 2/3 of the house to go along with this little charade.  A year ago, I would have said "fat chance" to that going anywhere.  But that was a year ago, before the Liberals voted for Bill C-51.  Today, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Liberals (or a reasonable percentage of them) vote for this motion, out of fear of being called "soft on terror" or something of a sort.

In short, there is very little reason for Harper to call an election for October.  He has plenty of options, and unless he thinks that he can win, he doesn't have to dissolve parliament in time for October 19.  No doubt he is hoping that his rivals will spend enough of their war chests over the summer on the assumption of an October election.

A Dangerous Change In Law

In his latest abuse of the legislative processes, Harper has slide a particularly slimy bit into the 2015 budget implementation bill:  

The Harper government moved to retroactively rewrite Canada's access to information law in order to prevent possible criminal charges against the RCMP, The Canadian Press has learned. 

An unheralded change buried in last week's 167-page omnibus budget bill exempted all records from the defunct long-gun registry, and also any "request, complaint, investigation, application, judicial review, appeal or other proceeding under the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act," related to those old records. 

The unprecedented, retroactive changes — access-to-information experts liken them to erasing the national memory — are even more odd because they are backdated to the day the Conservatives introduced legislation to kill the gun registry, not to when the bill received royal assent. 

The date effectively alters history to make an old government bill come into force months before it was actually passed by Parliament.

 Oh, but this gets better.  It turns out that this is intended to squelch an ongoing investigation by a parliamentary officer - the Information Officer, Suzanne Legault.

In an interview airing later Thursday on CBC News Network's Power & Politics, Legault expanded on the ramifications of passing these amendments. 

"What this does is that it erases the right of the requester to have ever made this request. It erases the right of the requester to have ever complained to my office. It erases all of the investigative powers that I have used during this investigation. And it erases the referral that I have made to the attorney general of Canada. And it erases the recommendations I have made to the minister. 

"What these provisions do is they actually erase any potential administrative, civil or criminal liability for any actors involved throughout the investigation and in the destruction of those records in contravention to the Access to Information Act."

Creating retroactive legislation in Canada that reaches back years in time is unusual, although technically legal as long as it isn't a criminal code change.

"An argument has been made that there are elements in the information act, the Access to Information Act, that contradict something in that other piece of legislation. At best that is a loophole," he said at an event in Windsor, Ont. 

"I'm not sure there really is a contradiction, but to be perfectly clear, the government is clarifying the information act to make sure it is in full conformity with Parliament's already expressed wishes on the long-gun registry that the RCMP has executed as they were required to do according to the law." 

The RCMP also rebuffed Legault's accusations, saying it did nothing wrong.
"The RCMP disputes the OIC's (Office of the Information Commissioner's) view that it denied a right of access under the Access to Information Act by destroying records that were responsive to the request," Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer said in a statement.   ( CBC )

However, in this case, it is quite clear that Harper is trying to squelch an investigation into possibly illegal actions of the RCMP and other government officials with respect to the Long Gun Registry data. So, even if this legislation is technically "legal", it doesn't mean it is right. No government should be using legislative fiat to make its indiscretions "disappear".

Once again, what we see here is a government trying to "change the rules" when they suddenly become a political liability.  

I've said it before - Harper needs to go.  This man is attacking not just the people of Canada, but the institutions of government itself.  

 

Harper The Fascist Part MMXVIII

Remember in 2013, I wrote a rather lengthy post explaining the parallels between the Harper Government and fascism?

Yeah, that.

In the last week or so, the Harper Government has passed Bill C-51, which more or less turns the entire RCMP-CSIS-CSEC establishment into the PMO's private police force.  It grants the state extraordinary powers of surveillance, arrest and detention with virtually no oversight except for that of the Minister responsible for national security.  There is so much wrong with Bill C-51 and the structures it creates that I could rant about it all day.  If Harper creating a politically controlled police force doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will.

But it gets better.  Our strutting little "Dear Leader" is now threatening to go after Canadians who criticize Israel under the rubric of "hate crimes":

The government's intention was made clear in a response to inquiries from CBC News about statements by federal ministers of a "zero tolerance" approach to groups participating in a loose coalition called Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS), which was begun in 2006 at the request of Palestinian non-governmental organizations. 

Asked to explain what zero tolerance means, and what is being done to enforce it, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney replied, four days later, with a detailed list of Canada's updated hate laws, noting that Canada has one of the most comprehensive sets of such laws "anywhere in the world."

Just think about this for a moment.  Harper is essentially saying that Canadians who are vocally critical of Israel's behaviour towards its Palestinian neighbours are committing a "hate crime".   If this doesn't strike you as creating a class of political dissident similar to what China, the Soviet Union and other totalitarian states have done, you're missing the boat.

We aren't talking about criticizing the Jewish peoples here, we are talking about criticizing the State of Israel, which is a political entity on the world stage.  Criticizing its actions as a nation and a political entity is not spreading lies and calumny about a particular people, and in no reasonable world would it be treated as a "hate crime" in even the most generous sense of the term.

Harper and his gang want to walk in lock-step with Netanyahu.  Fine.  As the Prime Minister of Canada, that is his call to make.  As citizens of this country, we all share the right to disagree with that, and to take steps to voice that disagreement.  Attempting to characterize opposition as "hate crime" is yet another attempt by the Harper Government to silence its opponents.

He has already turned the CRA on environmental groups that represent an obstacle to his "big oil" agenda, now he is looking to turn the police on to any who criticize his government's foreign policy.

I will go a step further and predict that the Harper Government is going to use the tools of Bill C-51 to gather evidence without warrant, and to move any trials associated with this behind closed doors under the guise of "national security concerns".

... and just to finish up today, I will point out to the "Conservatization" of the branding of our government - in the form of allowing the London High Commission to issue blue-and-gold business cards to Embassy staff.  Canada's colours are not blue-and-gold.  There are guidelines for this long established.  What is this other than the government screwing around with the image of Canada where it thinks it can get away with it.  Yet another piece of a government dancing around the realm of fascism by attempting to brand the government in line with the political party currently in power.  

Why The "Fight Against ISIS" Is A Farce

Prime Minister Harper's current political "divert the public's attention" strategy is to beat on the war drums over ISIS.

Yes, ISIS is a brutal lot, and they are doing a lot of horrible things.  Should they be held accountable for their actions?  Absolutely.  Are the western powers the right people to "hold them accountable"?  No.  Not in the slightest.

Way back in 2002 (before I started this blog), Bush the Lesser decided to invade Iraq, turning one foolhardy war in Afghanistan into two wars.  Invading Afghanistan was foolish enough, invading Iraq was ludicrously stupid.  Both of these were essentially colonial wars of occupation.  Over a decade later, the invading forces pulled out after fighting bloody wars against insurgencies in both countries with dubious results.

Those of us old enough to remember the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, will remember the western powers pouring vast sums of money and munitions into the "Mujahideen" resistance, which ultimately gave rise to the Taliban.  Yes, the same Taliban which eventually took control of Afghanistan and gave support to the development of al Qaeda under Osama bin Laden.

Starting to see a pattern here?  Namely that factions and squabbling among quasi-militarized groups in the area are incessant, and more importantly that foreign interventions have this nasty tendency to end up creating the conditions for the next escalation.

So, returning to Bush the Lesser and Iraq, there's an important bit to consider.  Bush wandered into Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, declaring "Mission Accomplished" a year later.  The fighting in Iraq would continue for a decade after that.  However, deposing Hussein and banning the Baath party was the beginning of the problem, not the end of a problem.  You see, the United States in its usual ham-fisted manner left some half-million Iraqis wandering around loose with no money and lots of weapons.

These people became the military leadership of what is now ISIS.  That's right.  You can pretty much blame the existence of ISIS on the ham-fisted approach taken in Iraq (and to some extent Afghanistan).

So, fast forward to today, and Canada's current government is in a mad rush to get into a shooting war against ISIS.  Quite frankly, this is a ridiculous thing to do.  Even if we (the western powers) were successful in dismantling ISIS, the odds are that whatever intervention we make will create the conditions for yet another violent, paramilitary organization to arise.

The simple reality is that wars of occupation are guaranteed not to succeed in today's world.  An aerial campaign against ISIS is unlikely to be effective in the long run.  It is not terribly difficult for an organization like ISIS to disperse in ways that make aerial attack ineffective, and even if a ground war were to be undertaken, it will create the same problems that we saw in Iraq.  WWII style heavy equipment warfare simply is the wrong solution here.  This is a war that needs to be fought behind the scenes.  Dismantling ISIS cannot be done using standard military approaches.  Attempts to do so will simply result in the rise of a new rival - likely originating by whomever becomes the  local "resistance" against ISIS.

There is a role for western powers in the region, but it is not the military role that Harper has been putting forward.  Ultimately, we have to take a "hands off" approach, and allow the region as a whole to settle its own squabbles.  The current borders are the consequence of a failed exercise in nation creation as the colonial powers pulled out of the Middle East in the early 20th century.  Those borders were created to satisfy the political and economic objectives of the colonial powers, not the peoples who live there.  While we can, to some degree, provide humanitarian intervention and relief, beyond that, it is not ours to prop up states which have only limited validity in the eyes and minds of the people who live there.

Harper wishes to style himself a "War PM" to deflect attention from Canada's growing economic woes (pay no attention to the 20,000+ jobs lost since November, 2014 in Alberta).  Make no mistake, by committing Canada to an expanded role against ISIS, Harper is hoping that Canadians will forget the mess that he has made in this country.  He is hoping that Canadians will be so scared by the horrific behaviour of ISIS that we will rally behind his brand out of fear.  

_THIS_

I was never a fan of Bush II and his malicious sidekick Cheney, and even less so of their misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Yesterday's revelations of CIA Torture are crimes.  These people abused prisoners in ways that all Western powers should be horrified by, and they knew damn good and well what they were doing.

When we first starting hearing rumours of an "extraordinary rendition" program, and the wrongdoings at Abu Ghraib, I figured that there was something much, much worse going on.  Sure enough, that's what was happening.

Round up the lot of these rotten bastards and hang them out to dry.  Ship them off to the World Court in The Hague and lock in a cell while prosecutors put together a case against them.  These are crimes the magnitude of which cannot be ignored.

Canadians need to remind Stephen Harper that torture is wrong.  Not only will it produce exactly zero useful information, it is morally and ethically wrong.  For Canada to even implicitly endorse the use of torture by accepting "information gathered" through those means goes against the values of Canada as a whole.  We are better than that.

It is a shame that Harper isn't.

No. Just No.

As I had expected, the first steps in the Harper Government's overreaching reaction to this week's events in Ottawa are starting to surface.  

Introducing Harper's Thought Police:

Sources suggest the government is likely to bring in new hate speech legislation that would make it illegal to claim terrorist acts are justified online. 

The Prime Minister told the House of Commons on Thursday that Canada’s law and policing powers need to be strengthened in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest. He said work is already under way to provide law enforcement agencies with “additional tools” and that work will now be expedited. 

The dilemma faced by law enforcement agencies was highlighted by the case this week of Martin Couture-Rouleau.

Wait a second here.  First of all, the notion of "terrorism" is remarkably vague.  As has been pointed out before, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

Just consider this for a moment.  A law like this is highly subjective in its enforcement.  Speak out against the actions of an oppressive government, and you could be "condoning terrorism", or if you speak on behalf of an oppressed people, suddenly that becomes a "crime" for which you can be arrested and detained.

I want to bring to your attention section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this country:

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

So, think about this, the Harper Government wants to arbitrarily constrain this right to speak out on various topics.  The notion of what constitutes "terrorism" is subject to the momentary views of the government.  In this government's case, I imagine that speaking out on behalf of the Palestinian peoples would be considered "terrorism", as would criticizing the invasion of Iraq.

Unless these measure have incredibly precise definitions associated with them, it is not going to be much of a leap for these laws to make an entire class of political prisoners in this country - people who just happen to view things differently from the official views of our politicians.

Yes, I said that - political prisoners - for that is what this government is creating.  For those of us who remember the Cold War era, in Russia, such people were called "dissidents" and imprisoned; and China has quite a collection of "ideological prisoners" as well.  Such honourable company to be keeping as a nation.

The Closer You Look ...

The closer one looks at the ISIS thing, the more it starts looking like a sectarian war in the Middle East.  Yesterday in the Globe and Mail, Robert Fowler very nicely articulated the problem with short term solutions to the mess in Iraq, and today I spotted a really interesting read describing some of the reasons behind the apparent lack of response from several Arab states, in particular Saudi Arabia.

As is typical of these situations in the region, it is starting to become apparent that for all of its bloodiness, ISIS is simply another sectarian feud spilling out into the open.  Saudi Arabia is divided at the top because some people see ISIS as a challenge to Iran's Shiite beliefs and aggression and therefore a "good thing".

Suddenly, western powers are in the awkward place of having to somehow justify going after ISIS in Syria when they have all turned their backs on the Assad regime there.  (which is nominally secular(ish))

Yes, the beheadings are grisly and vile acts.  Yes, we know that radicals are now recruiting from around the world - using tactics and techniques which are neither particularly new or innovative - they are more or less the standard tactics of recruitment used by extremist religious leaders for decades if not centuries.

Is ISIS really any different than the Taliban in Afghanistan in the late 90s?  Or al Qaeda during the early 2000s?  Not particularly.  They are enacting more or less a variation on the usual quasi-tribal violence that has wracked the region for decades and longer.

While Harper is all hot to trot to drag Canada into a moral war to stop ISIS, he and his followers are missing the fundamental point.  This is a sectarian war in a region where we have no political capital left.  The western powers, all of them, have had too much to do with supporting heinous regimes over the last hundred years; and a set of borders which have little to do with the political and social realities of the region.

In 2000 years of assorted interventions in these countries, there is but one lesson for foreign powers:  Direct intervention is doomed to fail.  The Roman occupation of the Arab lands was a gong show from the start, and every intervention since has ultimately failed at the cost of much treasure and more innocent lives.  To claim that intervening against ISIS is going to turn out any differently is to ignore not only the lessons of the past, but worse to repeat its mistakes.

It is this writer's opinion that while the western powers can intervene legitimately in the realms of politics and humanitarian aid, the powers of the region must work through whatever sectarian differences they may have and develop their borders and governments accordingly.  We may not like what we see happening, but our political capital has been spent there for a long time, at least back to the withdrawal of the colonial powers if not longer.

For those who feel there is a "moral imperative" to intervene, there are interventions which will make a difference, but none of them involve bombs, guns or tanks.

So, We're Going To War...

It comes as no surprise that Harper is all hot and bothered about jumping into the quagmire that is the Middle East.  He wanted to commit Canada to invading Iraq back when Shrub and his gang of morons were gearing up to invade in 2003.

Canadians should be more than a little skeptical of the motives involved here.  Harper has been itching for an open war for some time, and whether it is in the Middle East or Ukraine doesn't really matter to him.  The goal is a shooting war.  Something he can use for maximum photo-op glamorization of himself.

With his party tanking in the polls at home, he's looking for an adversary that he can demonize and make as scary as possible.  Conservative governments seem to feed on fear, and Harper is no exception to this.  An adversary like ISIS is ideal from a propaganda point of view.  They are obviously well armed, very well funded and violent.  Harper can, and no doubt will, create all kinds of false bogeymen related to ISIS.  Expect to hear lots of "terrorist plot foiled" headlines in the coming months.  ISIS is the new al Qaeda.

Harper's personal popularity has been tanking as the public finally takes note of a legislative agenda that is at odds with the day to day values of Canadians, a series of corruption scandals involving star senate appointees, and continued efforts to discredit the entirety of our institutions of government so that he can justify consolidating more and more power in his own hands.

There is much speculation about when the next election will be held.  Harper's "fixed election dates law" says Oct 19, 2015; but there are many other scenarios.  Harper could call a snap election this winter, hoping that his core voters will come out and vote while others stay at home warming themselves in front of the fire.

Or he could hang on into 2016 when this parliament expires under the constitution.  At that point in time, he could try appealing to the house for an extension.  In which case, expect the propaganda around ISIS and terrorism in general to ramp up dramatically over the next months as Harper tries to whip things into a frenzy of fear.

The last probability is for Harper to step aside in the Spring of next year, and have the CPC go through a leadership race during the summer months, and ride that into a fall election, with a "renewed" CPC headed up by the likes of Jason Kenney.

Either way, I suspect strongly that Harper's desire to jump into war in the Middle East has more to do with the upcoming election.  If he has to put Canada's military men and women in harm's way, that doesn't bother him one little bit.  It's just one more photo-op.

No, It's Not "Short Sighted"

I've seen stories popping up recently where Justin Trudeau is being criticized for refusing to engage with Sun Media.  

The issue is that Sun Media has allowed people like Levant to run amok.  Of course, they're going to play the taunting card.  What Levant's tirade demonstrated was that Sun Media is acting as a mouth organ for the PMO.  

From the Liberal party's perspective, why would they engage with a group who is so obviously biased, and will no doubt take anything that Trudeau says before their cameras and splice it into something entirely different?  

If Sun Media wants Canadians to believe that they are a legitimate media source, they need to take a step back, and rein in the extremists that they are putting in front of the camera.  At this point in time, that may well include insisting that Ezra Levant issue a full, public apology ... on air.   Otherwise, Canadians, and Trudeau's family in particular, are quite justified in assuming that Sun Media is nothing more than a propaganda organ for Stephen Harper and Conservative Party.

Canadians deserve better from our news media than Ezra Levant's childish tirades.

Institutional Racism In Conservative Ideology

This post has been evolving for quite a long time.  However, in the last few days, a series of pieces have been published which bring together several threads of thought that I have been exploring for the last several years.  

There has long been a degree of bigotry and racism underlying modern day conservative ideologies.  At a glance, it appears to have its roots in the politics of religious literalism and the desire for simple, black-and-white explanations of the world in which we live.  My thinking on this matter has clarified enormously in the last few days.

The first part of this was a very thoughtful analysis published in the Toronto Star:  "The Ideological Roots of Stephen Harper's Vendetta Against Sociology".

Harper’s two disparaging comments about sociology, however, also need to be understood alongside his gutting of the long-form census in 2010. It is widely accepted that this action fundamentally undermined Canada’s ability to understand its own demographics, long-term social trends, and inequalities — in short, its sociology.

So what does Harper have against sociology? First, Harper is clearly trumpeting a standard component of neo-liberal ideology: that there are no social phenomena, only individual incidents. (This ideology traces back to Margaret Thatcher’s famous claim that “there is no such thing as society.”) Neo-liberalism paints all social problems as individual problems. The benefit of this for those who share Harper’s agenda, of course, is that if there are no social problems or solutions, then there is little need for government. Individuals are solely responsible for the problems they face.

If this isn't chilling to you, it certainly should be, because it is a concise explanation of the apparent blindness of the Harper government to the consequences of decisions such as cancelling the long form census and other tools which can be used to inform government policy.

The second and third pieces of this story were published in the Calgary Sun today.  The first being Lorne Gunter's column:  Aboriginal Leaders: Canada's Shame in its Relations With First Nations.

Aboriginal leaders claim the Harper government's decision highlights Canada's "shame" in its relations with First Peoples. They believe it is proof of widespread racism and sexism in the government and in the broader Canadian society as a whole. 

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says the Harper government is "out of touch" and "on the wrong side of history." 

The United Nations - that paragon of sanctimony, hypocrisy and inaction on real human rights abuses around the world - has chimed in. 

And even the country's police chiefs have insisted something must be done. 

So does all this support mean an inquiry really would be a good idea? 

No, it is simply another example of how much our nation's elites (police chiefs included) are seized by political correctness.

It's true that aboriginal women and girls are killed or disappear with greater frequency than non-aboriginal women - nearly three times as much. But the "why" is not as much of a mystery as our chattering classes would have us believe.

Most murdered or disappeared aboriginal women are not the victims of some vast conservative conspiracy or of white racism. They are the victims of the men in their lives.

Most killed or abused aboriginal women are killed or abused by aboriginal men - not callous white cops or violent white johns.

Wait a minute.  Nobody in their right mind is going to believe that a public inquiry is going to identify the guilty culprits.  That isn't the purpose of an inquiry.  The purpose of such an inquiry is to ask much bigger questions.  Questions such as whether the conditions on reservations contribute to domestic violence, and how a man like Picton managed to operate for multiple years, or why aboriginal people are grossly over-represented in Canada's prisons.

Of course, if you take a simplistic, black-and-white view of the world, any murder boils down to "catch the offender and punish them".  Simple, easy and horrendously misguided.   If you don't ask the big picture questions about these situations, you will never fully understand what is going on.  In fact, one is left very much in the dark, with the rather ridiculous assumption that bad people do bad things and that's all there is to it.

Anyone with even a little bit of grounding in reality and common sense will have long ago realized that people respond individual to their circumstances, and collectively to their environment.  Sociology is the study of societies and their behaviours.  The systems within a societal context will influence the individuals living in it.

In Canada, we have over two centuries of relations with the First Nations.  There are enormous problems with these relations, and much of it goes to the differences in what the First Nations understand the treaties to mean and how the Indian Act enacts those same treaties.  I know there are a plethora of other issues to be considered as well, but at its core, the Indian Act is a profoundly flawed piece of legislation which assumes the "superiority" of Colonial-era British society relative to the First Nations and very much embodies a series of structures that to modern eyes arguably impose a degree of structural and system racism which acts against our First Nations.

The overly simplistic rubric of the Harper Government blinds it to these issues.

The second item was a column by Michael Coren:  In The Wake of Tragedy a Sobering Reality

As a Catholic I can tell you with absolute certainty that if countless horrors had been committed by Catholics in the name of Catholicism, I and legions of my co-religionists would protest. I know the same would be true of most other religions and cultures.

Coren's claim that he would protest if countless horrors had been committed in the name of Catholicism is of course completely undermined by his own past utterances on a wide range of matters, not to mention his relative silence with regards to the sex abuse scandal that has plagued his Church for decades now.

But, we are told, these repeated beheadings and murders have nothing to do with most law-abiding, civilized Muslims. Perhaps so, but then it could be argued that neither does a book by Salman Rushdie or a drawing by a Danish cartoonist but that hasn’t stopped endless demonstrations and threats. 

Then there is the reality of the Islamic response. While I am sure that most Muslims are appalled by what happened to James Foley, even a cursory glance at social media reveals thousands of comments defending and justifying what happened, by Muslims on every continent. It might be comforting to believe that Islamist violence and bloodlust is a fringe psychosis, but every survey and all of the anecdotal evidence indicates that a sizeable minority of Muslims support it, an even greater number feel it is in some obscure way justified, and more still refuse to condemn it.

Funny how Coren can see this so clearly in the Muslim faith, and is so quick to call it out while turning a blind eye to the centuries of misdeeds done in the name of Catholicism.

While Coren may well be his own special brand of crazy, his blindness to the systemic racism and bigotry of his position is no different than that of Harper.  The simple, harsh reality is that the ideology they all subscribe to blinds them to the systemic problems they are creating and the very problems which aggravate already awful situations.

The minute you take a position that there "is no such thing as society", it becomes easy to wash one's hands of collective responsibility.  Perhaps the even greater irony of that is that same flight from collective responsibility makes it easier to label entire groups as "other" and criticize them for not meeting whatever arbitrary standard you may set.

I am quite certain that if you were to confront Harper, Gunter or Coren with the implicit bigotry of their positions, they would deny it.  Their very ideological constructs are so limited in their understanding of large, complex systems like societies that they cannot comprehend the idea that their positions foster othering and judgments on incomplete information.

A stage is not only set upon which racism and ethnic bigotry can flourish.  In Harper's Canada, it is not only growing and flourishing, but the flames of ire are being fanned by it.  I can only hope that we are able to replace our current government with one whose perspective encompasses a much broader view of what Canada is, and what it can become.

Harper's Gambit

With his numbers sinking in the most recent polls, Harper appears to be moving to bring out his rear guard actions to sustain his grip on power.

There are several pieces to this discussion:

(1)  Foreign Affairs

Between fomenting a shooting war with Russia in the Ukraine,  a stance on Israel that's about as nuanced as an angry rhinoceros, and taking explicit sides in the ongoing collapse of Iraq and Syria, anyone would think that Harper was trying to drag Canada into a war.

Make no mistake about it, that is one of the cards that Harper wants in his hands.  There are two primary reasons for this:

a.  He thinks he can use it as a weapon against Justin Trudeau.  Play the "tough war president" routine, and try to portray his opponents as "weak" and "ineffectual" on such matters.

b.  If Canada is engaged in a shooting war, he can try to invoke the little clause in the constitution that allows for the extension of Parliament beyond 5 years.  (This would be unprecedented, but I don't put it past PMSH to try if he thinks his grip on power is in danger)

(2)  Escalating Attacks On Trudeau

Harper's war on Trudeau is once again escalating, with Harper attempting to use the government's health agency as part of his propaganda campaign, and of course ratcheting up the rhetoric against Trudeau in their flyers (which taxpayers pay for).

This is hardly surprising, given that October 2015 is when Harper's "Fixed Election Dates" law says there should be an election held, and nothing that the PMO has thrown at Trudeau has stuck.  The boys in the short pants are no doubt starting to panic about the ongoing slump of CPC support in the polls.

Frankly, this one is almost secondary.  For all intents and purposes, Harper can keep going until sometime in 2016 under Canada's existing constitution.  Expect to see Elections Canada spend millions of dollars setting up polling stations for an election that hasn't been called in fall 2015.

(3)  Expanding Propaganda Campaign

The Harper Government has been nothing if not relentless in its use of government resources to spew propaganda.  From the billions spent on "Economic Action Plan" ads, to the more recent (and blatant) attempt to try and turn Health Canada communications into anti-pot propaganda,  and the hyping of military nationalism in the promotion of "celebrations" for 1812, Harper has used just about every trick in the book to try and twist and buffalo Canadians into looking at the world through the narrow little lens that he wants us to.

(4)  The "Fair Elections Act"

We still don't know just how far this one is going to go in changing the balance in the electoral system.  There are enormous parts of that bill which got railroaded through which seriously compromise the ability of Canadians to exercise their right to vote, and to enable further shenanigans next election that will make the Robocalls conviction of Michael Sona look like small potatoes.

I have no doubt that Harper will do everything he can to hang on to power.  If he thinks he can steal the next election, he will do that in preference to the other alternatives, but there is nothing stopping him from delaying the next election well into 2016, if not beyond that.  

Harper Tries To Foment A Crisis

Harper has taken a surprising number of losing cases to the Supreme Court of Canada.  Most, if not all, were obviously places where the government's position is one that is in direct contradiction with the Constitution of Canada.  Even a relative neophyte in Constitutional law in Canada can spot that, whether it is Harper's desire to "reform" the Senate or the government's daft position on prostitution.  

Now we have the CPC caucus starting to trot out the "undemocratic" talking points.

Dan Albas, the MP for Okanagan-Coquihalla, says that while he respects the courts he also believes an increasing number of groups are using litigation to advance policies the government will not put forward. 

"Often the Plan B is to do an end-run around our democratic process and turn to the courts where it seems some judges are quite happy to engage. This can result in decisions contrary to what have been decided in our democratic process," Albas told CBC Radio's The House.

Let's see ... the government is unwilling to engage with the issues that various groups are raising (presumably on ideological grounds, given the pattern of the Harper Government), so they take it to the courts.

First of all, that means that these groups are raising issues which are not just minor problems, but in fact have a legal basis where the current policy or laws are in fact inconsistent with the fundamental principles of Canada's legal system and laws.

Second, if the government is unwilling to engage on these issues, they leave the public with little other option but to force the matter by pursuing justice in the courts.

"Basically what you're having is a judge can overturn and then cost the taxpayer a lot of money without any accountability or representation on their behalf," Albas said. 

... 

The British Columbia MP said it's important to ask whether there is the right balance between the executive branch and the judicial branch to make sure every Canadian is well-represented. 

"If citizens through the democratic process are unable to make policy decisions because of unelected judges and well-financed interest groups, I submit we collectively lose," Albas said.

Well, we already know that Harper views the Constitution of this country as an impediment to his goals.  It stands to reason that he is also going to see the judiciary and any other branch of government that would dare challenge his wisdom as a bad thing too.

The Conservatives are basically taking the stance that as the governing party, they have a right to decide what issues they are going to address and when.  This is true ... to a point.  However, the courts can declare a given law or policy as illegal / unconstitutional on a variety of grounds when a case is put before them.

This is not "undemocratic" in the least.  In fact it is one of the cornerstones of a healthy democracy.  There are checks and balances in place which curb the power of the "democratic majority" (which I will point out in the last election was effectively just over 20% of the eligible voters) to run amok.

The point of an independent judiciary whose sole job it is to study and interpret the law of Canada is to ensure that the legislative and executive branches of our government cannot arbitrarily abuse the rights of citizens.  Make no mistake about it, what Harper proposed doing with the Senate abused your rights every bit as much as some of his laws.  By attempting to undermine the amending formula, he was effectively trying to set a precedent that the executive branch could propose and enact radical changes to the foundation of this country's laws without engaging with the provinces - thereby negating your democratic voice at not one level of government but two levels of government.

The judiciary in Canada isn't being "undemocratic" at all.  It is the Harper Government which is being undemocratic, and attempting to impose the tyranny of their followers on all Canadians without being held accountable.

Reference Cases Are Not The Problem

Over at iPolitics, James Matkin and Clive Cocking are busy moaning about how the Supreme Court "kills innovative legislation" in the form of "reference cases".

The basic thesis of their argument is that we need to take away from the Supreme Court of Canada the ability to hear "reference cases".  A reference case is fundamentally a hypothetical case - a "what if we wrote legislation like this" test.  For most Canadians, the most recent "Reference Case" was Harper's "Senate Reform" gambit, which got smacked around for violating various aspects of the division of powers in the Constitution.

Matkin and Cocking complain that these reference cases effectively drag the Supreme Court into the political discourse where it has no business being.

I respectfully disagree with their analysis of the situation.  The problem is not reference cases at all, but rather the manner in which the current government has approached the matter.

Since 1875 the federal government has dumped an astounding 75 reference cases into the lap of the court. Many of them have involved the thorniest of political issues, such as Quebec secession or Senate reform.

Quite frankly, if in 139 years, we have put 75 cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, that's not exactly a huge amount.  Thats one every couple of years, roughly, and for the most part, those have been legitimate cases of the government's lawmakers asking very real questions about the legitimacy of a given legislative approach to a problem under this country's Constitution.

On the whole, it has been quite useful when one examines it as a tool to help lawmakers (who are seldom experienced members of the judiciary) to consider the implications of legislation they are considering, or for that matter the more subtle aspects of constitutional law (as the 1998 Quebec Secession reference addressed).  Given the speed with which the court system moves as a whole, there is much to be said in favour of a reference case being heard - not the least of which is to serve as a baseline for guidance as to how a court would look upon a particular issue in the future.  While these are definitely theoretical moments, it takes years (and millions of dollars) to litigate an issue to the Supreme Court to have it overturned on charter or constitutional grounds.   When it is something which could have been avoided by simply asking the obvious questions up front, it saves all involved an enormous amount of grief (and money).

Citing Harper's Senate reference as an example, Matkin and Cocking seem to believe that Harper should have just legislated as he wished and then have the whole mess before the Supreme Court.  One doesn't have to be a Constitutional scholar to realize that Harper's entire approach to the Senate violated multiple articles of Canada's Constitution.  Since Harper has shown repeatedly that he has no interest in writing laws which respect Canada's constitution, one could arguably say that the reference case saved Canada millions in litigating the matter.

Harper has tried to use this to claim that Senate reform is "impossible".  Of course, what Harper is really saying is that he is unwilling to engage with the provinces to make the amendments needed to achieve his vision of a reformed Senate in Canada.  Since 2006, Harper has not once met with all the provincial Premiers.

Justice Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court rightly described such advisory opinions as “ghosts that slay”, particularly innovative legislation. Our Parliament has repeatedly used this legal device to dodge its duty to act on tough issues. One of the most craven examples was the federal government’s 2011 decision to let legislation creating a national securities regulator die stillborn in the face of a negative Supreme Court reference opinion – when three sections of the constitution give Parliament adequate trade and commerce powers to enact such legislation.

Oh ... it kills "innovative legislation"?  No more than writing that legislation and having it struck down as a result of subsequent litigation.  Again, the example that the authors cite is another case where Harper and his government would have to engage with the provinces directly in order to develop an acceptable model.  Harper refuses to engage with anyone outside his inner circle in the PMO, and he is incapable of developing any kind of meaningful compromise.

The problem is not reference cases, nor is it the politicization of the Supreme Court that they argue arises from such cases.  The problem is a government which has no respect for the Constitution of Canada and a Prime Minister who is unwilling to actually engage with the provinces.  Harper is the problem, not the reference cases.

How Harper Wastes Your Tax Dollars

Harper likes to style his government as a "firm, steady hand on the tiller", especially on matters of the economy.

But the man is so blinded by his hatred for our country's laws and the foundational principles of the Canadian Constitution and The Charter of Rights And Freedoms that he simply writes legislation that is based solely on his ideology.

The net result:  unjust laws that are in fact illegal under Canada's Constitution, and millions of dollars spent trying to sustain those laws before the courts of the land.

June 2014: Supreme Court upholds privacy rights
April 2014: Feds can't go it alone on Senate reform
April 2014: Judges have discretion on sentencing
March 2014: Medical marijuana users win injunction
March 2014: Early parole abolition repealed
March 2014: Marc Nadon rejected by Supreme Court
December 2013: Court strikes down prostitution laws
November 2013: No mandatory minimums for guns
September 2011: Supervised injection clinic remains open

... and those are just the cases the court has ruled on.  There is more before the court, and more challenges yet to come based on legislation that this government has rammed through.  Including the "Fair Elections Act", "The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act", and the "Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act" for starters.  

There's more, including a "cyberbullying bill" that is really just a trojan horse for widespread surveillance without warrant, and a litany of evilness that has been rammed through as part of "budget omnibus bills" which should never have been given the time of day.

Fiscal prudence?  Hah!  

This is government by ideology.  Harper views the Constitution of this country as an impediment, not as a framework.  

Harper's War On The Middle Class

Continues apace.

A shortage of skilled workers is the biggest challenge many Canadian businesses face today, Employment Minister Jason Kenney told a skills summit Wednesday, warning it could also jeopardize Canada's economic development in the future. 

The problem would continue to grow as the population ages, Kenney told the one-day conference, which brought together stakeholders to discuss the labour market, employee training and those under-represented in the labour force. 

Currently 30 per cent of the skilled trade workers in Canada are baby boomers, Kenney said, adding that they will soon retire. 

"They are going to take with them a lifetime of knowledge and skill," he said. 

It's necessary that an "informed national discussion" take place about the condition of Canada's labour market, in order to address future skills gaps, Kenney said. 

"We can acknowledge that we have inadequate labour market information and we need to do a fundamentally better job of getting granular information by region and industry," he said.

Coming from a minister of the government that has dismantled the ability of Statistics Canada to even perform an accurate, useful census of Canadians, that's almost funny - if it wasn't so tragic.

Of course, the Harper Conservatives don't like university educated people as a whole.  There's a reason for this:  people with a liberal arts based education don't typically vote conservative.  So, they've been quietly rejigging the funding for federal research grants (which are an important part of university funding) for several years.

Adjusted for inflation, granting council funding has been in serious decline since 2007-08. Funding for SSHRC has fallen by over 10 per cent in real dollars, while core support for NSERC and CIHR are down 6.4 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively. Support for the indirect costs of research has declined by 7.9 per cent. Overall federal support for the granting councils is down 7.5 per cent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2007-08. 

There's more.  Not only has the government been quietly reducing the amount of funding it makes available for basic research, they have been changing NSERC's focus to "applied research":

"Collaboration between government, applied researchers and the private sector is vital to building an innovative economy," said Minister Goodyear. "The College and Community Innovation Program supports research collaborations between companies and colleges. It illustrates the importance our government places on creating the conditions for innovation and entrepreneurship to thrive in this country."

What does this have to do with Harper's war on Canada's middle class?  A lot.

First of all, it has fundamentally undermined the core of the concept of University.  If you are taking a degree in disciplines like Engineering, Business or Law, it's great.  You're seeing money poured into your department hand over fist.  If you're interests are in other areas - the social sciences, the liberal arts, not so much.  In fact, the government has been actively discouraging research in these areas and enrolment in those fields of study.  Want to study something that is "politically sensitive" (like gender and sexuality issues for example)? Good luck getting funding.  It isn't going to happen.

The consequence?  First of all, when you hollow out the liberal arts programs, you effectively turn the university into a technical college.  It might be one with the right to confer degrees, but I can guarantee you that the people coming out of those programs are not the well rounded thinkers that should be coming out of universities.  

This suits Harper quite nicely.  He and his "base" have long been critical of "intellectual elites" (you know conservaspeak for people who think about things rather than simply accepting the sound bite du jour).  So turning universities into institutions which turn out highly focused specialists in various domains suits them just fine.  If you don't think too much about any one part of his government, he doesn't seem too bad.  Start to analyze his government in more detail, and the picture rapidly becomes quite horrifying.

Further, by limiting funding to universities, Harper has made the cost of attending so excessive that only the wealthy can really afford it.  So much the better, it reduces the number of people who are likely to be critical of his government (or his ideological successors' governments).

But this is only one facet of Harper's war on Canada's middle class.  Through a series of other actions - mostly by policy fiat - Harper has gone after Canadians even more blatantly.

Front and centre in this has been the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).  This has been used as a tool to undermine the balance of the Canadian labour economy.  Especially since the government started allowing all and sundry to come in under this program.  Historically, the TFWP existed quite explicitly for importing people with skillsets that are unique, rare and virtually impossible to find locally.  Generally, that meant only a relative handful of specialists came into Canada in any given year, certainly not enough to impact the local labour market.  Then the government started to open it up to general labour.  

Run a restaurant?  Having difficulty "finding qualified help"?  Oh, well now you can solve this problem by bringing in a bunch of labour from another country.  The effect?  Employers could suddenly refuse to pay reasonable wages in areas where there is a labour shortage.  (after all, if you lived in the Phillipines for example, how are you going to know that Calgary's cost of living is high and labour market is tight?)  Further, a foreign worker won't know their rights as a worker in Canada, much less are they going to be willing to "rock the boat" when their employer effectively holds the keys to their continued residence in Canada (especially important if they are considering moving to Canada permanently).  

Although the government has recently announced changes to the program, the damage to Canada's labour market has been done.  Many traditional entry level jobs are no longer available to Canadian youth.  There are many stories out there of youth applying at the local Tim Horton's or other fast food restaurant and being told that they are "overqualified".  Another friend of mine who is a plumber's apprentice has been finding job postings for "entry level" positions demanding 3+ years of experience.  This is a posting which is obviously aimed at a TFW coming into Canada who is looking to get into the same trade in Canada that they were doing previously.  

Businesses are running about wringing their hands about the changes to the TFWP.  Oh goodness, how will they keep their doors open?  Well, the short answer is by offering reasonable wages and working conditions that are somewhat better than slavery.  

Regardless, Harper is working his ass off to create an economic environment where the oligarchy has all the marbles.  (a $600bn "dead money" fund lying around - now tell me why these businesses cannot pay a reasonable wage?)  Make no mistake, there is an active war on Canada's middle class and Harper's government is spearheading it.

An All Out Assault

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.