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.

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. 

Decision Making and Pregnancy

Think that the Harper Government doesn't have an anti-woman agenda?  Think again.

From LifeSite:

Conservative MP Kyle Seeback openly admits that he was once “fairly comfortable” with the viewpoint that a pregnant woman should have the option to abort in the case of rape. He also says that even though he saw abortion as okay for rape and incest, he still thought of himself as “pro-life.” 

But all that changed one day when Seeback was invited by Campaign Life Coalition in 2006 to attend a talk by Rebecca Kiessling, a woman who was conceived in rape and adamantly defends the right to life for everyone conceived in rape. 

“It just resonated with me right away. I kept thinking: ‘Why would someone get to choose that she would not have a life.’ It didn’t make sense to me,” the MP from Brampton West told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview during Campaign Life Coalition’s National Pro-Life Conference in Toronto earlier this month.

What gets me about this position is that it presumes that once pregnant, a woman is incapable of reasonable, intelligent agency with respect to being pregnant.  More or less, the moment that you are pregnant, the so-called "Pro-Life" crowd seems to think that you have no further ability to be an intelligent agent and act in your own best interests, or to consider the best interests of the fetus developing in your body.

Prime Ministerially Sanctioned Lies

With Prime Minister Harper doggedly defending Bev Oda's lying to Canadians by trying to deflect the KAIROS issue as a matter of ministerial privilege, we might want to take a look at what it says about this government.

First of all, let me be abundantly clear - the issue is not the minister's decision with respect to KAIROS. That may be one of the more thick-headed decisions from the HarperCon$, but it's far from a the root of this issue. I might want the government to be more transparent about why it axed the funding beyond simply refusing it considering that CEDA's recommendation was so clear, but the minister absolutely has the right to make that final call.

The issue is that Bev Oda has repeatedly changed her story about the penned in "Not" in the document we've all seen. One day she knows nothing about it, another day she admits that it was added on her instructions. In any world I'm familiar with that makes one of the two statements an outright lie. In a parliamentary democracy, lying to parliament, whether in the House of Commons or one of its committees, is lying to the Canadian public.

Along comes the Prime Minister trying to bludgeon the opposition by claiming ministerial privilege to make a decision. Hmmm...a convenient attempt at deflection which I think deserves some additional consideration here. The political head of government is now essentially endorsing lying to the Canadian people - and not even a lie that they haven't been caught out in, but a blatant lie that has been exposed for what it is.

Cynically, one might look and say that all politicians lie, what's the big deal? True enough, except that I think there's more here than just the lie itself. We have a minister who would have been compelled to resign long ago by other Prime Ministers - generally speaking getting caught in a blatant lie is pretty fatal to one's cabinet post.

But, let's think back a bit to another member of Harper's Cabinet whose career has hit a brick wall. Remember Diane Ablonczy? Yeah - she was the Minister of State who had the gumption to provide funding to Toronto's Gay Pride celebrations and was promptly muzzled and demoted for offending "The Base". (Anyone else noticed that her profile since has been positively subterranean when it comes to announcements and the like?)

What's the difference here? Ablonczy did something that damaged the HarperCon$ credentials with the wingnut base that has been supporting them in hopes of getting some or all of their Theocracy dreams realized. Bev Oda didn't. In fact, what she did no doubt enhanced Harper's credibility with "The Base" since KAIROS is mostly run by the moderate church organizations - you know the same ones who aren't up arms over GLBT rights.

What we have here is a Prime Minister defending a minister who LIED to Canada's people because her actions support the unstated goals of Harper and his backers who desperately want a majority in Parliament. The fact that Harper is so clearly NOT bothered by his ministers lying to Canadians should terrify all of us, because it calls into question the veracity of every statement or promise that he's ever made.

Putting Harper's "Piano Concert" In Perspective

Let's put Mr. Harper's little performance into perspective, shall we?



H/T: Sabina @ Hollow Hill

Harper's Politics of Division

It's always the same with the Con$ - it's "either we get a majority or the opposition will form a coalition"; "if an election is called, law reform bills will die"; call an election, and you won't get your renovation tax credit ... and on it goes.

And this whole charade underscores the problem with the Harper government in the first place. It's all about sowing division, not finding compromise. It's about absolutism, not practical government.

Harper's recent speech in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario underscores that again. Harper's salivating over the concept of a majority. Why? Because Harper has demonstrated repeatedly that he can't deal with a minority situation. This is the Prime Minister who has prorogued parliament twice when the heat got to be too much, and called a snap election last fall because he thought he could winkle a majority out of it.

The man is positively slavering over political power - and it would not be a "benign dictatorship" - Harper has shown us repeatedly that he kowtows to the extremist base in the Reform ranks of his party. Canadians should not think for a minute that Harper would do anything other than legislate a Neo/TheoCon agenda as quickly as possible.

As the Bush experience in the US has shown, that would be disastrous for Canadian citizens. Human rights would be replaced by a near police-state kind of autocracy. "Law and Order" based on fear would replace due process. Ideology would reign over law.

That Slithering Sound You Hear

...is coming from Harper's base which is now demanding that he unveil - and railroad through parliament - the entire radical conservative agenda...before the next election.

Ordinarily, I ignore the swill produced by the National Post, but when the wingnut "news" sites start linking to them (republishing it, actually), then it's time to look a little closer.

Call for Canada's Tories to drop incrementalism

Gerry Nicholls is only marginally more sane than Barbara Kay, but there's some things about what he has to say that Canadians should take note of.

Realistically speaking the Conservatives will be able to effectively govern this country for perhaps one more year. After that a revitalized Liberal party led by a shiny new leader, whose name isn't Stephane Dion, will start to gum up the government's Parliamentary agenda

I love this term "govern effectively" - like so many things that come out of right wingnuttia, it's a meaningless phrase. What it really means is that the HarperCon$ know that they have a limited shelf life before the opposition can force them to either negotiate or trigger an election. The fact is that the current batch of Conservatives have fundamentally isolated themselves in the political landscape. They have no "natural ally" party sitting in the house that they can readily persuade to back them up in a pinch, and in the broader picture of Canadian politics, they have been unable to expand their base of support.

This strategy is usually referred to as "incrementalism." The chief proponent of incrementalism is former Conservative campaign manager Tom Flanagan and it's essentially based on the idea that the Canadian public doesn't really like conservative ideas or conservative polices.

Now, let's consider this for a moment. Flanagan is not stupid. He's a lot of other things, but he's not stupid. If he thinks Canadians will collectively choke on the actual vision that the HarperCon$ have for Canada, then there's a good chance that there's enough ugliness in that vision that Canadians won't like it. In that vein, Canadians should ask themselves just what the HarperCon$ want to do that is so distasteful that the Con$ don't dare let us hear about it directly?

Who knows, maybe if he implemented a true conservative agenda, Prime Minister Harper might even win his coveted majority government in the next election. Then again, maybe he won't. But at least he would have accomplished something while in power.

Notice the "doggy whistle" phrase aimed at the "base". Just what does a "true conservative agenda" mean here? I can guess, and the fact that the HarperCon$ haven't been open in their vision for Canada and Canadians, I'd suggest it isn't something most Canadians would willingly vote for. Instead, they have chosen a path of stealth policy, and quietly not admitting that there is an agenda and vision.

Last election Harper didn't talk at all about what he would do if a Con$ervative government were elected. Think on it - he's either out of ideas, or what he wants to do is fundamentally offensive to a majority of Canadians.

That the National Post is now publishing columns calling for Harper to 'get aggressive' about it is telling as well.

Harper Apologizes?

Sort of...they edited the offending website, but it's not like the Con$ have had the grace or brains to shut the website down.

No, instead, they continue to play from the Karl Rove "lie, smear and distort as long as possible" playbook. In short, the Con$ continue to demonstrate that not only are they utterly classless, but that they have no meaningful platform - they ran out of script 18 months ago, and the script that's left is the one that Big Daddy doesn't want to admit exists.

It's the script embodied by bill C-484, the cutbacks to the very programs that benefit women and minorities, and recent attacks on the arts. All done with the cheering of C. McVety and the "social conservative" set (more accurately the Regressive Conservatives).