Be very afraid: Stephen Harper is inventing a new Canada
gerald caplan
Globe and Mail Update
Published Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 6:09PM EST
Last updated Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 6:22PM EST
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Increase text size Stephen Harper first became Prime Minister in 2006 and has already dramatically transformed the old Canada. But with no election due for four more years, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
It’s in the nature of true believers and ideologues to believe that any means to their sacred ends are justified. This makes them extremely dangerous people. It’s also typical of such people that they’re often motivated by unfathomable resentment and anger, a compulsion not just to better but to destroy their adversaries. These are good descriptions of Stephen Harper and those closest to him.
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Justin Trudeau admits losing his cool There was never a Trudeauland or Mulroneyland or Chrétienland, but as The Globe’s Lawrence Martin has made us understand, there is already a Harperland whose nature is quite apparent. Like the American conservatives whom the Harperites so envy, our government has concocted a new reality of its own that it is systematically imposing on the Canadian people. The values and moral code of Mr. Harper’s new Canada are clear.
A central tenet of the new reality is the repudiation of the need for anything as irrelevant as evidence, facts or rationality whenever they are inconvenient. As in cancelling the long-form census, without a shred of reason. As when Injustice Minister Nicholson defends his back-to-the-jungle crime bills by reminding us of a Harperland article of faith: “We don’t govern on the basis of statistics.” Or, as we now know, on the basis of the findings of serious experts both in and out of the government.
Jason Kenney can stand as a past master at inventing evidence to serve his unfailingly partisan needs. This is a man, after all, who has shamelessly claimed a dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in Canada contrary to all the facts. Just days ago, Mr. Kenney employed gratuitously inflammatory language when he created a crisis over a handful of women who wear a veil, and who are of course Muslim.
But lying is the very mother’s milk of Harperland morality. When you invent your own reality, you can also invent your defence. Just follow the distinguished careers of ministers Peter MacKay, Peter Kent and Tony Clement. Old joke: How do you know when certain politicians are lying? Their lips are moving.
In Harperland, hitting below the belt is standard equipment, as the dirty tricks used against Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler nicely demonstrate. Straightforward dishonesty as in the Cotler caper is just the Conservative version of free expression, as Government House Leader Van Loan earnestly explained. When the Speaker of the House brands the tactic as “reprehensible,” you know we’re no longer in Kansas, kids.
On the complex aboriginal file, Harperland blames the victims for their own wretched circumstances and blames local NDP MP Charlie Angus for not cluing in the clueless Aboriginal Affairs Minister. The minister’s assertion that the chief of Attawapiskat had accepted the government’s imposition of a ludicrously expensive third-party manager was, of course, immediately contradicted.
Harperland values demand fundamental changes in our governance processes – the outright attacks on trade unions, the unprecedented measures taken to silence critical NGOs, the muzzling of ostensibly independent federal watchdogs.
But the new values also reverse decades of cherished Canadian policies. Look at the contempt the Prime Minister shows for the United Nations, as described in a new paper for the McLeod Group by former Canadian diplomat and senior UN official Carolyn McAskie, “Canada and Multilateralism: Missing In Action”:
The Prime Minister says he has little use for the UN. ... After losing a bid for membership of the Security Council, many government members made disparaging comments about that “corrupt organization” and right wing press commentators referred to it as an organization run by “dictators.” Is this the Canada that played such a front-line role in previous decades? How can we behave in this childish manner, spurning a whole system of organizations critical to world peace, security and development?
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Increase text size To damage Canada’s reputation even further, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has gravely disappointed those who had high expectations of him as the country’s senior diplomat. Sadly, Mr. Baird has proved incapable of eschewing the cheap politics by which he demeaned the House for so many years, complete with endlessly-repeated spin lines that substitute on the world stage partisan slogans for real thought.
The new Canada is a place where militarism is given pride of place over peacemaking. Watching Defence Minister Peter MacKay taking bows at the Grey Cup game for Canada's part in the Libyan campaign, Globe columnist Lawrence Martin observed:
The blending of sport and the military, with the government as the marching band, is part of the new nationalism the Conservatives are trying to instill. It is another example of how the state, under Stephen Harper’s governance, is becoming all-intrusive. … State controls are now at a highpoint in our modern history. There is every indication they will extend further.
The University of Ottawa's Ralph Heintzman, who created and headed the federal Public Service Office of Values and Ethics, provides an important insight into what’s happening here: There is a “lack of sense of inner self-restraint on the part of the prime minister, a sense that it is some kind of war and therefore anything is legitimate, that it's quite acceptable for a prime minister to lie, for example, about how our parliamentary democracy works.”
Politics as war is exactly what former Harper strategist Tom Flanagan has long advocated. A Globe piece by Mr. Flanagan before the 2011 election was actually titled “An election is war by other means.” Mr. Flanagan also chose to compare the 2008 campaign to ancient wars in which Rome, the Conservatives, defeated Carthage, the Liberals, and “razed the city to the ground and sowed salt in the fields so nothing would grow there again”.
As Alan Whitehorn of the Royal Military College of Canada wrote: “This suggests a paradigm not of civil rivalry between fellow citizens of the same state, but all-out extended war to destroy and obliterate the opponent. This kind of malevolent vision and hostile tone seems antithetical to the democratic spirit, not to mention peace and stability.”
In fact like Mr. Harper, Prof. Flanagan seems to get a kick out of “destroying and obliterating” those he’s not fond of. When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was making news, Prof. Flanagan commented: “Well, I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something. … I would not feel unhappy if Assange ‘disappeared’.”
To a woman who e-mailed him objecting to his (presumed) flippancy, Prof. Flanagan responded: “Better be careful, we know where you live.” What would Freud have made of such kibitzing, I wonder? After all, the good professor has cited Machiavelli's odious comment that “fortune is a woman and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force.”
Ironically, if you want to hear from the other Canada, the former Canada, the one so much admired by the world, you should (and still can) listen to last Sunday’s interview on CBC radio’s Sunday Edition between host Michael Enright and Iceland’s President, Olafur Grimmson. There, in Mr. Grimmson, was the voice of humanity, thoughtfulness, pragmatism and commonsense. He is the perfect Canadian and would make the perfect Canadian prime minister. No wonder the masterminds of Harperland want to disappear the CBC.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
29 November 2011 - Lawrence Martin
Under this PM, the state is everywhere
Lawrence Martin | Columnist profile | E-mail
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 2:00AM EST
What does the Grey Cup football game have to do with the Canadian military? Not much, you say. True enough. But chalk up another public-relations triumph for the governing Conservatives. They turned the opening ceremonies of our annual sports classic into a military glorification exercise.
For our part in the NATO Libya campaign, the Defence Minister took bows on the field. A Canadian flag was spread over 40 yards. Cannons boomed.
More related to this story
•A three-peat for prorogation? Bring on reform
•A tale of two democracies: Harper steamrolls, Obama grinds gears
•Tories take over as party of Big Government
Photos
Leak in the bucket The blending of sport and the military, with the government as the marching band, is part of the new nationalism the Conservatives are trying to instill. It is another example of how the state, under Stephen Harper’s governance, is becoming all-intrusive.
Conservatism, as defined by Ronald Reagan, was about getting government off the backs of the people. Conservatism, as practised by team Harper, is more akin to an Orwellian opposite. State controls are now at a highpoint in our modern history. There is every indication they will extend further.
The propaganda machine has become mammoth and unrelenting. The parliamentary newspaper The Hill Times recently found there are now no fewer than 1,500 communications staffers on the governing payroll. In the days of the King and St. Laurent governments, there were hardly any. In recent decades, the numbers shot up, but Mr. Harper is outdoing all others, a primary example being his institution and maintenance of a master control system wherein virtually every government communication is filtered through central command.
In his minority governments, the rationale was that tight controls were necessary for survival. With a majority, it was thought that the controls that brought on parliamentary shutdowns and contempt of Parliament rulings would ease up. Those who thought that way didn’t know Stephen Harper.
In recent weeks, the government has invoked closure or time limits on debate at a record-breaking clip. The limits have come on key legislation, driving the combustible New Democrat Pat Martin to proclaim, “There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot [expletive].”
On the propaganda ledger, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney put on a show in committee last week. In what may have been a first, his spinners set up a billboard behind him replete with bright Conservative blue colours and flags. Everything except a marching band.
In the message-massaging department, news has arrived that the government is imposing new communications controls on the RCMP. The same is being done with the Defence Department. Secrecy surrounds the government’s plans to spend a whopping $477-million on a U.S. military satellite.
State surveillance, the rationale being security, is being taken to new levels. The Conservatives are bringing in legislation that will compel Internet service-providers to disclose customer information. A Canada-U.S. agreement is on the way that will contain an entry-exit system that will track everyone.
In Parliament, more and more ministers are showing up for Question Period with prewritten answers. If the scripted stuff is far afield of the questions posed, it doesn’t matter. In our shining democracy, they use it anyway.
Research that contradicts the government line is discarded. Civil liberties fade, new jails proliferate. Those who speak out better watch out. When the NDP’s Megan Leslie stated an opposing view on the Keystone XL Pipeline, she was accused by the government of treachery.
In that conservatives cherish freedom, it’s rather strange. For a book on the government, Harperland, I chose the subtitle The Politics of Control. I now plead guilty to understatement. With their populist nationalism and drive for domination, these guys are everywhere, even on our football fields.
82 comments
Lawrence Martin | Columnist profile | E-mail
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 2:00AM EST
What does the Grey Cup football game have to do with the Canadian military? Not much, you say. True enough. But chalk up another public-relations triumph for the governing Conservatives. They turned the opening ceremonies of our annual sports classic into a military glorification exercise.
For our part in the NATO Libya campaign, the Defence Minister took bows on the field. A Canadian flag was spread over 40 yards. Cannons boomed.
More related to this story
•A three-peat for prorogation? Bring on reform
•A tale of two democracies: Harper steamrolls, Obama grinds gears
•Tories take over as party of Big Government
Photos
Leak in the bucket The blending of sport and the military, with the government as the marching band, is part of the new nationalism the Conservatives are trying to instill. It is another example of how the state, under Stephen Harper’s governance, is becoming all-intrusive.
Conservatism, as defined by Ronald Reagan, was about getting government off the backs of the people. Conservatism, as practised by team Harper, is more akin to an Orwellian opposite. State controls are now at a highpoint in our modern history. There is every indication they will extend further.
The propaganda machine has become mammoth and unrelenting. The parliamentary newspaper The Hill Times recently found there are now no fewer than 1,500 communications staffers on the governing payroll. In the days of the King and St. Laurent governments, there were hardly any. In recent decades, the numbers shot up, but Mr. Harper is outdoing all others, a primary example being his institution and maintenance of a master control system wherein virtually every government communication is filtered through central command.
In his minority governments, the rationale was that tight controls were necessary for survival. With a majority, it was thought that the controls that brought on parliamentary shutdowns and contempt of Parliament rulings would ease up. Those who thought that way didn’t know Stephen Harper.
In recent weeks, the government has invoked closure or time limits on debate at a record-breaking clip. The limits have come on key legislation, driving the combustible New Democrat Pat Martin to proclaim, “There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot [expletive].”
On the propaganda ledger, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney put on a show in committee last week. In what may have been a first, his spinners set up a billboard behind him replete with bright Conservative blue colours and flags. Everything except a marching band.
In the message-massaging department, news has arrived that the government is imposing new communications controls on the RCMP. The same is being done with the Defence Department. Secrecy surrounds the government’s plans to spend a whopping $477-million on a U.S. military satellite.
State surveillance, the rationale being security, is being taken to new levels. The Conservatives are bringing in legislation that will compel Internet service-providers to disclose customer information. A Canada-U.S. agreement is on the way that will contain an entry-exit system that will track everyone.
In Parliament, more and more ministers are showing up for Question Period with prewritten answers. If the scripted stuff is far afield of the questions posed, it doesn’t matter. In our shining democracy, they use it anyway.
Research that contradicts the government line is discarded. Civil liberties fade, new jails proliferate. Those who speak out better watch out. When the NDP’s Megan Leslie stated an opposing view on the Keystone XL Pipeline, she was accused by the government of treachery.
In that conservatives cherish freedom, it’s rather strange. For a book on the government, Harperland, I chose the subtitle The Politics of Control. I now plead guilty to understatement. With their populist nationalism and drive for domination, these guys are everywhere, even on our football fields.
82 comments
29 November 2011 End of Wheat Board
steven chase
OTTAWA— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 6:44PM EST
The Harper government has flexed its majority muscle to push through the Commons a controversial bill that will forever change the lives of 70,000 Canadian grain farmers.
With this, the Conservatives fulfilled a long-promised goal of stripping the Canadian Wheat Board of control over western grain sales – a move that the agency’s dissenting chair has warned will ultimately doom the Prairie institution.
More related to this story
•Senate plans extra sittings to pass budget, Wheat Board bills before Christmas
•Wheat Board bill gets pre-screening – and debate limit – in Senate
•Sound and fury as Tories limit debate on packed agenda
Video
Wheat Board files suit against Ottawa Conservative MPs easily outvoted their NDP and Liberal rivals Monday evening to pass the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act in the Commons. The vote passed 153 to 120.
As of Aug. 1, 2012, western Canadian farmers will be free of the wheat board’s monopoly and no longer forced to sell their wheat and barley through the agency.
Instead, for the first time in nearly seven decades, they will be able to negotiate their own deals.
“This is a tremendous day; this is a movement forward; this is what we have been waiting for, [for] decades,” Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Monday.
“For far too long, western farmers have been shackled by an outdated monopoly and today they got one step closer to having the marketing freedom they want and deserve.”
The Conservatives and their predecessor parties, including Reform, had long campaigned against the board as a symbol of big government gone awry – a nanny state intrusion into the lives of farmers that, like the gun registry, the Tories were determined to end.
Before it can become law and take effect, the legislation must still be approved by the Senate, where the Tories also outnumber their rivals and can ensure its passage.
Western Canadian farmers are sharply divided on the legislation, plebiscites conducted by the board show.
The Conservatives have been adamant about passing the bill before year end so that millers, maltsters and farmers can begin negotiating contracts for summer 2012 delivery.
The wheat board debate is fundamentally a battle between individualism and collectivism – over whether, in 2011, these farmers should be obliged to pool their grain to seek a better price or whether they should be free to pursue their fortunes alone.
Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel predicted farmers would suffer when producers are free to exit the board. Those who wish may stick with the board but it will no longer have the selling volume to command as much influence in the market.
“For generations, farmers relied on the wheat board to get the best possible price for their grain and to support their families,” Ms. Turmel said. “But this government ignored them and now that stability is gone.”
More related to this story
•Ottawa accused of hoarding wheat board fund
•‘It’s beyond Big Brother,’ Ritz says of wheat board
•Wheat-board chief fears final harvest if Harper has his way
•Canadian Wheat Board sues Tories over plan to dismantle monopoly
•Wheat Board takes fight to the people
•Wheat board directors broke ranks with lawyers to sue Ottawa
•Farmers slap Canadian Wheat Board with countersuit
•All farmers are equal – but some are more equal than others
•Canada’s Wheat Board wars: The future of farming cut two ways
•End of wheat-board monopoly bolsters Tory stand against regulation
More
OTTAWA— From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 6:44PM EST
The Harper government has flexed its majority muscle to push through the Commons a controversial bill that will forever change the lives of 70,000 Canadian grain farmers.
With this, the Conservatives fulfilled a long-promised goal of stripping the Canadian Wheat Board of control over western grain sales – a move that the agency’s dissenting chair has warned will ultimately doom the Prairie institution.
More related to this story
•Senate plans extra sittings to pass budget, Wheat Board bills before Christmas
•Wheat Board bill gets pre-screening – and debate limit – in Senate
•Sound and fury as Tories limit debate on packed agenda
Video
Wheat Board files suit against Ottawa Conservative MPs easily outvoted their NDP and Liberal rivals Monday evening to pass the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act in the Commons. The vote passed 153 to 120.
As of Aug. 1, 2012, western Canadian farmers will be free of the wheat board’s monopoly and no longer forced to sell their wheat and barley through the agency.
Instead, for the first time in nearly seven decades, they will be able to negotiate their own deals.
“This is a tremendous day; this is a movement forward; this is what we have been waiting for, [for] decades,” Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Monday.
“For far too long, western farmers have been shackled by an outdated monopoly and today they got one step closer to having the marketing freedom they want and deserve.”
The Conservatives and their predecessor parties, including Reform, had long campaigned against the board as a symbol of big government gone awry – a nanny state intrusion into the lives of farmers that, like the gun registry, the Tories were determined to end.
Before it can become law and take effect, the legislation must still be approved by the Senate, where the Tories also outnumber their rivals and can ensure its passage.
Western Canadian farmers are sharply divided on the legislation, plebiscites conducted by the board show.
The Conservatives have been adamant about passing the bill before year end so that millers, maltsters and farmers can begin negotiating contracts for summer 2012 delivery.
The wheat board debate is fundamentally a battle between individualism and collectivism – over whether, in 2011, these farmers should be obliged to pool their grain to seek a better price or whether they should be free to pursue their fortunes alone.
Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel predicted farmers would suffer when producers are free to exit the board. Those who wish may stick with the board but it will no longer have the selling volume to command as much influence in the market.
“For generations, farmers relied on the wheat board to get the best possible price for their grain and to support their families,” Ms. Turmel said. “But this government ignored them and now that stability is gone.”
More related to this story
•Ottawa accused of hoarding wheat board fund
•‘It’s beyond Big Brother,’ Ritz says of wheat board
•Wheat-board chief fears final harvest if Harper has his way
•Canadian Wheat Board sues Tories over plan to dismantle monopoly
•Wheat Board takes fight to the people
•Wheat board directors broke ranks with lawyers to sue Ottawa
•Farmers slap Canadian Wheat Board with countersuit
•All farmers are equal – but some are more equal than others
•Canada’s Wheat Board wars: The future of farming cut two ways
•End of wheat-board monopoly bolsters Tory stand against regulation
More
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Tony Clement's G8 Spending Spree
2 November 2011 Greg Weston
The federal minister responsible for cutting government waste is being called before a parliamentary committee Wednesday to explain how his own Ontario riding became paved in $45 million of political pork.
Treasury Board head Tony Clement certainly has a lot to answer for.
The $45.7-million spending spree was supposed to provide essential facilities to host last year's G8 summit of world leaders in Clement's riding in Muskoka cottage country north of Toronto.
Instead, almost all of the money was scattered across Clement's electoral domain for local pet projects that had little or nothing at all to do with the summit — everything from a $17-million community centre expansion to a $100,000 gazebo in the middle of an empty lot an hour's drive from the meeting site.
So far, Stephen Harper's government has successfully stonewalled all attempts by the opposition parties to get to the bottom of the great Muskoka pork barrel.
That may help to explain why the Conservative government's master of political bafflegab, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, will be seated next to Clement at the committee hearing.
At the time of the G8 spending, Baird was the minister responsible for managing billions of dollars of infrastructure money, allegedly including giving final sign-off on what is unaffectionately known in political circles as Tony's Porkfest.
With Clement and Baird in the hot seat at committee, opposition MPs will be after answers to five key questions:
Auditor General Sheila Fraser, in her final report released just after she retired in June, revealed that the $50 million used for the so-called G8 legacy projects in Clement's riding had been wrongly, if not illegally, taken from funds Parliament had approved for Canadian border crossings.
Question: Exactly who in government approved the pilfering of the border improvement fund, and given the severity of the auditor general's findings, what disciplinary action has been taken against those responsible?
The auditor general also reported that public servants were not involved in selecting the 32 projects in Clement's riding that received the $50 million.
Question: Who selected the projects, by what criteria, and who authorized those responsible to circumvent all of the normal government funding procedures in place to ensure the prudent use of taxpayers' money?
The auditors who dug into the G8 spending were unable to find any of the usual government documentation showing how the projects were selected for funding.
Question: What happened to all the paperwork, and if it was destroyed, has the government called in the RCMP?
Documents obtained by Postmedia journalists and NDP researchers suggest Clement was personally involved in getting at least one friend hired to work on a G8 contract, and the minister may have also tried to pressure federal officials not to conduct a routine review of G8 spending.
Question: How do Canadian taxpayers benefit if a minister becomes involved in nepotism and meddling with officials trying to protect the public purse?
As head of the Treasury Board, Clement is now responsible for ensuring the Conservative government adheres to stringent rules intended to get the best value for Canadian taxpayers in all federal spending.
Question: Given all that has happened on the G8 spending file, if Clement cannot clearly and convincingly answer all of the above questions, why should Canadians trust him in such a pivotal cabinet role?
The federal minister responsible for cutting government waste is being called before a parliamentary committee Wednesday to explain how his own Ontario riding became paved in $45 million of political pork.
Treasury Board head Tony Clement certainly has a lot to answer for.
The $45.7-million spending spree was supposed to provide essential facilities to host last year's G8 summit of world leaders in Clement's riding in Muskoka cottage country north of Toronto.
Instead, almost all of the money was scattered across Clement's electoral domain for local pet projects that had little or nothing at all to do with the summit — everything from a $17-million community centre expansion to a $100,000 gazebo in the middle of an empty lot an hour's drive from the meeting site.
So far, Stephen Harper's government has successfully stonewalled all attempts by the opposition parties to get to the bottom of the great Muskoka pork barrel.
That may help to explain why the Conservative government's master of political bafflegab, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, will be seated next to Clement at the committee hearing.
At the time of the G8 spending, Baird was the minister responsible for managing billions of dollars of infrastructure money, allegedly including giving final sign-off on what is unaffectionately known in political circles as Tony's Porkfest.
With Clement and Baird in the hot seat at committee, opposition MPs will be after answers to five key questions:
Auditor General Sheila Fraser, in her final report released just after she retired in June, revealed that the $50 million used for the so-called G8 legacy projects in Clement's riding had been wrongly, if not illegally, taken from funds Parliament had approved for Canadian border crossings.
Question: Exactly who in government approved the pilfering of the border improvement fund, and given the severity of the auditor general's findings, what disciplinary action has been taken against those responsible?
The auditor general also reported that public servants were not involved in selecting the 32 projects in Clement's riding that received the $50 million.
Question: Who selected the projects, by what criteria, and who authorized those responsible to circumvent all of the normal government funding procedures in place to ensure the prudent use of taxpayers' money?
The auditors who dug into the G8 spending were unable to find any of the usual government documentation showing how the projects were selected for funding.
Question: What happened to all the paperwork, and if it was destroyed, has the government called in the RCMP?
Documents obtained by Postmedia journalists and NDP researchers suggest Clement was personally involved in getting at least one friend hired to work on a G8 contract, and the minister may have also tried to pressure federal officials not to conduct a routine review of G8 spending.
Question: How do Canadian taxpayers benefit if a minister becomes involved in nepotism and meddling with officials trying to protect the public purse?
As head of the Treasury Board, Clement is now responsible for ensuring the Conservative government adheres to stringent rules intended to get the best value for Canadian taxpayers in all federal spending.
Question: Given all that has happened on the G8 spending file, if Clement cannot clearly and convincingly answer all of the above questions, why should Canadians trust him in such a pivotal cabinet role?
Friday, September 30, 2011
Stinky Steve 2011
This is an on-going list of things that Stinky Steve is doing to Canada:
1. Omnibus crime bill despite falling crime rates:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/20/pol-omnibus-crime.html
2. Dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Board despite protests from farmers:
http://www.cwbeyeswideopen.blogspot.com/
1. Omnibus crime bill despite falling crime rates:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/20/pol-omnibus-crime.html
2. Dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Board despite protests from farmers:
http://www.cwbeyeswideopen.blogspot.com/
Bad News for Steve 2011
Insite Injection Site may remain open:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/09/29/bc-insite-supreme-court-ruling-advancer.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/09/29/bc-insite-supreme-court-ruling-advancer.html
Monday, June 13, 2011
Kenney v. MacKay - Ivison 13 June 2011
Kenney, MacKay duel will play on
John Ivison, National Post · Jun. 13, 2011 | Last Updated: Jun. 13, 2011 2:02 AM ET
Like Macbeth weighing up the murder of King Duncan, there was "no spur" for the actions of Peter MacKay and Jason Kenney at the Conservative convention, beyond "vaulting ambition" -an intense desire for power -that threatened to o'er leap itself and tear the party apart.
The Conservatives should be on the crest of a wave. Stephen Harper even suggested that the best is yet to come if the Tories can profit from the inevitable end of the fairytale romance between the NDP and Quebec.
Yet, even as the talk of wooing Quebec was still hanging in the air, delegates were being asked to vote on a proposal to reform the way the party elects its leaders, in favour of a system that would have further alienated a Quebec delegation that already feels unloved.
The resolution would have ended the system under which every riding carries equal weight regardless of membership numbers, in favour of one where larger associations would have more votes. The motion was proposed by Ontario MP Scott Reid, but everyone at the convention knew he was really a proxy for Mr. Kenney, who will likely be a contender in any race to succeed Mr. Harper and would benefit if large associations in the West and Ontario had more votes.
In the other corner, Mr. MacKay presented himself as the trusty defender of a status quo that he claimed was responsible for delivering a majority. This was a less altruistic position than it appeared at first blush. If he is to have any hope of succeeding Mr. Harper, the former leader of the Progressive Conservative party needs Quebec and Atlantic Canada to punch above their membership weight.
The resolution was eventually defeated, thanks one suspects, to direction from above (i.e. Mr. Harper) to get it off the floor with minimal damage to party unity. It was noticeable that an electronic vote was not taken after the show of hands suggested a majority were opposed. Many Conservatives wanted the weekend to be a raucous celebration of the majority victory. And it was. The hospitality suites were hot, blue and righteous on Friday night with over-served Conservatives flocking from room to room in search of further refreshment as the stocks of booze ran low.
Yet the seeds of discontent have been sown by ambitious men who put their own agenda ahead of party unity. There are valid arguments on both sides. The resolution put forward by Mr. Reid would provide an incentive for riding associations to add members. Enshrining the status quo in the constitution would have been a signal to Quebecers that the party was serious about making the party a comfortable home for them. But both sides knew that this one point of disharmony would obscure all the other points of agreement, and still they forced the issue. It's important to note that this was not just a media obsession -delegates were equally preoccupied by the outbreak of open warfare on the convention floor.
This could all be presented as healthy debate within a democratic party. But some of the discourse was pretty salty and everyone knows that it will be even more vitriolic at the next convention, when the party is not revelling in the rosy afterglow of an election victory. This was the first serious skirmish in a war between Peter MacKay and Jason Kenney that looks as if it will be waged for years to come.
jivison@nationalpost.com
John Ivison, National Post · Jun. 13, 2011 | Last Updated: Jun. 13, 2011 2:02 AM ET
Like Macbeth weighing up the murder of King Duncan, there was "no spur" for the actions of Peter MacKay and Jason Kenney at the Conservative convention, beyond "vaulting ambition" -an intense desire for power -that threatened to o'er leap itself and tear the party apart.
The Conservatives should be on the crest of a wave. Stephen Harper even suggested that the best is yet to come if the Tories can profit from the inevitable end of the fairytale romance between the NDP and Quebec.
Yet, even as the talk of wooing Quebec was still hanging in the air, delegates were being asked to vote on a proposal to reform the way the party elects its leaders, in favour of a system that would have further alienated a Quebec delegation that already feels unloved.
The resolution would have ended the system under which every riding carries equal weight regardless of membership numbers, in favour of one where larger associations would have more votes. The motion was proposed by Ontario MP Scott Reid, but everyone at the convention knew he was really a proxy for Mr. Kenney, who will likely be a contender in any race to succeed Mr. Harper and would benefit if large associations in the West and Ontario had more votes.
In the other corner, Mr. MacKay presented himself as the trusty defender of a status quo that he claimed was responsible for delivering a majority. This was a less altruistic position than it appeared at first blush. If he is to have any hope of succeeding Mr. Harper, the former leader of the Progressive Conservative party needs Quebec and Atlantic Canada to punch above their membership weight.
The resolution was eventually defeated, thanks one suspects, to direction from above (i.e. Mr. Harper) to get it off the floor with minimal damage to party unity. It was noticeable that an electronic vote was not taken after the show of hands suggested a majority were opposed. Many Conservatives wanted the weekend to be a raucous celebration of the majority victory. And it was. The hospitality suites were hot, blue and righteous on Friday night with over-served Conservatives flocking from room to room in search of further refreshment as the stocks of booze ran low.
Yet the seeds of discontent have been sown by ambitious men who put their own agenda ahead of party unity. There are valid arguments on both sides. The resolution put forward by Mr. Reid would provide an incentive for riding associations to add members. Enshrining the status quo in the constitution would have been a signal to Quebecers that the party was serious about making the party a comfortable home for them. But both sides knew that this one point of disharmony would obscure all the other points of agreement, and still they forced the issue. It's important to note that this was not just a media obsession -delegates were equally preoccupied by the outbreak of open warfare on the convention floor.
This could all be presented as healthy debate within a democratic party. But some of the discourse was pretty salty and everyone knows that it will be even more vitriolic at the next convention, when the party is not revelling in the rosy afterglow of an election victory. This was the first serious skirmish in a war between Peter MacKay and Jason Kenney that looks as if it will be waged for years to come.
jivison@nationalpost.com
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