There is a stink of Hypocrisy emanating from the Foreign Office of the Harper Government.

A rebuke to John Baird, Minister of Foreign Affairs, An embarrassment to Canada, and the world.

There really is just so much one can take before starting to complain about your ethical standards and those that you present to the world on our behalf. Hypocrisy gone wild.
From the CBC report entitled “Libya transition ‘won’t be perfect,’ Baird cautions”. June 27th 2011.
Baird said the group preparing to take power once the country’s dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, is ousted has a strong dedication to democracy, but he added no one should expect that transition to take place overnight.
Baird, who gave you permission to have Canada undertake to replace Gaddafi?
“Our vision is a strong, prosperous Libya, living in freedom and living peacefully with its neighbours,” Baird said after meeting with anti-Gadhafi rebels and delivering trauma kits to help their cause.
What do you think they have in Libya now? They have an educated , healthy, employed, housed, and self-feed peoples and a civil war sponsored by the IMF, CIA, SAS and Mossed and who knows which other terroristic organization out there. You claim the rebels are interested in democracy and yet you have no idea what democracy is do you Baird? We do not have it Canada so how can we export it? We have a corpocracy here and you know that very well, because you answer to them not to the people of Canada.
But, he added, “I don’t think we’re going to move from Gadhafi to Thomas Jefferson.” The post-Gadhafi regime, he cautioned, “won’t be perfect.”
If you and your Israeli partners have anything to do with it then it will be absolute hell for the Libyans.
“We are doing our due diligence because that is what Canadians expect and the Libyan people require.”
Since when did you or your party start even considering what people want? Never mind Canadians who overwhelming say “Get out of Libya now”, or the Libyans who say “Why would we want to replace a man who has done so much for us with rebels who will bring us debt, disease, unemployment, broken homes, Monsanto and our oil money leaving the country after the rebels have taken their share?”

You have spent the most part of the last 5 years, belittling, sneering, slandering and generally bad mouthing the Bloq in the House of Commons and wherever you could get anyone to listen. What have you called them?
Traitors, Quebecers only interested in breaking up Canada, separatists, amongst other things, and accused them of no supporting all manner of bad bills simply because they could and indeed Quebecers required them to do so.
And just what and who are these people? Why they are duly elected MPs from a legally registered federal party in the House of Commons. Yes they are interested in Quebec and the wellbeing of the Quebec nation, and that’s why they were sent to Ottawa. What right do you, a Reform/Alliance misfit, masquerading under the name of Conservative Party of Canada (a name I might say that was stolen by Peter MacKay and sold to Harper) have to do such unjustified name calling?

From the same report on CBC :
“I was incredibly, incredibly moved by the courage and determination,” Baird said of rebels who gave him their firsthand accounts of battles with Gadhafi forces and subsequent escape to the safe haven of Benghazi.
“It is a remarkable accomplishment” said the minister.

Hmmmm.

In 1948 land was stolen from the Palestinians and given to the newly created State of Israel, and the Palestinians are still today losing more ground to the terroristic state of Israel, by military or police backed incursions, by confiscation of land lusted for by the Israelis, and the Palestinians are still being kicked out of their homes and farms that have been in their families for centuries to make room for the expanding hordes of imported Israelis.
Where do you stand on that?
Why you are 1000% in support of your friends in Israel of course. It actually gets worse because the election of 2006, monitored by US President Jimmy Carter and declared by him to have been conducted in exemplary fashion, elected HAMAS, which you and your religious leader cannot stand, and refuse to recognize. What right do you have to refuse to recognize a duly elected government? They are the people of that country’s choice not yours and you should be able to accept that. Such is your hatred that you will not lift a finger to help the men, women and children constantly being killed, raped, turned out of their homes, starved and entrapped in a small strip of land called Gaza. Meanwhile you praise the state of Israel and say they can do no wrong, and even if they did you would back them completely because they are justified in doing those things to people who would choose to elect Hamas as their government!
See above about your admiration for the Libyan rebels! Wow!

So Now you hate the Bloq (Liberals and NDP too and in due course we can add the Green Party MP) and Hamas and Gaddafi…that’s a lot of hate Baird, but I’ll bet there is more to come isn’t there?

So, in case it is not obvious by now, this brings us to the hypocrisy I mentioned earlier. While you despise and hate those duly elected both in Canada and Palestine, you are only too willing to jump into bed with rebels in Libya. Not only is that hypocritical but it is also morally wrong; unfortunately it is completely in line with the Harper government’s philosophy.

The IMF have sponsored a dispute in Libya, and backed a bunch of ragtag rebels whom are really only in existence because the CIA, SAS and Mossad (your friends again) have been feeding them arms and money for decades, and they have been a constant thorn in Gaddafi’s side whilst he has turned Libya into the closest thing to a democratic country that exists in the world today.
Canadian Oxford dictionary definition of Democracy:
1. A form of government in which the power resides in the people and is exercised by them either directly or by means of elected representatives.
3 A classless and tolerant form of society.
Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712 and he eventually wrote a series of books “Social Contract” and in book three chapter 4 he gave the four conditions for a country to be labeled a democracy:
Condensed:
1 The state: the bigger the country the less democratic it can be. The smaller with many individual communities the greater the chance of democracy.
2 Simplicity in customs and behavioral patterns.
3 Equality in status and wealth
4 No luxuries unless enjoyed by everyone.
(For more and greater detail on this you can visit “The Lies behind the West’s War on Libya” by Jean-Paul Pougla.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va%aid=25212 )

We do not have any of those 4 requirements, but Libya comes very close…do your research and due diligence Baird, the people of Canada expect it of y0u.!
Gaddafi has given the Libyan people a standard of living that is so far above that of either Canada or the US and has actually paid for everything (health, education, jobs, irrigation of the desert, homes for all but the nomads, interest free loans to start businesses and much more) and has no debt to the IMF and World Bank. In fact he is due to cost them a fortune because he wants to create the United States of Africa and have every country therein free and clear of any IMF induced debts.
(Interestingly we could be the same way, but we decided that the BIS and IMF should get their way when they complained about the Bank of Canada financing all the wonderful things it did which you now wish to do away with. More stupidity which you share with the Liberals this time.)
The IMF simply cannot let this happen all over Africa so they arranged to finance the rebellion in Libya, gave the rebels a central bank- for which the rebels will pay dearly later – and twisted some arms from indebted nations, such as Canada, to attack Gaddafi. It is Gaddafi they must replace as he is the one with the humanitarian aid and financial self-reliance designs for Africa. So now we have a bunch of ragtag rebels supported by the IMF against a very valid almost democratic Libyan government, and you step in and on behalf of The Harper Government (not the Government of Canada) give that ragtag rebel bunch full support and recognition.

How dare you !

And you are brazen enough to say this is all about replacing Gaddafi !
Nothing to do with a no fly zone being rolled into an all out bombing of Libyan civilians by NATO forces.
You have decided that Gaddafi must be replaced no matter what the real people of Libya think, because you have chosen the side of the rebels. No wonder that we did not get a UN security council seat, we are the joke of the world thanks to you and your leader.

Baird, you are an embarrassment to Canada and 75% of Canadians, and I suggest you resign as Foreign Minister, and come home as Government House leader where we can laugh at you making a fool of yourself and not Canada.

Jeremy Arney

It is hard to believe even Israel would do this.

I received this in e-mail f0rm and it caused this reaction..

It is interesting to me that the Harper Government (I refuse to call this the
Government of Canada because it is not) is in full agreement with these actions
by the terroristic State of Israel. Over and over again Ministers, particularly
Harper, Kenny and Baird have said that Israel can do no wrong and they thus
support this deliberate destruction of vital (and expensive) water tanks in a
neighbouring country. The destruction of water tanks in a desert is nothing
short of criminal, but its condoned by this revolting trio .

It is then hardly any wonder that under this Harper regime we are being turned
into an “Israeli lite” terroristic country with war against civilians
on our minds. Libyans at the moment but who is next?

When in the election in May 2011 leading up to 25% of Canadians electing this pathetic excuse for a corporate government was it mentioned that we would be building 7 military bases around the world and why we would pretend to be the military “go to” country?

It has only been a few weeks but already we are seing the direction that Harper’s
bosses want him to take and frankly I do not like it and I certainly do not
give my permission to my employee Harper and his band of ministerial misfits to
go there.

They will anyway as the Canadian people are only a means to get elected to them, and are certainly not to be listened to.

Harper proved that during the election. Did he talk to anyone who wasn’t press or a CPC supporter?

O CANADA WHERE HAVE YOU GONE?

I do not recall hearing anything about this in the “mainstream media”
and that is one reason why the mainstream newspapers will soon be a thing of
the past. Give us the truth or perish, your choice.

The comment immediately below in bold I received in red and left as I got it but I removed the sender’s id and signature.

Date: Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 10:39 PM

Subject: Fw: IDF destroys nine water tanks in parched Palestinian village

Why does the world continue to look the other way while israel
behaves in such a barbaric way? Anyone condoning this is as abhorrent as
israel.

There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 11:42 PM

Subject: Fwd: IDF destroys nine water tanks in parched Palestinian
village

IDF
destroys nine water tanks in parched Palestinian village

By
Sean O’Neill

+ 972, July 6, 2011Late Tuesday morning, July 5, around 11:30am, a convoy of
IDF, Civil Administration, and Border Police arrived in the Palestinian
village of Amniyr accompanying a flatbed truck with a front end loader and
a backhoe. Israeli settlers having a picnic at the settlement outpost next
to the Susiya archaeological site looked on as the army destroyed nine
large tanks of water and a tent.Amniyr is a small village of 11 families in the South Hebron
Hills, just northeast of the Palestinian village of Susiya and the Israeli
settlement of the same name. The village of shepherds and farmers, like
most villages in the area, is totally dependent in the summer on tanks of
water.

That water does not come cheap. Costs of transportation, due
to the poor infrastructure in the area – Palestinians are normally not
permitted to build roads in Area C of the West Bank and have restricted
access to Israeli roads – mean the cost of water is much higher than
normal. A cubic meter of water in the nearby town of Yatta costs 6 shekels.
In Amniyr it cost 35. The tanks themselves cost 1,000 shekels each, and
each tank held 2 cubic meters of water, yielding a total of over 10,000
shekels in damage, which for many in the area is equivalent to a half
year’s work.

This is the fifth demolition in Amniyr in the last year,
according to village residents and Nasser Nawaja, a B’Tselem worker. One
month ago the army destroyed 11 houses and two cisterns full of water. The
cisterns had also been destroyed 5 months ago and rebuilt with the help of
Israeli activists from Ta’ayush. The ruins of houses from previous
demolitions is still present, broken stones and twisted metal. Located just
south of the archaeological site of old Susiya, the Israeli government
claims it is state land.

Ten of the families now sleep in Yatta and come during the
day to tend to their olive and almond trees as they have no place to stay
and no water. But Mohammed Hussain Jabour and his wife Zaffra refuse to
leave. The morning after the demolition they were making tea on an open
fire next to their tent. “I’ve been here with my father and our sheep
since I was a little boy,” he said, with visible indignation. “Now
I’m an old man. And now Israel tells me I can’t be here. I’m not
leaving.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Zaffra asked.
“What will we drink? We can’t live without water.”

The demolition comes on the heels of the demolition of 6 tent homes and a lavatory in the
village of Bir al Eid,
two kilometers to the south, two weeks
ago. Both incidents are the latest in a long history of demolitions of
Palestinians homes and buildings in the area by the Israeli army, affecting
both these villages and the villages of Susiya and Imneizel, a village
south of Susiya.

Sean O’Neill worked for Christian Peacemaker Teams from
2006-2009 in the South Hebron Hills supporting Palestinian-led nonviolent
resistance to Israeli occupation and continued settlement expansion. He is
currently an MA candidate at New York University in Near Eastern Studies
and Journalism. He is in Israel/Palestine this summer researching for his masters’
thesis.

 

Jeremy Arney

:: Article nr.
79315 sent on 07-jul-2011 09:55 ECT

Open comments to all Canadian MPs regarding Libya

It was with considerable disbelief and regret and yes even disgust that I heard MPs all talking about Libya in today’s (14th June 2011) so called debate about our terroristic attacks there in support of the IMF and USA and of course UN and the oil companies.

What I heard was a parroting of the “official” CIA, SAS, Mossad propaganda, not what appears to be true to anyone who has followed the Libyan situation over the last 40 years. What I heard time and again was almost word for word what we heard that the American contract soldiers were doing all the time in Iraq, and almost certainly have done in Afghanistan and probably many other countries as well. Are Bush, Cheney under indictment for war crimes from the UN? Don’t think so and anyway they are all welcome here in Canada by the government even if not by the people.

Ms. May, my MP just spoke and said she does not support this motion on behalf of her constituents and she is correctly speaking for me.  She didn’t get it quite right but, it seems, stands alone for what the majority of Canadians really think. Of course she was attacked.  Vote eventually 276 (I think) yeahs – 1 nay. Thank you Ms.May
I heard time and again from the debate that Gaddafi is a brutal man who is killing and raping his people. None of this makes any sense to me, unless we look at it in the same terms as Bush joking:

“Weapons of Mass Destruction, are they under here? no, over there perhaps? no.” , or even more ridiculously after the 9/11 fiasco

“Don’t panic, just go out and shop!”

What monkey sees monkey does, or what you read in the CIA media is gospel. Here we go again into lies, deceit and bombing when all we have is the right to operate is a no fly zone, not clear the way for and conducting bombing runs on Libyan civilians. The criminals here are not Gaddafi but the UN backed killers.
 

Simple research, which seems beyond the abilities of Canadian MPs, would show just what Gaddafi has done for the Libyans over the last 40 years since he turned his attention away from nurturing foreign terrorists with his training camps etc.,
 

So again I will show you what my limited research has told me; I do not have unlimited government resources as you do and you could verify what I am saying if you bothered to pay attention to 60% of the Canadian people who do not want us there, in fact want us out. Do you not wonder why?

Proud promises I hear every day in the House about serving your constituents to the best of your abilities are empty and hollow because you follow the party line not your constituents’ wishes. Yet I heard again and again from the House floor today that you are doing what the Canadian people want. According to whom? Not we the people.
 

So these questions for you:
 

Do we have free education at all levels including universities at home and abroad? No; but the Libyans do.
 

Do we have free and efficient medical and dental health? No; but the Libyans do.
 

Do we have full employment, that is a job for anyone who wants to work or run a business and support their family and community? Nowhere near, but the Libyans do with the exception of the Nomadic tribes.
 

Does every Canadian who wants one have a home and a car and the ability to support them both? Good grief no, but those Libyans do, although the Nomadic tribes still like to wander the desert and that is their choice.
 

Is the Libyan desert irrigated with water found under the desert, and used in a huge irrigation scheme to allow the desert to become farmable again? Yes it is, while here in Canada we are poisoning our water supply with mining and fracking to the point where soon we will have no fresh water left, but lots of natural gas for export. Oh yes GMO seeds are taking over here too so we will soon have lots of home grown poisonous food to eat. CETA is in trouble because the EU doesn’t like GMO.
 

Does Libyan have its own central bank which finances the above mentioned health, education and housing plans, and also supplies free money for business startups? Yes they do and there is no national debt, no deficit and huge monetary donations to other African countries? Actually a huge chunk of money set aside by Libya for the benefit of African countries which need the money has been stolen by the USA on behalf of the IMF which just cannot allow those poor African countries to escape their greedy clutches.
 

Do Libyans own and control the oil of the country, Yes they do. It pays for everything.
Our oil is owned almost exclusively by foreign owned companies who pay us a minimum royalty, and the bottom line leaves Canada without any benefit to the people.
 

We also have our own bank – the Bank of Canada – which you refuse to use anymore and we are getting further into debt every day, the deficit is growing every day and the compounding interest on that debt is growing every day, yet we dare to criticize Gaddafi and tell the Libyan people they can do things better if they follow our way?

Even Al Jazeera carries articles and stories about the Libyan people who ask the simple question:
“Why would we want to get rid of a man who has done so much for us?”

So please tell me again just how hard done by these Libyans are by their “brutal dictator” and what are we going to do for them again?

Oh yes we will give them debt, disease and illiteracy.
 

If we are going to protect civilians everywhere and even Chris Warkentin says we must never let civilians be attacked again, then that means that we must stand by HAMAS to defend the Palestinians against the terroristic attacks by Israel. Protect the Palestinian farmers from being evicted by Israeli settlers, and literally thrown out into the road without even their clothing. I am sure they will welcome our help. That will never happen because you are owned in part by Israel who also helps you determine who comes over our borders. George Galloway will testify to that, and Stockwell Day signed the deal allowing that to happen.
 

Gaddafi has always been harsh on traitors and rebels and dealt with them strongly, because they are the ones who will eventually hurt his people. These rebels are the “people” he says he will get rid of, not the ordinary Libyan civilian, but easy to twist that isn’t it? Indeed thanks to support both financially and with arms and training, that bunch of rebels, which the Government of Canada is now not only supporting militarily but has also recognised as the legitimate council (government) of Libya, is indeed hurting his people. I have yet to be shown any real evidence that government of Libya forces are deliberately attacking innocent civilians as claimed in the House today by almost everyone who spoke. In a civil war such as this the rebels will hide under the guise of pretending to be civilians to get the kind of sympathy you are giving them. Anything done to them is claimed to be done to civilians, even if they do it themselves.

Classic CIA operation really, they have done it so many times and you fall for it every time.These rebels have the backing of the IMF because the IMF has already established a new central bank which they claim is the real central bank of Libya, designed to make money for the IMF because at the present time they, IMF, are not making any from Libya, and this is unforgivable. A bunch of CIA backed ragtag rebels with their own central bank sponsored by the IMF? doesn’t that make you shudder?

New oil companies have been set up to take over those of the Libyan people and to make money (US$ of course), for foreign oil companies not for the people of Libya. It will only be a question of time before some corporation will want to take over the desert and the agriculture, I assume it will be Monsanto so the bankrupting of the farmers and the poisoning of the Libyans can begin.
 

There is talk from countries who have forgotten or even never knew the meaning of democracy and certainly do not practice it about establishing democracy in Libya.
Well damn it we do not have democracy here in Canada so what right do you have to tell the Libyans that we will bring them democracy. We don’t have it and never will under our present system, so to promote that talk is farcical and dishonest.
 

It is time we in Canada and the USA for that matter, recognized that democracy does not exist anywhere in the world, maybe the closest it ever came was in Libya prior to our intervention of behalf of the IMF, USA, Israel and the UN etc.

What we really, in the noble and totally all-knowing west, want to do is bring Libya down to our level of enslavement, standard of living and total indebtedness to the IMF, subservience to the robber investors such as Goldman Sachs and their futures rip offs, to the pharmaceutical corporations, insurance, seed and oil companies who have no interest in anything but money. We want to make sure that Libya comes down to our level, because by golly no-one should be better than us eh?
 

My question is what about the Libyans, who is listening to them in the west?

Oh silly question, you are not listening to Canadians so why would you listen to any Libyans other than the “rebels”?
 

We really need a huge make over here in Canada, staring with our so called representatives in Parliament.
 

Jeremy Arney

The USA wants what Libya has

40 years ago things were very different in so many ways, and this is the strangest turnaround of them all.

 

Libya under Gaddafi was in trouble with the UN and his hands were smacked and he decided to change his ways from being a terrorist supporting country to a peaceful self-supporting country.

 The central bank was nationalized as were the oil wells and refineries.  Through
having Libya own these two and thus having a great source of income and no international bank debt he turned Libya into a sort of paradise.

 He looked for and found water under the desert and by making his canal system he irrigated the desert and agriculture flourished providing the country with its own food.  Everyone had free health care, free education including university level either in Libya or abroad, paid for by the government. Everyone who wanted one had a job, a house and a car, and cheap gas. Interest free money was available to start a business or buy a second car. The Nomadic tribes still today prefer to wander the desert so they have no
houses.  Gaddafi himself travelled with a tent until his people had houses, and even now lives in a rather modest place. The life expectancy is now 80, and life in Libya, apart from the constant niggling of foreign sponsored rebels, is good.

 At the same time, that is 40 years ago, a broken down ex actor, ex-Governor of California became the president of the USA and started to deregulate everything that should have stayed regulated.  Banks, insurance, financial and investment
companies, the pharmaceutical and seed companies took control of their own
regulating and the religious nuts were invited into the office of the president
to have a level of control never dreamed of, in fact specifically not wanted,
by the founding fathers. The USA started to flounder as a republic. Reaganomics
started the world controlled by the World Bank and IMF downhill to financial destruction.
World corporate rule is to my mind the destruction of the people of the world.
People do not have a bottom line and are therefore dispensable, except that
they need to, as G W Bush put it, “Go out and shop” in order to feed the
corporations.

 Now here we are 40 years later, Libya is a flourishing country with the only problem being the constant flow of money and arms to rebels from such organizations as the CIA, SAS, Mossad etc., with the idea that the US could get their hands on Libya’s oil.  What I also think might well be a factor is that desert water.  Water will soon be more valuable than oil.

 On the other hand the USA is morally andfinancially broke, uneducated and sick, and like a rabid dog is snapping and biting at anything that has what it believes is its right to have.

 Then it was decided that as the IMF was losing too much money because Libya was not borrowing from it and did not owe them anything, and the oil companies were not getting their profits from the oil so it became time to act. When the Arab Spring as it was called happened it was just too easy to freshly arm these rebels, give them the promise of
paradise and accuse Gaddafi of killing his people. The fact is he has always
been hard on traitors and rebels and maybe Canada and the USA could learn from
that as The House of Commons, and the Congress listen to big corporations not
the people.

That is treason against our constitutions.
Gaddafi’s people do not want him gone; they also do not want to become a democracy if that means they will be broke, out of work, hungry, unhealthy and uneducated just as most North Americans are.

 But the IMF and the oil companies stepped in creating a new central bank, and new oil companies for the rebels and are telling lies about Gaddafi and so the whole word which is controlled and owned by the IMF is agreeing that he should go.

 Everyone that is but the Libyans.

 It would be ironic if the IMF at the behest of China, demanded that Obama and Harper be replaced but we know that will not happen as we are already heavily in debt to the IMF anyway.

 So that’s where we are now.

 What a crazy world we are leaving our grandchildren.

 

Jeremy Arney

 Ps

As a Canadian I do not approve of any of this action against Libya and particularly our part in bombing civilians and blaming it on Gaddafi. It is regrettable that one of ours is leading this sham.

Musings of an old man from last year

Maybe to go another way?

I have been wondering what is really
wrong with our system of politics here in Canada, and it leads me to realize some
very simple truths, probably the biggest of which is that:

 

Today’s government is not for the people
and hasn’t been for some years now.

 

Oh I know there are those who say I am
just supporting some sort of corporate takeover conspiracy, and maybe they are
right, but let’s really look at what has gone wrong.

 

There was a time when members of the
House of Parliament or the Provincial  Legislature were representatives of the people
of their ridings , a throw back to the “good old days” of England when they
represented the landowners who spoke for their surfs…! Far from ideal but for
that time it worked as well as any system had.

 

Even the American system with it’s checks
and balances for the three levels of government, Administration, Congress and
Judiciary was a great idea for a republic.

 

So again what happened?

 

Groups of elected people (mostly men at
that time- in fact probably all men) got together for each other’s ideas to be
presented and accepted by the level of government, simply put,

 “
I like this, that, your idea and will support you. Will you also support my
idea?”

It seemed that this lead to the eventual
formation of like minded getting together to make life easier than canvassing
every other member, and thus the development of parties that started the
wielding of power as each party sought  to have the final say.

Naturally this had to spread to the
voting public so that each party could come up with a proposal or “platform”
from which the voters were asked to choose. Of course by then the concept of
party leaders was established and we were on the slippery slope to where we are
today where one man controls the lives of every man woman and child in Canada, even if
he does not have the majority of Canadian behind him. Nor does it even matter
if he chooses to promote the benefits of corporations over the people, he is
the supreme “God” of Canada as he can make and break the rules with impunity,
and thumb his nose at the people because he really only needs them at an
election time of his choosing.

 

How far we have come from:

 

Our self
governing Dominions are united by the ties of a common allegiance to the Crown:
but the Crown has become the symbol of the people’s sovereignty.

According to our
concept and practice of government, the King reigns to execute the will of the
people who rule.  The strength of the
Empire rests upon the eternal foundation of liberty expressed in the ideal and
consummation of autonomous self-government which is vested in the people of the
self-governing Dominions as of right and not of grace.                             – Sir Robert
Borden. 29th
December 1914

Obviously in his day it was the King and
now it is the Queen, and her present representative described it this way:

 

Our executive is
the Queen, who doesn’t live here. Her representative is the Governor General,
who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.


Stephen
Harper  June 1997

 

In an address to the Council for National
Policy (an American republican group) at which he also said:

 

“Canada is a Northern European welfare state
in the worse sense of the term, and very proud of it”.

The History of the party system in Canada shows
that the system only works when the interests of the people are the same interests
of the ruling party. Our current government is a prime example of what can
happen when those interests are diametrically opposite to each other.

 

So is there a solution?

 

Yes there are two that immediately c0me
to mind.

 

One is the Single Transferable Vote used
in some other countries and retained for instance in Ireland although the politicians
there wish to get rid of it.  This is
relatively cumbersome and like all voting today, subject to the ability of
certain  interests to manipulate the
outcome in the voting machines.

 

The other I find much more
interesting.   

 

Abolish all party politics.

 

Yes that’s right no parties at all.

No pre-ordained leader for whom to vote
regardless of the quality of the local candidate.  

No overall platform, just the
constituents and their candidates who wish to represent them.

Now we are getting to the quality of the candidates
and away from the lying ability of the leader of some party or another.

So you ask what then when the members are
elected what happens?   

All members of the House of Commons elect
from their fellow members 15 members to head up the various cabinet posts.   There are no party lines and no need for
shadow ministers or critics as those ministers would be reporting directly to
the House of Commons, not just blindly and obediently following the PM’s
wishes.

 

Those 15 members select from the
remaining members two person,

 

One as Speaker of the House, and

 

One as Speaker for Canada, that would be
the Prime Minister although he or she would not have a ministry (no change
there) but would represent Canada and her people to the world through the
decisions of the ministers with the House of Commons members’ approval. Each
event the prime minister attended would be with the minister responsible for
that event.  In the event of weddings,
state funerals etc., he would be accompanied by the governor general. Another
useless position? Maybe, but a certain level of pomp and ceremony is good.

In the event that a minister or even the
“Prime Minister” lost the confidence of the House he could be replaced by a
simple vote in the House.

 

This same system should and could also
apply to all provinces, but with a smaller cabinet in the various legislatures.

 

If we are to return to the Canadian
People having a say in the way our Government works then we must have the
control to be able to stop the government when they want to do anything against
our wishes.  

 

Simple question…Whose country is it? 

 

I think it belongs to the people – all
the people not just a few.

 

To whom does it belong now?

 

Harper as PM, and his corporate buddies.

 

I welcome improvements to the idea.

 

Jeremy Arney

9-11 to civil disobedience

A couple of years ago I was in the UK, and I asked a military man I have known for many many years what he really thought about the events that happened in the USA and that we now refer to as 9-11.

Without much hesitation he said that the attacks were carried out by a bunch of cowardly thugs, acting on some misconceived religious beliefs.

So I then asked him if he would be willing to listen to what I had to say and ask and give me some purely military answers and he replied after some though that he could and would.

What I said was something like this:

OK thanks, so now let’s take what we were told almost immediately after the attacks and that is that 14 people were responsible for the actual acts of the day. There were reportedly 4 planes involved which means three and a half people per plane which is odd but let’s not quibble about that. Two of those planes with 7 people in charge hit two buildings in New York killing approximately 3,000 people.

So looking at it purely from a military view point would you consider that 7 people taking out 3,000 with equipment belonging to Americans was a success?

After looking at me for a minute or two he eventually agreed that it was very acceptable odds indeed.

So I then went on to to say, Ok so then when you add in the complete destruction of three buildings as well, and the resulting damage to the psyche of the USA it could be argued that it was a huge military success carried out by 7 people.

He was now lo0oking at me strangely but reluctantly this time and then more enthusiastically as he agreed that it was a fantastic achievement militarily. All that damage by just 7 people!

So I then said that in my mind it was not a success because the buildings should had held up to 20, 000 people each at that time of day and if the planes had hit at the twentieth floor instead of where they did the death toll could have been between 30 – 40,ooo instead of just 3,000. It is also amazing in that not one Israeli who normally worked in those buildings showed up for work that day.

But they couldn’t have got to the twentieth floor was all he could bleat.

Ah I said why not? Because here is where we have to consider the other two planes.

One is claimed to have performed a maneuver that 95% of commercial pilots who fly those planes said they could not do (and the other 5% said was impossible) and then fly a 120 foot wingspan plane between two poles 90 feet apart which would have either broken the wings or the poles would have been smashed flat ( they are still standing whilst we talk) and then flew into the pentagon, without the resulting fire one would expect from burning aviation fuel, not to mention the plane wreckage and passengers’ bodies left behind.

Before we get to the fourth plane lets us look at this too, we saw over and over and over again the two planes flying into those two buildings in New York and the falling of those towers from multiple angles, (not I might add building “ seven” which most people in the world are unaware also collapsed that day within hours from collateral damage!) and yet at a building which has more cameras per square foot inside and out than any other building in the USA and maybe the world, we did not get even a glimpse of a real passenger plane approaching or flying into the Pentagon. So if you can believe that one of the people flying that plane could have done that then the twentieth floor of the two trade centre buildings would be child’s play.

About building Seven, the BBC reported that it had collapsed and at what time and yet over the shoulder of that poor misinformed woman reporter, for all the world to see, the building was still standing and not even smoking that much!

To the fourth plane, the one they made a movie about just to get Hollywood in on the act, was supposed to be heading for the White House but was actually shot down by the Navy so they claim, and again there was no wreckage, just a big hole in the ground without any plane wreckage or bodies for the local coroners to remove, not even a trace of the 3.5 people who supposedly hijacked it.

What about that I asked my military friend. He was looking rather sick at this point and gazed pityingly at me as I smiled at him. He just walked away and has spoken very little to me since. Too bad because I believe he is a good man at heart.

He was ex military when this discussion took place.

So the point here is that since then we have been lied to by the presidents of the USA, the UN, the prime minister of Canada and the heads of the European countries, and of course the media so often that we just seem to accept what they say.

Who was it who said “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes accepted as the truth”.

Weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq and how many millions died over what G W Bush considered a joke?

Bin Laden was supposedly killed a few weeks ago, conveniently at a time when lies were being spread about Gaddafi slaughtering thousands of his people.

There is not one shred of evidence that this has or is happening, yet it is lied about in the US Congress, the UN, in our Senate in the throne Speech a few days ago, and none of the media point this out. Al Jazeera (English) has interviews of Libyans asking “why would we want to get rid a man who has done so much for us?’ But Fox news and the Sun and yes the BBC and CBC and ITV and CTV in fact all of them fall all over themselves to further the lie. The printed media is just as bad.

A young page Brigette DePape objecting in the throne speech in the Canadian Senate to what Harper is doing and is going to do is more newsworthy than the truth about Libya. Actually she is, because it is our youth here in Canada who are beginning to say no to the future they see Harper bringing to Canada.. That young woman said we need an “arab spring” here in Canada and she is right. I will stand beside her if the occasion should arise.

I have been saying for months that the only choice we will soon have is mass civil disobedience, because our needs are not important to those who are employed by us to work for us and who think they rule the country. In fact I suppose that more than any other man in our history Harper really does think this. He controls the House of Commons, the speaker of same, the Senate, the Supreme Court, The Governor General, the money to the provinces and therefore the provinces, and he has had this desire for years to change Canada into a corporately controlled wasteland.

Supposedly he has 5 years to do it, yes I know he passed a law saying every 4 years but that’s all bs anyway he’s only broken it twice so far, and what’s to stop him extending it to 20 years or more with the power he has at his command now?

But I get ahead of myself because I keep forgetting that he wants Canada to be part of the USA.

To the 40% of the 60% who voted Harper in, I just say on behalf of my children and grandchildren, thank you for what you have done to their future, and I hope you all live long enough to see what he will do with what you gave him.

Jeremy Arney

Good luck to Canada on May 2nd 2011

Good luck to us all on Monday 2nd May 2011.

This is a date which may well go down as the end of the end of Canada should we be foolish enough to reelect this man Harper with a CPC majority.

Is that saying too much? No I don’t think so as the signs are very clear that what Harper says is not what Harper does. What he has done speaks volumes of his desire to destroy Canadian sovereignty in favour of international corporations, and as soon as possible be swallowed into their world government.

It appears that the largest support that Harper has is from old foggies such as I  and let’s face it we are in the majority of voters at this time and growing.

I saw a statistic somewhere that 74% of people over 55 support Harper, and I have to wonder why. We are much better educated than our children of today simply because we have been around the block, and we should be able to read the read the signs.

I can only assume that so many seniors are thinking nostalgically of Diefenbaker and Mulroney, both whom could be said to be vastly superior to this current man.

The Dief gave us the Bill of Rights because he said we would need it and he was right, he also destroyed the Arrow aeroplane, and I mean completely destroyed it.
Mulroney insisted on the FTA and thus started the business of giving Canada to the USA, and running up huge debts in doing so.

So the nostalgia, if that is the cause, is somewhat misplaced.

Do they think their investments that are allowing them to maintain their life styles will go bad if anyone but Harper is in charge?
Hard to say if that’s the reason, but let’s face it if Harper has his way all Canada will be sold to any company which wants to buy, prior to relying on the handouts from USA and Europe. Besides with the plummeting value of the US dollar and the new perimeter deal we could see ourselves assuming a chunk of the US debt as part of Harper’s harmonization deal. We have enough problems of our own without taking on theirs as well.

Do the old folk think that our current position in the eyes of the world is an improvement?

If so what do they want us to be?

At this time Canada is against any form of efforts towards climate change; we are withdrawing our help to those countries which have been relying in us for years, instead of altering that help to make them more self-sufficient; we are intolerant towards women’s rights world wide and even the rights of all to water we do not support. and worst of all we are becoming warmongers and supporting unconditionally the two worst terrorist countries in the world, maybe three if you include the UK. There is now news of open talk about troops into Libya to back up the CIA, SAS and whatever backed ‘rebels’ after the killing of Gadhafi’s son and grandchildren by “courageous” bombers. All for the IMF and big Oil. We can be really proud of our part in this can’t we ! Other NATO countries are questioning what is going on but not Harper. I feel sick when I think of what we have become under this man. Unfortunately the Libs and NDP seem to agree with him on Libya.

I do not.

Is it because Harper rarely has a hair out of place, only smiles when it suits him or he needs something, has extreme views on religion and life styles and is intolerant of anyone who does not share those views?

Who knows but I would love to have the answer.

Come on people, we have a responsibility to our children and grandchildren to give them a chance to fix what we have wrecked. Giving Harper the chance to destroy our country will not give them anything with which to work.

What I am saying to all you old people is think it through. You don’t have to automatically support the Conservative Party of Canada because it was a family tradition. This man does not honour tradition so why should you?

Are you really ready to reward a man who lead his government into contempt of parliament and has lied to you non stop throughout this campaign, blaming his own doing on everyone else including a coalition only he sees, and creating fear that anyone but he is the devil and only he can fix what he broke?

Yes I am a member of the Canadian Action Party, but there is no candidate in my riding this year so I am looking at everyone, particularly Ms. May . Everyone that is except Gary Lunn the CPC incumbent, because I want my grandchildren to have a country without black, dead, toxic shore lines, and a chance not to be chained to a broken corporate system called North American Union or something like that.

Please join me in electing people to the parliament of Canada who will work for us not against us.

Jeremy Arney

Whats not being talked about in election 2011

What I am finding increasingly disturbing is what is not being talked about in this 2011 election:
The stimulus program part of the Action Plan is rapidly coming to an end, and many thousands of workers will be out of work again. Convenient that this will happen after the “unnecessary” election is over is it not?

New perimeter agreement with the USA which will further enmesh us into the control of the US Homeland Security with the resulting movement of personal data south.

CETA, the trade agreement with Europe which is still continuing through this election, and will undermine Canadian sovereignty even further. Provinces and municipalities will be subjected to WTO international trade deal rules, which we already know through FTA and NAFTA do not favour Canada. Our sewage, water and infrastructure will all be up for sale to European companies and we could even see the Trans Canada Highway turned into a toll road, owned and controlled by Spanish companies which specialize in that throughout the world.

By the end of this year Health Canada will have removed from the shelves of Health Stores about 80% of their offerings as the producers cannot afford the expensive scientific tests required by Health Canada to prove something that has been known for thousands of years to be fact; natural foods are safe and effective, yet they do not make money for the pharmaceutical companies, on the contrary they lose them profits due to wellness rather than sickness.

The Rule of Law in Canada has been turned on its head because we are becoming ruled by “violation of the regulations” in the laws, not the laws themselves. This means that the courts will not be used to judge innocence or guilt as that will be done by the Ministers themselves and the only recourse under this system is to a review panel established by that same Minister. The courts will not be involved at all. Guilty without the possibility of proving our innocence before a court is contrary to innocent until proven guilty in a court of law before a jury of our peers if necessary.

These and more are not being addressed so please help us get answers

Jeremy Arney

Another letter that tells it as I see it too.

 

Another letter I recieved and was given permission to pass on. It is very gratifying to me that others of much more skill and eloquence are saying the same things as I, in this case it is Robin Mathews.

Thank you Robin for your excellent words of warning, and if there is doubt in your minds dear readers, how many town hall meetings arre your conservative candidates attending?

Jeremy

Greetings: In town, and on the way out fast (family business.) If you think this (just sent to vivelecanada for posting) should go to others, please send it on. best wishes, Robin (back to you soon.) R

Adolf Hitler. Stephen Harper. The Big Lie.
A column like this one opens a question that can’t be answered immediately – perhaps not for a long time.
Fifteen years from now an observer may say this column shows how far from reality a commentator could go in the contentious days of 2011 in Canada.
Or, the commentator may ask why only the writer of this column saw the inevitable coming … what became obvious to everyone else … but only when it was too late?
A clue that the second case might be true is the repeated summing-up of the leaders debate on Tuesday, April 12 by Chris Hall (CBC parliamentary reporter).
Over and over he reported that the leaders of the NDP, the bloc quebecois, and the Liberals attacked Stephen Harper – and that he answered them. Not once did Chris Hall – or any of the other (‘mainstream’) commentators I have observed say that very many of Stephen Harper’s replies were manipulations of fact to convey falsehoods … when they were not outright lies.
Stephen Harper repeatedly said there was no tax cut for corporations in the latest budget (before Parliament closed for the election). That was not the point. A six billion dollar tax cut for the large corporations will come into effect if the Harperites win government.
Those cuts need not come into effect. And so, in fact, the Harperites are giving large corporations a six billion dollar tax cut.
Lying flagrantly, Stephen Harper insisted his Party is not in contempt of Parliament when it is so without question.
On the matter of the Harperites refusing to provide spending information (one of the bases of the contempt ruling) Harper said his agents gave all information – a statement which is simply not true.
Perhaps most important of all, he denied the fundamental facts of parliamentary government, insisting that “Canadians” believe the Party with the most votes must govern. What he argued, in fact, is a denial of the democratic parliamentary system. In short, he lied.
This morning on an open line show a caller claimed his statement that the Canadian Labour Congress endorses his budget is an outright lie.
Those are five random examples. Random, I say, because one would need a script of the debate to count up the number of times Stephen Harper lied outright or manipulated facts to convey falsehoods.
He didn’t disable his opponents by superior argument. He disabled the whole debate by using persistent falsehood and near falsehood.
The latest, mid-election flurry of revelations of misdoing concerns expenditures on the G20 Summit. Allegations are of misleading Parliament by the Harperites (words for ‘lying to Parliament’?), misallocation of huge amounts of money, insider indulgences of Roman proportions. All that through “leaks” of a forthcoming Report by the Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
In Ottawa, Harperite insider John Baird has spoken with apparent confident authority about what is contained in the confidential Report. How can he do so? Who gave him copies of the Report? Did Sheila Fraser? Stephen Harper (characteristically) is avoiding responsibility … for as long as he can.
Canadians must ask how many such seamy revelations are waiting for an opening of the secrecy-bound activities of the Harperites? They must ask the question.
Meanwhile, almost unnoticed, it has been revealed the Harperites took words of praise Sheila Fraser wrote about Liberal financial activities and quoted them about Harperite “work”. Sheila Fraser is apparently upset! Stockwell Day apologized profusely. But the question remains – who did that piece of chicanery? Did Stephen Harper order it? Can the Harperites be trusted on any matter whatever?
The conclusions which I have come to are quite clear. I believe Stephen Harper is more comfortable lying than telling the truth. I believe he is a psychopathic liar – which means I believe he will lie (and follow up his lies) in any way he can to gain his ends and aggrandize his position.
To take the logic of that position to its conclusion, I believe that – if Stephen Harper were to gain enough power – he would murder his political opponents, would have innocent Canadians shot down in the streets. [Remember the Toronto G20 violations of free assembly.]
If what I write is fair comment on observed public affairs, then Stephen Harper may properly be described as a neo-Fascist.
Historians of Nazism sometimes suggest the architect of “the Big Lie” in Nazi politics was Josef Goebbels, the only Ph. D in the inner circle and an early Party member. But the ultimate author of all Nazi strategies of falsehood in that brutal despotism was Adolf Hitler himself.
He was a friend of Winnifred Wagner, manager – preceding and during the Second World War – of the famous Bayreuth (Wagner) Festivals. Early in Hitler’s time of growing power Winnifred Wagner would express dismay to him about Nazi street brutality against political opponents and others.
Like Stephen Harper when faced with evidence of undeniable wrong-doing by the Party, Hitler would say he knew nothing about it, or someone else did it without his orders. Or he would belittle the evidence or … change the subject or … lie outright.
When faced with inescapable need to act with courage and honesty, Hitler, like Stephen Harper, would take the coward’s way out.
In a moment of brazen bravado, for instance, Harper suggested a one-on-one election debate with Michael Ignatieff – who agreed immediately. On April Fool’s day, the press announced Stephen Harper’s retreat, babbling nonsense and, again, repeating a simple lie – that a coalition exists and is led by Michael Ignatieff.
Harper’s campaign is built and based upon that and worse kinds of lying. As the Encyclopedia Brittanica writes in relation to Fascism, Stephen Harper makes a “proud sacrifice of all ethical scruples to success”. What Canadians must realize is that Stephen Harper employs a complex strategy of lies that are well thought out and employed in no accidental way.
To say Harper is fairly called a neo-Fascist may seem harsh. But people in democracies must be clear-eyed if they wish to protect democratic freedoms. Even Plato – 2500 years ago – observed that Tyranny develops most naturally out of Democracy.
The characteristics of Fascism across Europe in the first half of the twentieth century were plain: the sharing of State power with private corporations to pursue common goals. Using the police to destroy civil freedoms. Operating all activities under ‘the Big Lie”. Enrolling the Mainstream Press and Media as accomplices in political gangsterism. Persecuting, starving, torturing, murdering any number of people opposed to the Fascists.
Hitler was determined to take power by constitutional means after having failed in a violent attempt at a coup in Munich in 1923. Twisting, perverting, exploiting, debasing constitutional practice (like Stephen Harper), Hitler managed to bully and coerce his way to supreme power in Germany – with results we know too well.
Stephen Harper’s wholly perverse manipulation of prorogation to avoid votes in Parliament might have been learned directly from Adolf Hitler.
Harper’s actions to deny Parliament rightful information and to support the alleged lies of a cabinet minister might, also, have been learned from the earlier “drive to power” of a dictator-in-waiting.
Like Adolf Hitler, Stephen Harper is, I have no doubt, the author of all his Party’s ‘strategies of falsehood”, all its attempts to destroy the democracy in which it presently works.
Harper’s use of the RCMP to eject the unwanted from “democratic” election campaign meetings matches Hitler’s “strong-arm squads” created to protect Nazi meetings from attendance by “the unwanted”.
Indeed, before the present election was announced, I wrote a column on the RCMP and its growing corruption. In that column I guessed that the dismissal of the top man at the RCMP, William Elliott, was post-dated by Harper because the Mounties would be needed for dirty work in the election.
As happened, RCMP officers have been used as thug “security” in the Harper meetings. Did those RCMP officers wear the brown shirts of the Nazis? We know nothing about them. Who are they? What are their names? Why have they not been identified? Who ordered them to act at those meetings? Was it Stephen Harper? We must know – before the election.
Nor is it accidental, I believe, that William Elliott – the recently fired top RCMP officer – was, earlier, a key actor in the Prime Minister’s Office undertaking the approval of much-charged Bruce Carson to become a top advisor to Stephen Harper.
Carson is presently under investigation by the RCMP for alleged improper behaviour in attempts to get contracts awarded. He has a record of misdeeds and dubious connections. Stephen Harper alleges he knew almost nothing of Bruce Carson’s past.
One may guess that for his good and faithful service first in the PMO, and then in Stockwell Day’s Public Safety Department, and then as head of the RCMP, William Elliot will fall from grace onto a very carefully prepared, soft, luxurious bed.
Under Guiliano Zaccardelli, the RCMP used its “investigation” of Ralph Goodale and the Department of Finance in 2006 to help defeat the Liberals. Now the RCMP makes clear it can say nothing about the tale of Stephen Harper’s senior henchman Bruce Carson, involved, it is alleged, in a dirtier piece of business than any Ralph Goodale has ever been remotely connected to.
Having very recently discovered ethics, “ethics” is apparently the basis upon which the William Elliott RCMP refuses to report about Bruce Carson.
Carson’s close relation to Stephen Harper and the PMO has, we may be sure, nothing to do with the RCMP’s newfound “ethics” and “discretion”.
The same slippery dishonesty, I believe, is involved in the case of Elizabeth May’s exclusion from the leaders debate. The key force rejecting her has been, I believe, Stephen Harper. When the decision of the “media consortium” was announced, both Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff said she should be included in the debate.
Characteristically shifting responsibility, Stephen Harper said he would accept the decision of the “media consortium” – which, of course – consulted the Parties. Only when it became plain that public sentiment wanted Elizabeth May in the debate – only then did Harper change his tune and say he supported her presence.
If truth is ever told by members of the media consortium, I am almost certain they will report that Harper publicly supported May’s presence while privately telling the consortium he would withdraw if she was allowed in. Harper knows she threatens his nondescript candidate Gary Lunn. And so I believe Harper – in typical covert fashion – acted to keep her out.
Consider the next minority government. I believe the Mainstream Press and Media are doing what they can to secure a Harper victory. If they were being genuinely impartial, they would have to be reporting simple, factual things they are not reporting. 1. Minority governments occur commonly in parliamentary systems. 2. Such governments often do excellent work. 3. Coalitions may form – and, if they do, they can govern effectively. 4. If they don’t form, ‘agreements to govern’ (as has, in fact, been the case in Canada since 2006) can be effective. 5. And so Stephen Harper’s attack on those possibilities is a sham. It is a hoax which he is attempting to perpetrate on the Canadian public.
But … more! The Mainstream Press and Media should expose Stephen Harper’s real goal … the one he is trying to use a pattern of lies to achieve.
Having gone Right to the point of having ‘nut case Yankee policies”, Harper knows they won’t be supported by a minority government. $30 billions (plus) for fighter planes. A $6 billion gift to large corporations. Multi billions to build [who will get the contracts?] new nineteenth century jails to pack with people who shouldn’t be in jail. And more….
Harper has set up a situation that is so obscene no minority parliament could accept it.
That means the minority parliament will vote him down and will seek from the Governor General the right to rule. Stephen Harper has, I believe, anticipated that (as I believe he anticipated he would need William Elliott as head of the RCMP during the election). And so he appointed a Harperite Hack as Governor General. That opens huge and dangerous possibilities. If the Governor General attempts to work politically for Stephen Harper, instead of constitutionally for Canada, he will create a crisis in Canadian democracy.
In that situation a Harper attempted coup d’etat will be used to prevent a Liberal-led minority government.
If that happens, the Opposition parties will be forced into some kind of coalition. To save Canadian democracy, the matter may demand an all-party Opposition coalition. Stephen Harper knows that, I am sure. He is trying to lie enough to make Canadians believe (in advance) that a coalition is undemocratic and illegitimate. That is why he lies about it consistently…on and on and on.
Stephen Harper has never let the truth stand in the way of his ambition to rule as what Plato called a Tyrant.
The Mainsteam Press and Media – which opens up none of the facts on this matter, supports, I believe, what is in fact Stephen Harper’s baldfaced lying. Even the CBC does. In the face, for instance, of what the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting insist is an outright lie by the Prime Minister’s Office, by Stephen Harper, and by the arts and culture minister James Moore about cuts to CBC funding … the CBC remains mute.
Complicity with lies and wrongdoing can’t go much farther than that.
It is plain that Canadians are going to have to figure out the pattern of lying laid out by Stephen Harper and what it is intended to produce. They are going to have to figure it out in the face of the failure of the Mainstream Press and
Media to do their job. Canadians would be wise to be ready for a major attempt to hi-jack democracy in Canada and to have set up in its place a Harper Tyranny.
Canadians are going to have to realize they’re facing what I believe is a neo-Fascist leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. And Canadians are going to have to reject him with all the energy they have.

Senator Tommy Banks letter re Harper’s gradual destruction of our Canada

There is a paragraph in the begining of this that allows me to put this on my blog and I gladly do so.  It is vindication of what I have been trying to say for years now.

Thank you Tommy Banks, a senator for the people of Canada.
Jeremy

What Canadians have lost under this “Harper” Govt.
Tommy Banks,

Canadian conductor and pianist,
host of the CBC television’s “The Tommy Banks Show” for 15 years.
—– Original Message —–
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 11:33 PM
Subject: Tom Banks

A letter from my partner Tom Banks
by Sharman King on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 10:39am

I apologize for this long re-post, but I’d like to share with my friends this letter from my business partner and musical associate Senator Tommy Banks. It’s worth noting that Tom was a Conservative when he was appointed to the Senate. If you agree with this food for thought please feel free to send it to your friends of whatever political stripe. The bigger message here is how we want our government to behave, no matter who forms that government. Here’s Tom’s missive:
There is only one thing about the outcome of the May 2nd election on which Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Harper agree. It is that one of them will be the Prime Minister of Canada. Mr. Layton, Mr. Duceppe and Ms. May are not in the running to form a government. They can’t. It will be either Mr. Ignatieff or Mr. Harper.

That is the choice, and it is a very clear – in fact, stark choice. We will choose between openness or secrecy. Between listening or refusing to listen. Between someone who respects Parliament or someone who disdains it. Between things we can and will do now or things that, (provided of course that everything goes well), we might do in five or six years. Between someone who answers all questions from Canadians, or someone who won’t accept any.

Between Mr. Harper who said “It’s past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act”, or Mr. Ignatieff who said “ . . . we don’t want user fees. We want universal, accessible, free-at-the-point-of-service health care, paid out of general revenue. That’s just bottom line. Otherwise we get two-tiered”.

Between buying jets or helping vets. Between real early childhood learning and care or Saturday-night babysitting. Between respect for our great institutions or contempt for them. Between helping families or helping big corporations. Between the Canada that we think we have, or the way in which Mr. Harper has already changed it.

Over the past few years Mr. Harper’s government has quietly engineered so many changes that there are some ways in which our country is barely recognizable. Many of us don’t yet realize the extent of those changes, because many of them have been brought about very carefully and gradually – almost imperceptibly in some cases.

This is diabolically clever. If these things had all been done at once, there would have been loud protests and reactions. But moving just one little brick at a time doesn’t cause much fuss – until you realize that the whole house has been renovated. And we’ve hardly noticed.

These are changes that are at the very heart of who and what Canadians are. They are changes to the protections that used to exist against the tyranny of the majority – or against a single-minded my-way-or-the-highway autocrat. These changes are losses to our very Canadian-ness. Let me remind you of some of them:

The Law Commission of Canada was created by an Act of Parliament in 1997. It worked very well. It kept an eye in a sort-of avuncular way, on necessary reforms of the law, including election law. The Commission couldn’t actually change law; but it was very good at letting governments and everybody else know when changes needed to be made and why. It was our legal Jiminy Cricket, and it performed a valuable service for Canada. The Commission was created by an Act of Parliament, and any government wanting to shut it down should have been up-front about it. It should have come to Parliament with a Bill to rescind The Law Commission of Canada Act. That’s what any of our 21 previous Prime Ministers would have done.

But to Mr. Harper, Parliament is an inconvenience. Somebody might ask “Why are you doing this?” But he didn’t want to go through all that Parliamentary trouble; so, rather than proposing the abolition of the Commission (a proposal about which there would have been pretty fierce debate on all sides), they just eliminated all funding for it in the federal budget. Governments can do that. Poof – no Law Commission.

Nice and quiet. Just one little brick. Hardly noticed.

Then there was the Court Challenges Programme, set up in 1994, which was the means by which a bit of legal help could be provided to a private individual or small organization who didn’t have a lot of money, and who was taking on, or being taken on by, the Government of Canada. It leveled the legal playing field a bit. It was a perfect example of fundamental Canadian fairness.

By convincing a tough panel of judges of the reasonableness of your cause, you could get a little help in paying for some lawyers to go up against the phalanx of legal beagles that could always, and forever, and at public expense, be brought to bear against you by the State. In other words, if you weren’t rich, and if you were taking on or being taken on by the Feds, you might have had a chance. But Mr. Harper doesn’t like being questioned, let alone challenged. It’s so inconvenient! Solution? Quietly announce that the Court Challenges Programme is being, er, discontinued. Poof – no Court Challenges Programme – no court challenges.

Hardly noticed.

The Coordination of Access to Information Request System (CAIRS) was created (by a Progressive-Conservative government) in 1989 so that departments of government could harmonize their responses to access-to-information requests that might need multi-departmental responses. It was efficient; it made sure that in most cases the left hand knew what the right hand was doing, or at least what they were saying; and it helped keep government open and accountable. Well, if you’re running a closed-door government, that’s not a good idea, is it? So, as a Treasury Board official explained to the Canadian Press, CAIRS was killed by the Harper government because “extensive” consultations showed it wasn’t valued by government departments. I guess that means that the extensive consultations were all with government departments.

Wait! Wasn’t there anybody else with whom to extensively consult? Wasn’t there some other purpose and use for CAIRS? Didn’t it have something to do with openness and accountability? I guess not. Robert Makichuk, speaking for Mr. Harper’s government, explained that “valuable resources currently being used to maintain CAIRS would be better used in the collection and analysis of improved statistical reporting”.

Right. In other words, CAIRS was an inconvenience to the government. So poof – it’s disappeared. And, except for investigative reporters and other people who might (horrors!) ask questions, its loss is hardly noticed.

And the bridge too far for me: Cutting the already-utterly-inadequate funding for the exposure of Canadian art and artists in other countries. That funding was, by any comparison, already laughably miniscule. Mr. Harper says that “ordinary” Canadians don’t support the arts. He’s wrong. And his is now the only government of any significant country in the world that clearly just doesn’t get it.

All these changes were done quietly, cleverly, and under the radar. No fuss. No outcry. Just one little brick at a time. But in these and other ways, our Canadian house is no longer the kind of place it once was. Nobody minds good renovations. Nobody even minds tearing something down, as long as we put up something better in its place. That’s not what has happened.

Mr. Harper fired the head of the Canadian Wheat Board because he was doing his job properly. He removed the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission because she wanted to make sure that the Chalk River nuclear reactor was safe.

Hardly noticed.

There are many more things that were hardly noticed: Cuts to funding for the Status of Women, Adult Learning and Literacy, Environmental Programs, museums funding, and more. All quietly, just one brick at a time.

Hardly noticed.

As to campaign promises, everybody in sight on every side is guilty of breaking those. Except the Federal NDP of course, who haven’t yet had the opportunity. (It’s very easy to make promises that you know you will not likely have to keep).

But the government promised to end wait times in health care. They didn’t. They promised to end, once and for all, the whining of some provinces about the non-existent “fiscal imbalance”. They didn’t. They said they had brought final resolution to the softwood lumber problem with the U.S. They haven’t. They promised to create thousands of new child-care spaces in Canada. They haven’t. They promised not to tax income trusts (“We will NEVER do that!” they said). They taxed them. They promised to lower your income tax.

They raised it.

They said they had a good “made-in-Canada” plan to meet our obligations on climate change. They don’t. Mr. Harper has said plainly that whatever the Americans do is what we’ll do too.

They campaign on a platform of transparency and accountability; but they’re now trying to discredit the Parliamentary Budget Officer that they created, because he’s trying to do the job that they gave him. Mr. Harper said that our form of government, evolved over centuries from the 900-year-old British Westminster tradition, was all wrong. We had to have fixed election dates, because otherwise, democratic principles would be trampled. “Fixed election dates”, he said, “stop leaders from trying to manipulate the calendar. They level the playing field for all parties”.

So Parliament (remember them?) at Mr. Harper’s insistence, passed a law requiring fixed election dates, which Mr. Harper promptly broke.

Somebody once said that we get the kind of government we deserve. What did we do to deserve Mr. Harper? He once said that we should all “Stand Up for Canada”. Well, let’s do that. We just have to decide whether the present version of Canada is the one that we’ll stand up for. Or stand for.

Thank you

Tommy Banks (an Alberta Senator.)