Tag Archives: Stephen Harper

A Letter to Canadian MPs.

I was clearing out my drafts in my email today and came accross this which it seems I never sent.  However it seems appropos so I am putting it up here for your reading pleasure !.

 

To all Members of the Canadian House of Commons except one.

Some of you were not around the house a few years ago I grant, but your parties were, and as members of those parties you should all be included in this following statement.

You should every one of you, except Ms. May, look yourselves in the mirror and see the face of hypocrisy staring back at you concerning your actions, votes and intonations about the situation in the Crime​a and the Ukraine

You pontificate about so called ‘Russian invasion’, you talk about democracy and human rights as if you know what those words mean, and you claim as a badge of honour being banned from another country. You talk on and on about sanctions both personal and state against Russians and Russia for actions they have orhave not taken in Crimea, as if that is the greatest crime of the century so far.

Ladies and gentlemen ( I use the terms here loosely) of the Canadian House of Commons it is not.

That crime falls to the glorious parliament of Canada which led the charge against and the invasion and destruction of a country know as Libya.

You all supported that, except Ms. May, and then claimed honour and valour in the Canadian actions of attacking civilian targets from the safety of the undefended air, whilst encouraging the mercenary forces on the ground ( and did those include Canadian special forces units as well?) to rape, kill and torture civilians not matter where they were found, and eventually lead to the capture, torture and death of the leader of the country in a prime example of blood lust.

Yes you backed that action supporting our Foreign office and its unwavering support for the ‘incredibly impressive” rebels, against a man who had established in Libya a standard of living so far above what we have here in Canada, that when he annoyed the IMF by threatening their never ending gluttony for money and profits, you fell all over yourselves to get rid of him.

Now after you put that shame of war crimes actions on the conscience of all thinking Canadians you step forward again with your absurd claims of democracy and human rights at the very time when you are taking them away from Canadians here at home.

People give you heads a shake and think what you are doing for once instead of what your glorious leaders are getting you to do.

More and more as one from BC I have the feeling of such disconnect with our so called federal government of fools that I am seriously beginning to accept the fact of BC leaving Canada and stepping away from these absurd situations. Perhaps it really is time to allow BC and Quebec to go as we have become a nation of fools being lead by traitors who are in turn being lead by corporate promises of wealth when they have done the dirty work.

Yes that is you.

Look at yourself and claim it is not so…I dare you…and if you can refute what I claim, then do so by your actions not your pathetic words. Stand up and be counted or else we should abandon this once glorious dream called Canada.

In total disgust at our so called representatives in Ottawa.

Jeremy Arney

Stephen Harper admits getting rid of Gaddafi was the real goal.

Well NATO have succeeded it would appear in destroying Libya in preparation for the huge contracts for rebuilding what they have just bombed the hell out of.
The construction corporations of the world are lining up to bid on contracts sponsored by money already stolen from Libya and now to be released to the rebels to spend no doubt half on re-building and half on themselves and the Libyan people can whistle in the wind.
 

Canada’s part in all this should give us all pause for consideration.
 

Harper is proud to say that we are the new ‘go to guys’ in this kind of operation and that our pilots should be proud of the damage they have inflicted on men, women , children, hospitals, schools, universities, drinking water pipe lines and the factory to repair the bombed pipe line, not to mention the homes bombed to help the people see that they had better fall into line with the CIA, SAS, IMF sponsored rebels quickly. I feel sure that Israel had a hand in all this too, along with the French of course.

Canadian Forces in Libya give that country new hope: Harper
2011/09/01 | Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the work of Canadian Forces in Libya has given the country new hope.

He said Canada punched above its weight in the international military effort to oust Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Interesting as all along he and his NATO co -war criminals have denied that was their aim, claiming it was to protect the civilians they were bombing, which seems oxymoronic even for the Conservative Party of Canada and their war lord.

Harper said the former Libyan dictator has bankrolled terrorism the world over and said Canadians still condemn him for his role in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which killed 268 people and two Canadians.

Interesting also that now suddenly after all these years vengeance has to be enacted and how Harper can make that claim, when the biggest terrorists the world has ever known are his future bosses to our south, whose actions have caused a civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq alone that are enough to make any normal person weep. Incidentally those 268 deaths though regrettable are small in comparison to the treasonous action of 11th, September 2001 in New York, done for money and to give an excuse for a war to supposedly kill one man, but which is still going on today and that man has been long dead. Are we really to believe he only just died? I don’t any more than I believe he was responsible to the attacks of 9-11..

Back to Harper:

He said a world without Gadhafi is a better place,

So now he is taking the removal of Gaddafi to the next step and like any good extremist christian wants him dead. This is the man who has the nerve to end his talks by saying: “May god bless you and may god bless Canada”. Frankly I don’t want his spiteful, hateful god having anything to do with either my family or I.

From so called Libya TV (translated page of propaganda?)
1 Sept 2011

I say so called because it reads more like Fox or Sun TV to me.

Conference of the Friends of Libya starts Thursday in Paris
Posted on: 30/08/2011
Tweet Tweet
With the participation of delegations from 60 countries
Conference of the Friends of Libya starts Thursday in Paris

With friends like these blood sucking killers who needs enemies right?

Oh well if you follow the money these are all parasitical countries who wish to help divide the spoils and make sure that Libya falls in with the rest of the world and becomes a beholden, broke, and starving African nation along with most of the others on that continent. It might be said that Gaddafi had his faults, and I am sure he did, but being in debt to the international banks was not one of them. Thus he had to go anyway so that the Libyan money he had invested all around the world to start to help the other African States with their financial freedom could be frozen (under the claim it was his, not Libya’s) and used for something else.
By following the money you find which countries stood to lose huge amounts by Gaddafi’s plan to free those other African Countries from debt. Why do you think the African States do not recognize the rebels?
Why do you think the rebels had their own central bank given to them by the IMF before it was sure that they would even manage to obtain their weapons which had yet to be air lifted in by the US, French, English and of course Israel? And before the commandos from England, USA and France were on the land to help them.. Until they arrived it was a doubtful game, but with them there it became a forgone conclusion. unlimited amounts of new weapons and professional soldiers to use them made all the difference.
 

Now we know for sure. Harper has admitted that the aim was not to give democracy to Libya, (anyway who are we or any other corporate country to give or teach something we do not have), but rather to get rid of a man dangerous to the monetary profits of the world banks.
 

Strange how oil played a part in this too isn’t it?
 

Harpers claim that we – Canada – had to do this to save the people of Libya, and that we in no way intended to profit from what has happened is such a blatant lie that I felt ashamed again that he was speaking for Canada. When we and the rest of the world just stood by through Tunisia and Egypt and are doing nothing about Syria it makes a complete mockery of his words, nothing unusual there though. Where were/are  the ‘no fly zones’ in those three countries to ‘protect the civilians’ ? 

But of course the real profits are to be made from the rebuilding of a country largely destroyed by NATO and the CIA backed rebels, and the future interest on the soon to be debt of Libya to the international banks thanks to that new IMF sponsored central bank, backed by imaginary money again of course.

So once again corporate profits trump human lives, and an indifferent peoples of the world looks on with jaded eyes, as they try to figure out how they will survive themselves over the coming financial crunch, because the governments of the world refuse to accept that consumption is not the only way to prosperity. Consumption is indeed a sickness which we have been misled into thinking has to happen in order for any benefit to come our way. Nonsense, we as people do not benefit from increased consumption, we just pay more taxes and give higher profits to the producers of the junk we buy, and as it is worn out in a few months have to rebuy to keep pace with the Joneses, who in turn think we are Jones.
 

When we learn to look after the planet, and all the species that dwell on it, then we will start to see peace and prosperity, but until then we are deluding ourselves in thinking that we can be happy, or even peaceful. As long as we have hate filled men, such as Harper, controlled by corporate powers we will have nothing but wars and greed, poverty and hate, lies and deceit, killing and stealing and worship of fake gods.

I would like to see peace and love and respect for all living things in my time, but I think I am too old for that now.

Jeremy Arney

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

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.)

Whats up Stephen? I tried to warn you.

In the year 2008, at a town Hall meeting on Salt Spring Island during the federal election, I accused both the Conservatives and Liberals of being short sighted concerning the economic health of North America and posed the question to everyone there

What is your back up plan for when the economic crunch hits?

I was naturally laughed at, specially by Gary Lunn of the Reform/Alliance coalition, yet just a few months later after a huge panic , proroguing of parliament to maintain the government of apparently paralized non believers (or outright liars) , and a large budget that just could not have been produced in the time it took from denial to presentation in parliament, this government produced a direction with which I have never agreed.
They had an opportunity to change the face of Canada and reestablish Canada as a productive nation.
Since FTA and NAFTA we have been bleeding manufacturing companies, plants and jobs to Mexico, USA and of course Asia.
So here was a chance to spend money with two purposes instead of just one.
What we got was a huge spending spree largely in Conservative ridings or ridings they wanted to win, to fix up bridges, roads, arenas etc., none of which created long term full time jobs with benefits; in fact I would argue that very few new jobs were created through this program anyway. What we have had is an increase of part time, non-benefit jobs which are neither sustaining nor productive.
What we could have had as I even proposed during that election campaign of 2008, was to start production of such things as solar panels made in recently closed saw mills or pulp mills, or manufacturing pre cut log homes to export all over the world, instead of just exporting raw logs. Production of recycled wood, or even using pine beetle killed lumber to produce presto logs for burning in fire places – in fact now we in BC import presto logs from Washington State.

To give an example if I may, we have almost finished a $24 million overpass on the #17 highway here on Vancouver Island at the Victoria Airport exit. Apparently the business plan says it will pay $144 million over 20 years so it is a good business plan. My question was who will be making that $144 million, and it turns out that it is ICBC (Insurance Corporation of BC) who will benefit from the apparent lack of accidents cost. Well dear lord this was one of the safest intersections on the highway so surely a better business plan would have encouraged any of the other intersections to be replaced. I was unable to get from the Minister of Transport how many, if any, new jobs were created by this $24 million, bearing in mind that job creation was supposed to be the main reason for the spending of this stimulus money. I also got no answer about how many full time jobs would result after the completion of this job, so obviously it was an excuse to spend money in a weak riding of a junior minister of state

What has happened is that the government has turned its back on real production here in Canada; innovation and foresight are gone, to be replaced with the destruction of our ecology for the sake of oil, gas, gold and coal mines etc., The fracking process to extract gas is now established in the north east of BC with no regard for what it is doing to either the rivers lakes or streams or worse yet the aquifers which are all being contaminated by toxic waste water forced into the earth under extreme pressure. Nothing else matters but the ravaging of our country for the sake of exports of natural resources to both the USA and China. Unfortunately none of the companies involved in this exporting business are Canadian owned so we are actually not getting any real benefit from this raping of our earth, the destruction of aboriginal ways of life and the giving away of our commons.

I do believe that as long as we avoid the concept of producing real things here in Canada for consumption here and abroad, we will be a small bit player eating on the crumbs thrown our way by the real economies around the world.

I hear again and again from this government that we are through the recession which was not of our making, and that we didn’t bail out our banks – what? I make it a $75 billion bailout.

“The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today announced the Government will purchase up to an additional $50 billion of insured mortgage pools by the end of the fiscal year as part of its ongoing efforts to maintain the availability of longer-term credit in Canada.

This action will increase to $75 billion the maximum value of securities purchased through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) under this program. The Main Wire, November 12, 2008

and they were still trying at that time to say that there wasn’t a problem !

On top of that we were told by Harper:

At the height of the election campaign, Prime Minister Harper stated emphatically that: “this is not a bailout… it will cost the government nothing.” (CBC News, October 10, 2008).

So who paid for it Harper? Your fairy godmother?

Another lie is that we are the best in the G20 – oh come on get real here, how can we be the best if we don’t make anything, if we have a huge and growing unemployment problem, homeless everywhere, sick and mentally ill not getting any attention, and an alienation of our aboriginal peoples, a growing debt problem and reduced income levels due to huge tax cuts to high profit corporations?

This is the best in the G20? Who is kidding who here?

We are rapidly sinking into a “have not” country so that it will be easier for USA to swallow us up, just as Harper has wanted ever since he became prime minister.

At the same time as this money was being spent on ‘infrastructure’, we purchased:
Army trucks and rescue planes:
Our government is going to spend 274 million dollars buying 1,300 “heavily armoured” trucks (that’s $210,769 each – presumably US $ at that) for “domestic” use by the Canadian army from the USA, and then another 3 billion buying Italian planes, also to be made in the USA, to replace the aging fleet of Buffalo rescue planes on the west coast.   from my letter to the local paper editor.

As a result of that army trucks purchase from the USA, the International Harvester plant in Chatham laid off many workers which was of course a loss of jobs and tax revenue to both levels of government…Good job MacKay, trustworthy as ever I see, and how you could not see that coming is beyond me.

Navistar sent out 500 layoff notices to its Chatham workforce last week, with another 200 expected in the spring. thestar,com Wednesday Jan 14th 2009

For Air Sea Rescue planes, Viking Air of Calgary, Aberta and Sidney, BC, both in Conservative ridings. lost out to the US made Italian design even though they told MacKay they could do a better job ….didn’t cut any ice with him of course, and Canadian jobs were not a priority….!

We won’t even get into the costly new one engine stealth fighter from the US when the Russians have one every bit as good, ready now at less money one would have thought. Any way what are we doing putting our flyers at risk in the north with only one engine?

There is a sickness about this particular government that I find very hard to understand. The verbal stuff we hear from it is pro Canadian, and yet the practice is totally the opposite. Such is the control by the prime minister he might as well be the dictator he imagines himself to be. “I make the rules” does not fit with a democratic form of government and it bothers me that there are still some people in this country who cannot see what he us up to and actually support his desire to destroy Canada as we have known it.

It is obvious to me that as long as we reduce our income, and waste a fortune of public money on partisan advertising, very bad purchasing of material stuff, gross mismanagement of major portfolios, a dysfunctional government which has been challenged on parliamentary contempt more than any government on our history we will not be able to stand on our own feet much longer.

What have you done Stephen and is your mother proud of you?

Jeremy Arney