Stop the Hogs!

Canadians dozing away as country in jeopardy

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/
letters/story.html?id=33a17fd9-2a9a-437e-a2dc-d0b050e73bf2

The StarPhoenix Published: Thursday, July 26, 2007

Here we are, approaching the dog days of summer, and most of us are in our backyards, languid in the shade.

While we doze, the Three Amigos (U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephen Harper) are gearing up for their big Aug. 20 meeting at Montebello, Que.

The event is all carefully policed and protected from public scrutiny or participation. The leaders will ratify the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a "partnership" simply declared through a press release by Bush, former PM Paul Martin and Mexico's Vincente Fox in 2005 in Waco, Tex., with no public consultation or legislation.

If ratified, the SPP will result in integration of the three countries into the North American Union.

Driving the process is the North American Competitiveness Council -- a group of CEOs representing some of the continent's wealthiest companies such as Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, Home Depot, Manulife Financial, Chevron, Suncor, UPS and General Motors.

Under its veil of secrecy, big business is driving the future of Canada and drafting government policy. All meetings were organized by government committees and private enterprise, designed to avoid legislation because they knew, from the beginning, that if people learned what was happening, they wouldn't condone it.

If we allow the North American Union to emerge, our lives will be drastically affected: continued privatization of our resources, increased foreign ownership, a weakened Canadian government, our children and grandchildren no longer being Canadians but North Americans, the loss of the loonie and our country itself.

Why haven't the media told us what's going on?

Better question: Why haven't our elected representatives been raising proper hell and putting a stop to this outrage?

Elaine Hughes
Archerwill

IS CANADA’S DEMOCRACY AND OUR CHANCE FOR SUSTAINABILITY SLIPPING AWAY?

BY Jim Harding Published in R-Town News on March 4, 2011

First in Tunisia, then Egypt and now Libya, youth are risking their lives to topple oil-rich authoritarian leaders, many who obtained their military might with western backing. Meanwhile, as we sit at our TVs watching with some astonishment as these protests become popular revolutions, our own country is steadily moving towards more authoritarian rule.
Has the quality of our democracy been slipping away as Canada itself becomes an “energy superpower”? Is there anything about Canada that makes us immune to this happening? When you look at what has occurred in five short years of Harper’s rule, it seems time to blow the warning whistle.
The growing list of how Harper’s tightly-controlled rule is moving us away from democracy is discussed in “The New Solitudes” by Erna Paris in the March 2011 The Walrus. I suggest you read it carefully if you care about the future of our country. Paris lists many concrete examples of how our democracy is being whittled away, and you begin to see a pattern to Harper’s ongoing assaults on Canadian society. Here are just a few examples.
AFGHAN TORTURE
Diplomat Richard Colvin warned the Harper government that the Canadian military was turning Afghan prisoners over to Security Forces where some were being tortured. Instead of investigating this, as Canada is obliged under the Geneva Accords, Harper’s government tried “to suppress the flow of documents that might contain incriminating material.” While the law clerk of the House of Commons confirmed that elected Parliamentarian’s had the right to see the evidence, the Harper government threatened Richard Colvin with legal action “if he dared to file documents before the House”, warning him “to conduct himself according to the interpretation of the Government of Canada”. Free speech is replaced with obstruction, intimidation and authoritarian rule.
Harper clearly cares little for the rule of law. The Walrus article discusses the case of child soldier Omar Khadr, noting that “Between 2009 and 2010, three high courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, ruled that the Harper government had breached his constitutional rights under the Charter.” The article continues: “Essentially the Prime Minister ignored these legal decisions. Canada became the only country to refuse to repatriate a citizen from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay.” No matter what one’s view of the war in Afghanistan, we do not want to see Canada’s democracy weakened by Harper’s mishandling of the military mission.
CENTRALIZING POWER
Harper’s record speaks for itself: The Walrus article notes Harper “appointing an unelected party worker, Michael Fortier, to the federal cabinet to secure representation from Montreal; eliminating the Access to Information database; reducing and controlling government contact with the media; obliging cabinet ministers and public service officials to speak from scripts approved by the Prime Minister’s Office, thereby increasing the executive power of the PMO in new ways; twice proroguing the House of Commons, narrowly averting a constitutional crisis…”
This is just the tip of the iceberg of Harper’s creeping authoritarianism. The list gets much longer when you add in international obstruction of climate change negotiations and his disregard for pressing matters of environment and sustainability. Canada’s Environmental Commissioner has reported that Harper’s government isn’t monitoring our watersheds and has no plan for climate change or major oil spills. With Harper’s distain for international law and global sustainability, it is no wonder that UN members voted so strongly against Canada, a pioneer of the United Nations and Human Rights, getting a seat on the Security Council.
LYING ABOUT KAIROS
Harper undermines basic honesty in politics. During a trip to Israel in 2009, Harper’s Minister Jason Kenney slurred the ecumenical coalition KAIROS as being anti-Semitic. (He actually confused the ecumenical group with another organization calling for a boycott of Israel due to its occupation of Palestinian territory.) Composed of most of the mainstream Christian churches, KAIROS has received federal funds for international development projects since 1974. In 2009 it was told without warning that all its international projects had been cut. According to Harper’s Minister responsible for foreign aid, Bev Oda, and many Conservative MPs, this was because KAIROS failed to meet the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA’s) new guidelines. As it turns out CIDA actually recommended continued funding for KAIROS, and Minister Oda had the CIDA document doctored to insert “not”, before it went through the budgetary processes. Harper defends his Minister’s right to arbitrarily decide, diverting attention from the fraud and forgery. Harper supports his Minister misleading Parliament, showing again how he prefers to govern by deceit.
Some of KAIROS’s international projects supported women’s reproductive health, and it may be that Harper’s government was unwilling to fund overseas projects that might include access to abortion. KAIROS has also been high profile about the impact of the tar sands on Alberta’s environment and the health of Indigenous people. Being attacked as “anti-Semitic” is a way to detract from Harper’s un-categorical support for Israel, whatever injustices are involved. It is noteworthy that long-time Israel supporter, Charles Bronfman, recently said “As long as it fails to end the occupation, Israel will be seen to be on the wrong side of history”. Kenny, of course, won’t dare to call this Canadian Jewish businessman “anti-Semitic”.
AFFRONTING HUMAN RIGHTS
Such mean-spirited, aggressive tactics are used to obscure and promote Harper’s ideological agenda. This will continue to threaten Canada’s democracy. When Harper hosted the G20 in Toronto, 1,100 Canadians were held in a Police Detention Centre, most without charge or under false arrest, often without food and water. Some police removed their badges, presumably so they couldn’t be identified. While police stayed mostly uninvolved when a small minority engaged in property damage, peaceful protesters were abused and injured. The human rights of thousands of Canadians were suspended when police enforced rules that had no basis in law.
This was the largest mass arrest in Canadian history, much larger than during the October 1970 FLQ Crisis. Canada looks like a police state when you view the Fifth Estate’s documentary on how the police handled the G20 protests. The decision to have the G20 in downtown Toronto, and to bring 20,000 police to Ontario at a cost of one billion dollars, was Harper’s. A government committed to democratic values would immediately call for a public inquiry, but not a peep from Harper, who clearly prefers to trump-up fear about disorder rather than uphold our democratic rights. Such blame-the-victim tactics are typical of tyrannical leaders everywhere.
MANIPULATING ELECTIONS
We hear a lot about electoral fraud and corruption in Afghanistan. But what about right here? In 2008 Canada Elections sent the RCMP into Conservative Party headquarters and now four senior Conservatives, including Senator Doug Finley, who was Harper’s campaign manager in 2006 and 2008, have been charged with making “false and misleading statements”. According to the Feb. 26th Globe and Mail the allegation is that the Harper Conservatives breached spending limits by shifting excess advertising expenses on to candidates in 67 ridings. Finley is considered Harper’s “pit-bull” and believes politics to be “an adversarial business”; he was responsible for the expensive, aggressive attack ads on Liberal leaders, including ones now being aired about Ignatieff previously living in the U.S.
If Harper was ever able to manipulate his way to a majority government, Canada would sink further into authoritarian rule. Our chance of getting on a sustainable path would slip further away. We are presently on a slippery slope, and perhaps have something to learn from the brave youth in the Middle East.
Next time I’ll explore what Canadians of all political stripes can do to overcome Harper’s authoritarian politics.

Past columns at:
http://jimharding.brinkster.net

A progression of tiny cuts make democracy a sham

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/654014

By James Travers National Affairs Columnist OTTAWA June 20, 2009

From acrylics to zippers, inventive Canadians are surprisingly good at giving the world new stuff it wants. Now this country is perfecting something no one needs. It's sham-ocracy, the illusion of government accountable to the people.
Even among mad scientists and crazy ideas, sham-ocracy is exceptional. It alone is designed not to function as advertised, to thwart its users. Gears don't mesh, levers disconnect and the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
Still, as a folly it's a magnificent piece of work. Its Gothic facades, theatrical forums and mahogany history are as fantastic as any theme park. It whirs and clanks, billows smoke and oozes importance. It's an icon and, all in all, a pretty good show.
No single person, political party or prime minister can hog the credit. Sham-ocracy is as much a group project as a shared burden. Begun in a 1980s Liberal effort to impose coherence and control on helter-skelter departments, agencies and spending, it's spreading like cholera in the time of Conservatives.
Slower than light or sound, its speed is still remarkable. On April 4 the Toronto Star published an essay, available at thestar.com/Travers, pulling apart the cracked and broken links in the chain binding Parliament, politicians and civil servants to citizens. Today the paper begins a close examination of the sorry state of federal governance. Between then and now, the pace of change has been startling, if sadly predictable.
Parliament lost more of its defining control over the public purse when the Prime Minister slipped $3 billion in public spending behind closed cabinet doors.
Oversight was blinkered again this week when the new federal budget office was denied the independence needed to probe and explain how Ottawa spends.
Voters' control over their elected representatives was again eroded when Liberals, like Conservatives, saved obedient incumbent MPs from the discipline and inconvenience of nomination contests.
Power is sliding farther away from the Commons and cabinet to concentrate in the Prime Minister's Office as a presidential-style spokesman increasingly becomes the administration's public voice.
Alone, none slices deep. As part of a progression they are killing democracy with cuts so small and sharp they are hardly noticed.
- - - -SNIP - - -
There are as many reasons for democracy becoming sham-ocracy as there are fixes. Over the coming weeks and months the Star will deconstruct them. But at the inquiry's epicentre is a singular concern. In perpetuating a fraud, politicians risk making Parliament another Eaton's, an institution more evocative of the past than relevant to the present or future.
James Travers' column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
- - - -
TRAVERS: award-winning national columnist and former executive managing editor for the Toronto Star, died on Thursday March 3, 2011.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/columnists/
94626--travers-james

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The New Solitudes

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/
2011.03-politics-the-new-solitudes/

Canada was once defined by the schism between English and French. Today, our divide is increasingly ideological. Can it be bridged?
By Erna Paris Illustration by Barry Blitt Politics From the March 2011 magazine
It was November 26, 2009, and I happened to be in Ottawa with a few hours to spare; so, on a citizen’s whim, I decided to drop in on Question Period in Canada’s House of Commons. I was a small girl the first time I sat in the historic visitors’ gallery that looms over the rows of members’ seats on both sides of the political divide. My father was determined that his children witness what he thought were essential places and events, and the House was high on his parental to-do list. I was properly impressed by the sight of grown-ups debating across the parliamentary aisle, waving sheaves of papers at one another and occasionally jabbing the air with their index fingers. I was too young to understand what they were talking about, but Dad’s lesson sank in, and I’ve been attending Question Period intermittently ever since.
In retrospect, I’m glad I visited the House that day, although I didn’t feel that way afterward. I thought I knew enough about our dysfunctional Parliament, but I wasn’t prepared for the dismay I felt as I watched Canada’s elected members challenge one another over one of the most critical issues to confront the country in a generation. The debate centred on the scandalous detainee transfer affair, which had once again exploded into public view. Richard Colvin, formerly a high-ranking diplomat in Afghanistan, had revealed that for seventeen months, starting in May 2006, he had informed his superiors in Ottawa that prisoners detained by the Canadian military, then transferred to Afghan security forces, were being tortured. His reports were consistently ignored, he charged. Worse still, he was ordered to stop putting his intelligence gathering into writing.

MORE:
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/
2011.03-politics-the-new-solitudes/

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Fresh Issue for Spring Election: Democracy

http://murraydobbin.ca/2011/02/28/
fresh-issue-for-spring-election-democracy/

by Murray Dobbin Posted: 28 Feb 2011 11:36 AM PST
The odds now seem to favour a spring election, as Stephen Harper headed out across the country with his cabinet ministers to announce over $300 million in goodies. In anticipating yet another campaign, it is worth remembering that without the NDP, Canadian politics (outside Quebec) would look an awful lot like the U.S.: two political parties, economically and socially right-wing, both with a recent history of dismantling the activist state and gutting its revenue base through huge tax cuts. All the while pretending to compete for our hearts and minds.
To be sure, the Conservatives — who should rightfully be called the Republican Party — are by several degrees worse than the Liberal Party. Stephen Harper runs a ruthless autocracy with contempt for every aspect of democratic governance from watch dog organizations to parliamentary committees to access to information, and topped off with a relentless assault on the political culture through the defunding of civil society.
It now turns out that the Harper government may be much more corrupt than even the existing record shows. The Canadian Press did an FOI on the Integrity Commissioner’s office formerly headed up by the now discredited Christiane Ouimet. The documents revealed 42 of the 228 cases under scrutiny involved alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars, approximately 50 involved charges of “gross mismanagement” and an incredible 60 complaints involved contraventions of Acts of Parliament. Not a single complaint resulted in any action.

MORE:
http://murraydobbin.ca/2011/02/28/
fresh-issue-for-spring-election-democracy/

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Canada’s Deepening Democracy Crisis

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=19705

by Murray Dobbin Global Research, June 13, 2010
Murray Dobbin's Blog - 2010-05-03
http://murraydobbin.ca/
Canada is in the midst of a crisis in democracy unique in its history. There is simply no other historical example that one can compare it to. It is multi-faceted and it affects every aspect of our national politics and political discourse. It is inexorably eroding the political fabric of the country and therefore our viability as a democratic nation.
First, we have a government so contemptuous of democracy that it is utterly unapologetic in trying to impose on the country an agenda opposed by probably 75 per cent of the population — treating its minority status not as a mandate to work with other parties but as an irritating impediment to re-engineering the country along the lines defined by the U.S. Christian right.

MORE:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=19705