Joyce: A Long List of Harper’s Wrongs

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Joyce: A Long List of Harper’s Wrongs

[ http://cocnwt.files.wordpress.com/2014/ ... column.pdf ]

by Jim Joyce, Yellowknife

YELLOWKNIFER, Wednesday, April 23, 2014 A9

An editorial in last week's Yellowknifer ("Stopped by the Message," April 16) complains that criticism of the federal government during Brigette DePape's recent public events in Yellowknife was "long on griping, short on substance."

Since no Yellowknifer reporter attended Ms. DePape's April 4 speaking event, your lack of specifics is understandable.

"Stop Harper" is a call to action. It is the response to federal attacks on the Canadian core values, particularly the federal government attacks on our society's least advantaged.

It is a list grown so long in eight Harper years that summary becomes impossible, and certainly exceeds your letters-to-the-editor length restrictions.

Here's a starter list. See how many you're prepared to print, and please indicate to your readers if this letter has been edited for length (editor's note: this list has not been shortened).

The Conservatives have undermined democracy, democratic principles, and information gathering essential to informed decision-making:
• Cancellation of the long form census
• Proroguing of Parliament to avoid critical policy debates
• Unprecedented use of omnibus bills to limit debate
• Unprecedented control by the PMO of Parliamentary and Senate committees
• The robocall scandal
• The senate scandal and corruption in the prime minister's office
• Secretive international trade agreement negotiations (CETA, FIPPA and TPP)
• Destruction of long-standing research libraries and centres and muzzling of public servant media responses
• More than $100 million in legal fees fighting aboriginal rights cases
• No national first ministers meeting in eight years
• Cancellation of the court challenges program
• The denial of voting rights and limiting Elections' Canada authority under the proposed new elections laws.

The Conservatives have also reduced environmental protection laws and capacity:
• Elimination and weakening of environmental protections under the Fisheries Act, Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and Navigable Waters Act
• Dismantling of the NWT's regional land and water boards
• Gutting of federal environmental science programs and staff, especially the departments of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, and Parks Canada
• Betrayal of our Kyoto climate changes promises, and runaway production of greenhouse gases, particularly from the tar sands
• Attacking environmental activists as terrorists and enemies of the state
• Elimination of or reduced funding to the Experimental Lakes Area, the Living Lakes Network, Climate Change Network, Global Environmental Monitoring System, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, and the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy.

The Conservatives have eliminated or reduced social justice programming:
• Closing or slashing funding for the Canada Health Council, National Council of Welfare, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada Without Poverty, Canadian Council on Social Development, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Native Women's Association of Canada, among other NGOs
• Cutting core funding to First Nation governments and eliminating funding for regional support services
• Enacting stricter, more complex rules for employment insurance eligibility
• Implementing the Temporary Foreign Workers' program to undercut Canadian workers and wages
• Eliminating $35 billion in federal health care transfers
• Increasing old age pension eligibility to 67 years
• Reducing the flexibility of courts in determining sentencing, while reducing rehabilitation programming in jails

The Conservatives have made major economic blunders:
• Mismanaging the F-35 acquisition program, by underestimating the costs of the program by billions of dollars
• Losing $3.1 billion in anti-terrorist funding
• Increasing income inequality in Canada
• Enacting anti-strike legislation in favour of corporate interests
• Promoting a petro-state economy at the expense of regional economic diversity
• Negotiating ‘free trade' agreements giving international corporations increased control over government policies

The Conservatives have transformed our international presence from diplomacy and foreign aid to militarism and corporate aid:
• Eliminating or reducing funding to the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Kairos, Rights and Democracy, and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, among others
• Supporting the notion of pre-emptive military strikes on Iran
• Re-focusing foreign aid through the Canadian International Development Agency to support Canadian mining company interests rather than social development programming.

This is not a complete list, but it shows that Harper's Conservatives have deliberately shifted Canada's core values away from democracy,
social justice and equity, environmental stewardship, economic diversity, and enlightened foreign aid to unabashed, uncritical support for multi-national corporate interests through the stifling of democracy, attacks on environmental and social justice groups and advocates, support for a resource-extraction economy based on dirty fuel, and a militaristic and uncompassionate approach to foreign affairs.

That is why many Canadians from all walks of life agree with Bridgette DePape and the simple slogan, "Stop Harper."

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Jim Joyce is an active member of the NWT branch of the Council of Canadians

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