I recall once that Stephen Harper believed in championing religious freedom. Except for people he doesn’t like.
Now he’s appealing a federal court ruling allowing people to exercise their religious freedom by becoming citizens while not publicly removing their niqab.
But why, you ask?
Because Canada is transparent, open, equal and just. And Stephen Harper is our leader, so he too is transparent, open, equal and just.
Except he’s not. At all. He’s a racist and a hypocrite. Read on!
“I believe, and I think most Canadians believe that it is — it is offensive that someone would hide their identity at the very moment where they are committing to join the Canadian family,” he said.
“This is a society that is transparent, open and where people are equal, and that is just, I think we find that offensive; that is not acceptable to Canadians and we will proceed with action on that.”
Ishaq, a Pakistani national and devout Sunni Muslim, says her religious beliefs obligate her to wear a niqab. She has said while she has no problem unveiling herself in private so that an official can confirm her identity, she draws the line at unveiling herself at a public citizenship ceremony.
The federal government tells CBC News that 84 First Nations have until Wednesday to post their audited financial statements for the last fiscal year, including the salaries and expenses of their chiefs and councillors.
Pam Palmater is one of the most important voices in Canada in this young century so far. Here’s another reason why:
Below she calls out some racism in the form of settler-occupied hypocrisy.
The first nations, so go the racists, are incompetent and corrupt. Like the unions and the poor. That’s why we have Bill C-377 to make the unions pay for working for working people. That’s why Jean Swanson had to write Poor Bashing.
And since the racists and Conservative Party [including the overlap there] think the first nations need to be transparent to us, we have a new bill, C-27, to make them give themselves an exercise in transparency to justify their leadership.
Except federal politicians don’t have to live up to the same standard. Are there corruption and conflict of interest in political bodies in Canada? Yes. This bill, however, will do nothing to explore and alter the generations-old dynamic of politicians’ contempt for democracy.
That kind of hypocrisy is racism. Don’t dance around with weak narratives. Call it what it is.
Imagine if any political leaders in Canada had to report their personal wealth in addition to the salary of their public office. Prime Minister Harper is the 6th highest paid political leader in the world with a salary of approximately $300k/year. Harper not only makes 7 times what the average Canadian makes, but makes far more than other world leaders with much larger populations and economies.
But let’s forget about his salary for a minute. What is Prime Ministers and federal politicians had to publicly disclose their PERSONAL wealth? Then we are no longer talking about over-paid Prime Ministers, we are talking about million dollar Prime Ministers. Stephen Harper’s personal wealth has been estimated at $5M. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin is in the hundreds of millions. Why the double standard?Why did so many federal MPs refuse to disclose their own expenses? I agree there is an issue of accountability in Canada, but it’s with the federal government, and not First Nations.
The Pundits Guide has a spectacular analysis of what it takes to almost take out a strong Conservative seat in a by-election. See below.
It shows that a relatively weak NDP campaign with a very strong Liberal campaign almost is enough.
What more does it take? Ask Nathan Cullen and others in the NDP and Liberal orbits who know that more actual NDP-Liberal cooperation and coordination is necessary to defeat the Conservatives. They won’t be decimated, but they will still be in government without far more intentional Anything But Conservative coordination in our broken electoral system.
If NDP and Liberal arrogance and devotion to the FPTP crap shoot of absolute power continue to remain too strong, we get more Harper, a privatized CBC, the end of Medicare, more bombing foreign nations to get Harper some more Tough Military Leader badges, and the end of most of the rest of our social programs.
Plus, since the Conservatives are criminals [the Party pleading guilty to election fraud, plus Dean Del Mastro], expect they’ll cheat again in the next election. That can’t help.
So. More coordination and cooperation, or Harper cheats his way to a second majority. And that would be on us.
The Liberals certainly put in a herculean effort on the campaign, which paid off in a restored vote share and second-place standing as against their nemeses in the NDP (which presciently downplayed both its campaign efforts and expectations ahead of time).
Yet even draining the NDP of all but its most core base vote in this typical red-blue race in the 905 East, the Liberals were unable to pass the Conservatives, who again confounded Forum Research as they had done so many other pollsters in Ontario during the last federal election campaign with a substantial ballot-box bonus.
In other words, even though the Liberals have been successful in completely rebooting their field operations and adopting more modern campaign techniques for voter targeting, identification and GOTV, the Conservative ground game is still superior in Ontario and well capable of getting the job done, in spite of the Liberals’ superior penetration of the media spin game.
“This most recent report concludes that the warming of the planet due to emissions is ‘clear’ and ‘unequivocal,'” Chong said. “The report also concludes that without urgent action to reduce emissions, by the end of this century there is a high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible damage due to extreme heat waves, more intense weather events, mass extinctions, coastal flooding, and crop failures.”
Chong said scientists have done their work, now politicians must do theirs.
“As a Conservative, I believe that we have a moral obligation to conserve our environment, so I call upon this government to meet its commitment to reduce emissions and I call on all governments meeting next month in Lima, Peru, and next year in Paris, France, to work together toward a new global treaty to reduce emissions,” he said.
Politics, Re-Spun hereby bestows honourary Canadian and Politics, Re-Spun citizenship upon Russell Brand for his precise and effective re-spinning of Steve Harper and his soft fascist, neo-conservative manipulation of most of last week.
And we all need to think more carefully about “convenient murders.”
For Harper, 6 CF-18s in Kuwait, all war all the time, phoning up the Pentagon asking where we can become more militarily engaged…all these things lead to a war posture, including a soldier being killed at home.
A war posture is good for Harper’s base and makes Canadians more scared so that we more more disinclined to vote him out next year.
Don’t change horses in midstream, as the sick spin goes.
Expect Harper to manufacture/inflame more political strife and militarism in the months leading up to the federal election.
All of us should be profoundly uncomfortable that any politician would be speaking about this tragedy – and assigning motive – before the police. That is not the way our system works. And it raises the distinct possibility that Harper and his advisors are willing to reduce a soldier’s death to a talking point.
In Stephen Harper’s Canada, we keep enumerating the things we’re losing: meaningful legislative debate, evidence-based policy, public science, a free and open society, among other things. But what happens if we go too long with a slow erosion of the features that make our society vibrant? What happens if we let the right wing continue to teach us that we shouldn’t expect anything meaningful from government?
What happens if young Canadians grow up without a sense of what used to be the Canadian birthright: Medicare, the CPP, and a free and robust education system, for instance?
Many Americans suffer from this syndrome of unknown unknowns. They may have heard about Canada’s amazing healthcare system, but they don’t really know what they’re missing.
Many Americans have been convinced that some faceless Orwellian bureaucrats from Health Canada constantly interfere with my doctor’s ability to decide if I need liquid nitrogen on my warts, some kind of invasive prostate exam, or cancer treatment.
Ironically, it’s Americans who suffer from faceless Orwellian bureaucrats who work for for-profit health insurance companies, companies that actually do interfere with those decisions. Canadian clinicians make decisions based on health considerations. Period.
But many Americans have been misinformed, which is part of the reason why Michael Moore’s 2007 movie, Sicko, was such a revelation for so many. People simply didn’t know what they didn’t know: healthcare is a human right and can be provided sustainably, without profit-mongering.
But let’s not be so self-righteous as to think that we’ve got it all together. In BC for example, 13 years of Liberal governments have decimated funding for public education, inspiring wealthy parents to seek private school options. That’s stealth privatization.
Now we have a whole generation of students who, compared to previous generations and to most of the rest of Canada, have been educated in a public system starved of investment. They don’t know that it used to be so much better. They have what urban theorist Jane Jacobs called mass amnesia.
LABOUR’S UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
I continually write about how unions need to more effectively and meaningfully embrace a mindset of social unionism. But one of labour’s unknown unknowns is that too many of our millions of members, and many of our staff, don’t understand our own history: they don’t know that for eight generations unions have played a central role in creating a society with more justice for all. So it is incumbent on us to provide education about why paying union dues is an investment in a better society, not a deduction to be resented.
That need to provide education goes along with labour’s need to more effectively engage our members and help mobilize them to protect union rights in Canada.
HOW THE BROADBENT INSTITUTE HELPS US FILL THE GAP
We’ve also been unaware that we’re missing a particular kind of organization that can support all this work: The emergence of the Broadbent Institute makes that clear.
Despite its namesake, the institute is a non-partisan organization that seeks progressive change because “a majority of Canadians favour progressive policies — and they are looking for new tools to build the Canada we want.”
One of the Broadbent Institute’s key functions is to provide space and convene people so they can develop more effective progressive action — an activity that happens too little in our busy labour organizations, and another necessity we often don’t know we need.
I’ve watched the institute since its inception in 2011, when it first opened its doors in Ottawa. In June of 2014, it launched an event in BC.
The Vancouver inaugural event brought together close to 300 people from progressive groups, unions, political parties and more to connect with each other and to hear from Ana Maria Archila, an inspiring, Colombian-born New York leader of the Center for Popular Democracy, who used community organizing to mobilize immigrant voters in New York.
Archila spoke about how to de-silo our issues and engage with other progressive groups to build movements. I took away three core lessons:
1. We need to meet people where they live, play and gather. We cannot expect them to come to where we are. They don’t. That’s why they haven’t come to us in the past. The key to effective organizing is listening to people’s stories and truths and building from a place of empathy and understanding.
2. Coalition-building means working with people and groups we haven’t worked with in the past, which demands that we get out of our comfort zone.
3. Organizations like unions, with staffing, resources and money, need to better support progressive organizations that are too grassroots to possess these capacities. This is one way we can share and build power.
In talking to people at the Vancouver event, I saw how varied their perspectives are about the roles that the Broadbent Institute can play: It produces research to advance progressive solutions. It has a powerful news and analysis portal, PressProgress.ca, to challenge conservative ideas. And while providing space and convening people, it provides training and focus so we can improve our activist processes and our ability to be intentional in our work.
Ultimately, we didn’t know we needed the Broadbent Institute until it showed up to fill a gap in our work.
This piece first appeared in the Labour Day issue of Our Times labour magazine.
For years I have been openly mocking our prime minister. He believes he’s the combined reincarnation of General Douglas MacArthur and Winston Churchill, often touting things like the Canadian victory in the War of 1812, even though Canada wouldn’t exist for another 55 years. Pish posh.
In reality, I have criticized Harper for being an international relations buffoon, something more like Ian McKellen’s Richard III.
But despite having criticized war-mongering Harper [who nevertheless abuses and neglects military veterans and their mental health disabilities] for deciding to buy a bunch of F-35 fighter jets, I shouldn’t have.
I criticized the ill-informed decision. Then when it turned out that he announced the procurement cost while neglecting to include the cost of…the engines…I criticized him for lying to the public.
But as it turns out, Harper has bested me. His commitment to buying these planes without the engines was very smarterer than any of us gave him credit for.
Because the engines are dangerous, don’t you know. Well, we didn’t know. But Harper probably did. The Pentagon has had to ground their whole fleet twice [see below].
So, next time you see me criticizing our Commander in Chief for a moronic military or international relations misstep [like skipping/missing G8 leader photo ops because he’s in the can], please remind me that I misjudged him on the F-35s. Buying them without engines was likely the greatest military decision of this new, young century.
The U.S. military said it had grounded the entire fleet of 97 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets until completion of additional inspections of the warplane’s single engine built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.
The Pentagon’s F-35 program office, Air Force and Navy issued directives on Thursday ordering the suspension of all F-35 flights after a June 23 fire on an Air Force F-35A jet at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
The Pentagon said U.S. and industry officials had not pinpointed the cause of the fire, which occurred as a pilot was preparing for takeoff. The pilot was not injured.
The incident is the latest to hit the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program, the $398.6 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It followed an in-flight oil leak that triggered mandatory fleetwide inspections of the jets last month.
Journalists protest the erosion of freedom of expression in Canada on Feb. 27 in Toronto. Photo Credit: Hiba Zayadin
When I write about soft fascism, I sometimes feel too Canadian. I don’t want to be impolite and talk about hard or old school or 20th century fascism because frankly, when people read that word, they think, “hey, is he talking about Hitler kinda stuff? Ok, then, so it’s not fascism.”
It is though. You don’t have to start a genocide for someone to consider your actions fascist.
It’s a kind, gentler, Canadian-style fascism with a hit of Tom Horton’s and a bonspiel on TV in the background.
Attempts to suppress democracy, though, ARE fascism. From the Conservative government’s voter suppression actions, and contempt of legislature and the courts, they seek totalitarian power.
This is why I Occupy.
And while we figure out what Occupy Vancouver is going to look like going forward, it is this kind of work to decriminalize journalism that we need to be mindful of. See below.
Now, more than ever, because there’s a federal election brewing and we know that the federal government will cheat again to keep its power because it thinks it’s right and they know best for all of us. Like the BC government’s election gag laws and the city of Vancouver’s pre-Olympics and Occupy era democracy suppression measures.
We can be vigilant or we can be sheep. If you want to be a sheep, fine. Stay away from me. If you want to be vigilant, sign up for email updates over there on the right. We’re all about vigilance around here. And I believe Stephen Harper is mentally ill, WITHOUT even having seen the Flanagan interview from Friday night.
And we’re about making Occupy potent, and unlike the governments, transparent and accountable and democratic.
“Canadians have lost even more ground in one of the fundamental elements of free expression—the ability to know what their government is doing and why,” says a news release issued by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. The CJFE has just issued its 2014 Review of Free Expression in Canada and it gives the Canadian government “a failing grade.”
Access to information law means any Canadian can apply for access to any government document for a fee of five dollars. “It’s something that’s absolutely critical for the functioning of Canadian democracy because it helps to keep Canadians informed. It’s crucial for investigative journalism,” says Tom Henheffer, executive director of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
“The fact is the government is intentionally dismantling it. They’re defunding access department so when someone files a requests there’s no response. Eighty per cent of documents that do come back are censored, many of the heavily censored,” says Henherrer, noting that there has been a 51 per cent increase in complaints about missing records in the past year.
‘A growing culture of secrecy’
“Even worse than that is the fact that there is this growing culture of secrecy in government, both federally and provincially and in some municipalities,” says Henheffer. He says politicians and civil servants are deliberating not keeping records, avoiding e-mail and sending messages from BlackBerry to BlackBerry that are erased every 30 days.
“In the past Canadians have had a robust access to essentially the decision-making process that goes into forming policy in Canada and that access is being taken away.”
Surveillance of citizens is another major concern listed in the review as well as a lack of any effective protection for whistleblowers. Henheffer says civil servants who flag problems in government lose their jobs. “That’s why we have such a culture of secrecy, part of the reason why, because we don’t have this protection so people aren’t coming like say Edward Snowden (American intelligence contractor who leaked documents revealing widespread surveillance of citizens by U.S. spy agency). We don’t have anyone like that in Canada because the sacrifice that they would make is too great and as a result we don’t know what we don’t know.”
What?
In talking to people at the Vancouver event, I saw how varied their perspectives are about the roles that the Broadbent Institute can play: It produces research to advance progressive solutions. It has a powerful news and analysis portal, PressProgress.ca, to challenge conservative ideas. And while providing space and convening people, it provides training and focus so we can improve our activist processes and our ability to be intentional in our work.
