Both, it seems, have a constitutional aversion to being honest with the people they purport to represent. Click here for a story on Harper’s folly (i.e., the F-35 fairy tale Haper Inc. is fond of spinning to benighted voters) and here for how Toronto Mayor Rob Ford tried to bury
Continue readingAuthor: Lorne
Politics and its Discontents: Conservatives Insult Canadians’ Intelligence Once Again
While the Harper government has repeatedly shown its contempt for facts and statistics as it treads its demagogic path with abandon, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has achieved a new low. In language almost identical to that of George Bush after the terrorist attacks in New York, the Harper minion
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: G20 Toronto Police Not Paid for Overtime?
Perhaps next time they will be more selective about the number of law-abiding citizens against whom they wield their batons and arrest. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Department of National Defence Follies: $21 For A Bag Of Concrete Worth $2.67
While the Harper regime tells the rest of us that we must tighten our collective belts, its military arm, the DND, is spending, well, like drunken sailors. May I suggest that a trip to Home Depot might save about $18.50 per bag of concrete? Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Why The F-35 Won’t Fly
If you are interested in why the F-35 is an exceedingly poor choice for our next generation of fighter planes, read this article, where you will also see the infantile way in which Harper government toady Julian Fantino dismisses reasoned arguments against the purchase. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Conservative Ethos: Caviar for Corporations, Cake For Canadian Masses
Stephen Harper and his wrecking crew continue their agenda of altering the fundamental nature of Canadian society. By engineering an ever-dwindling supply of government revenue through corporate tax cuts that neither attract nor keep jobs in Canada, making huge expenditures on jet fighters we don’t need, and building super-prisons during
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: 2012 – A New Year, But For Peel Police, The Malfeasance Continues
2011 was not a good year for the Peel police. Racial profiling, harassment of citizens and fabrication of evidence seemed to be the order of the day. The new year brings new dishonour to the force, this time in the form of perjury. As reported in today’s Star, members of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Never Let Facts Get In The Way Of Ideology: The Conservative Credo
That’s the only inference I can draw after reading about the report by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page that there is no crisis in the current funding of Old Age Security, despite proclamations by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley and her dear leader, and hence no need for raising the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Does It Run In Their Genes?
I guess the ideological apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. While contempt for democracy is egregiously evident in the behaviour and pronouncements of Stephen Harper and his minions, it seems that young Tim Hudak, the Ontario Conservative leader, has also become infected. In his latest column, Christopher Hume observes
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: All The World’s A Stage: Harper Hypocrisy in China
Harper blasts foreign money in oil sands debate while welcoming China Prime Minister Stephen Harper blasted “foreign money and influence” behind critics of Canada’s oil sands even as he welcomed Chinese investment in Canada’s energy sector. … he made clear he does not equate Chinese foreign investment in oil sands
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Musical Chairs Belong At Children’s Parties, Not In The Senate
I really have nothing to add here. The absolute puerility of the Conservatives speaks for itself: OTTAWA—The so-called house of sober second thought witnessed the kind of contest normally associated with first-grade birthday parties, as a showdown erupted over seating arrangements this week. The newly elected chair of the Senate
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Haper’s Trade Deal With China: Less Than Meets The Eye
Stephen Harper’s pending foreign investment protection agreement with China, hailed as a breakthrough that will one day make a “very practical difference” for Canadian companies seeking to invest here, (more outsourcing?)has been summed up very nicely by an astute Star reader: We get the pandas. They get the manufacturing jobs.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is Werner Herzog Really Talking About Chickens Here?
Given Canadians’ apparently prodigious tolerance for the abuses being perpetrated by the Harper regime, it seems Werner Herzog’s comments in this video could apply equally to our credulous/disengaged/apathetic domestic populace: Werner Herzog on Chickens from Tom Streithorst on Vimeo. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Protection, Patriotism and Punishment – the Harper Credo
By now, most have heard about Sun TV’s faux citizenship ceremony orchestrated by the Harper regime to help promote its brand of Canadian patriotism. Putting aside questions of the ethics of a Canadian broadcaster allowing itself to be a propaganda arm of a government increasingly hostile to the traditional values
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Liuna Local 183 Continues Its Bad Behaviour
Yesterday I wrote about the scuffle that broke out at a meeting of Liuna Local 183, a meeting that saw members demanding answers to the strange tale of the firing, rehiring, and resignation of John Manadarino, the training centre executive who misappropriated union funds but whose union executive defenders claim
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Tim Harper on Caterpillar’s Betrayal of Canadian Workers
As it hauls its billions in profits south of the border, Caterpillar executives should make a detour and stop in Ottawa to drop off the money they owe Canadian taxpayers. Failing that, the Conservative government should be waiting for them at the border demanding the tax break and handout cash
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Liuna Fails Its Members
The Labourers’ International Union of North America Local 183 seems to be playing right into the hands of neoconservative forces that would like nothing better than to see right-to-work legislation that would make union membership optional. The problems at the union, which I wrote about previously, escalated into violence yesterday
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Martin Regg Cohn On The Wider Implications of the Electro-Motive Debacle
So the first lesson of the London massacre: Ottawa must be vigilant about vetting foreign investment and retaining jobs, but also mindful of valuing — and anchoring — our homegrown intellectual property. Why underwrite our companies if we willingly sell off our embedded brainpower to foreign bidders who leave Canada
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Educate, Educate, Resist
I have to admit that nowadays I am feeling the pessimism of old strongly reemerging, not to the point of giving up my blog and whatever value it might serve in the fight against the extremists who now control the Canadian government, but to the point where I realize that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: I’m Back – Nothing’s Changed, Just Getting Worse
After a week out of the country with limited access to the Internet and Canadian news, I see things keep getting worse. First thing I read this morning was how the Harper regime faked a Citizenship ceremony staged on Sun TV, the ever-faithful tool (and I mean that in the
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