PHOTOS: Premier Rachel Notley with Economic Development and Trade Minister Deron Bilous and Municipal Affairs Minister Danielle Larivee moments after the two cabinet members were sworn into their new portfolios. Below: Labour and Advanced Education Minister Lori Sigurdson. A key part of the business of any government is the business
Continue readingTag: Harper government
Alberta Politics: Lawyers, guns and money: Russia’s intervention in Syria offers a useful teaching moment for Canadians
PHOTOS: A Russian Su-34 bomber releases a bomb near the provisional ISIS capital of Raqqa in Syria. (Russian Ministry of Defence photo.) Below: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war has offered a unique teaching
Continue readingPolitics Canada: Can I be friends with a Harper supporter?
I have always prided myself on my ability to separate work/business from personal. I am very adept at removing emotion from an issue and looking at the issue in cold logical terms. This is very much related to my ability to separate political from personal as well. I have had
Continue readingPolitics Canada: The breathtaking truth of what an ‘informed’ Harper supporter thinks
I have often theorized that Stephen Harper relies on a good many of his supporters to be in the dark about the actions he has taken and plans to take. I don’t recall him mentioning, scrapping the Health Council, ceasing to enforce the Canada Health Act and imposing radical cuts
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Labour Day 2015: Analyzing Europe’s refugee crisis through the lens of labour rights
PHOTOS: The Za’atari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Below: International studies scholar Vijay Prashad; former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal. On Labour Day 2015, the world’s attention is focused on the great migration of desperate human beings streaming into Europe from the economic and military catastrophes of North Africa and
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Looking Back
Although it was made in 2013, the following 22 Minutes’ video has lost none of its relevance: Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Fun With Stephen
As a Facebook wag described the above, Harper’s caucus room post-election. I have always respected Smokey’s advice. At this critical juncture, Canadians would be foolish to ignore him. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Little Something For The Masochists Out There
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Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Record Of Failure
Stephen lacks the requisite skills and temperament to succeed in any position of responsibility; recommend removal at earliest possible date. Stephen’s oil monomania suggests a pathology deeply harmful both to himself and the entire country. Stephen’s addiction to rabid and exclusionary ideology and his capacity for gross fabrications are also
Continue readingIn-Sights: They are our friends, neighbours and family members
Reading of another tragic Fentanyl death — this time Jack Bodie, a Burnaby youth on the cusp of adulthood — I began to think it is time for each of us to have a Howard Beale moment, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Harper Under Seige
Once more, editorial cartoonist Graeme MacKay scores a solid bullseye. As does Corrigan over at The Star: And let’s not forget Star readers: Since the post-2008 Great Recession, Stephen Harper’s primary focus on energy (oil/gas) economic action strategies have painted our economic flexibilities into a corner. Now we find our
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Harper Regime In One Easy-To-Understand Graphic!
H/t Boycott The Harper Conservatives For those of you who are more text-oriented or want a comprehensive recounting of the depredations of the Harper years, I encourage you to check out and bookmark Rural’s Harper History Series over at Democracy Under Fire. Rural has taken on the unenviable and herculean
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Harperland As Seen By Editorial Cartoonists
H/t ipolitics Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Politics: MP Wai Young’s lines were flubbed, but nevertheless they sound like a cynical Harper Government talking point
PHOTOS: The Cone of Silence – it just doesn’t work for anyone any more. Below: Conservative MP Wai Young, Conservative PM Stephen Harper and Jesus, whose position on Canadian politics is unknown. It seems likely Vancouver South MP Wai Young fumbled a cynical Harper Government talking point when she claimed
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Ditch the expensive and risky F-35 fighter jet, Mr. Harper
A new study accuses the Harper govern of mismanaging Canada’s defence procurement, recommends ditching planned purchase of expensive F-35 fighters jets. The post Ditch the expensive and risky F-35 fighter jet, Mr. Harper appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Speaking Of Conservative Crime
It seems that our Prime Minister may have violated his own anti-terror law against terrorist imagery and propaganda. As reported by CTV, A new Conservative attack ad takes aim at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s position on the mission against the Islamic State, but it uses the terrorist group’s own horrifying
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Some Days I Don’t Have To Write Anything
… thanks to groups like this: Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: I Wouln’t Have Thought The Smell Of Sulphur Would Bother Him
H/t Graeme MacKay Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Does advertising plagiarism suggest Harper Government’s running on intellectual fumes?
PHOTOS: A screen shot from the new Harper Government anti-Tom-Mulcair advertisement. Actual Harper government plagiarism may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Scenes from the nearly identical 2011 Manitoba NDP 30-second spot and 2015 Harper Con spot. If political ads were popular songs, the Manitoba NDP would probably be getting
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: A Dangerous Change In Law
The Harper government moved to retroactively rewrite Canada’s access to information law in order to prevent possible criminal charges against the RCMP, The Canadian Press has learned.
An unheralded change buried in last week’s 167-page omnibus budget bill exempted all records from the defunct long-gun registry, and also any “request, complaint, investigation, application, judicial review, appeal or other proceeding under the Access to Information Act or the Privacy Act,” related to those old records.
The unprecedented, retroactive changes — access-to-information experts liken them to erasing the national memory — are even more odd because they are backdated to the day the Conservatives introduced legislation to kill the gun registry, not to when the bill received royal assent.
The date effectively alters history to make an old government bill come into force months before it was actually passed by Parliament.
Oh, but this gets better. It turns out that this is intended to squelch an ongoing investigation by a parliamentary officer – the Information Officer, Suzanne Legault.
In an interview airing later Thursday on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, Legault expanded on the ramifications of passing these amendments.
“What this does is that it erases the right of the requester to have ever made this request. It erases the right of the requester to have ever complained to my office. It erases all of the investigative powers that I have used during this investigation. And it erases the referral that I have made to the attorney general of Canada. And it erases the recommendations I have made to the minister.
“What these provisions do is they actually erase any potential administrative, civil or criminal liability for any actors involved throughout the investigation and in the destruction of those records in contravention to the Access to Information Act.”
Creating retroactive legislation in Canada that reaches back years in time is unusual, although technically legal as long as it isn’t a criminal code change.
“An argument has been made that there are elements in the information act, the Access to Information Act, that contradict something in that other piece of legislation. At best that is a loophole,” he said at an event in Windsor, Ont.
“I’m not sure there really is a contradiction, but to be perfectly clear, the government is clarifying the information act to make sure it is in full conformity with Parliament’s already expressed wishes on the long-gun registry that the RCMP has executed as they were required to do according to the law.”
The RCMP also rebuffed Legault’s accusations, saying it did nothing wrong.
“The RCMP disputes the OIC’s (Office of the Information Commissioner’s) view that it denied a right of access under the Access to Information Act by destroying records that were responsive to the request,” Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer said in a statement. ( CBC )
However, in this case, it is quite clear that Harper is trying to squelch an investigation into possibly illegal actions of the RCMP and other government officials with respect to the Long Gun Registry data. So, even if this legislation is technically “legal”, it doesn’t mean it is right. No government should be using legislative fiat to make its indiscretions “disappear”.