Tax-filing season, everybody’s favourite time of year, is once again upon us in Canada. It’s that time of year that we get to see just how much of our money our provincial and federal governments are taking to spend on seemingly wasteful things that nobody is supposed to care about.
Continue readingTag: stephenharper
Election Fraud
If there is one thing that the Conservative Party is thoroughly competent at doing, it is providing precise tactical spin to every move it makes and to every reply flung back to the Opposition. For that purpose alone, it has assembled hundreds and hundreds of communications specialists that work for
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: What does Stephen Harper know that American intelligence agencies don’t?
Our prime minister’s concern regarding the Iranian threat to world peace has gotten a fair amount of attention in recent weeks. Stephen Harper insists both that Iran is definitely attempting to develop nuclear weapons and that the Iranians are fanatics who would use those weapons without hesitation. On the former,
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Inciting hysteria
The Vancouver Sun has a report on the reaction to our prime minister’s recent statements regarding Iran from an Iranian expatriate named Trita Parsi who is head of the “Washington-based National Iranian American Council.” A prominent Iranian expert says Prime Minister Stephen Harper is inciting “hysteria” with his comments about
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Not an auspicious beginning
Today’s Crown First Nations Gathering was supposed to be historic. It would mark the first occasion since he became prime minister in 2006 that Stephen Harper would meet with First Nations leaders. So there was quite a bit of negative publicity when it was learned that Harper intended to leave
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Is Harper now running for the GOP nomination?
For all that the recent IAEA report on Iran dragged evidence out of the trash bin that had previously been found to be too unreliable to take seriously, it still stopped short of stating definitively that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. Recent reports from the combined intelligence agencies
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Today in WTF? moments
With Libyan liberation, a political victory for Harper Stephen Harper’s first war victory was clinched in a few sudden hours when Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed and his last bastion of Sirte fell. Excuse me? The countries in the most powerful military alliance on the planet combined forces to defeat a single, relatively minor power and this is a war victory for Stephen Harper? Wow. Just…wow. Next on the list is to figure out how to give Harper credit for winning the War of 1812. But at least we’ve dropped any pretense that it was strictly about enforcing a no-fly zone. It was a war declared by Stephen Harper. I wonder how he managed to get the Americans involved. Or to get the French to be the first to attack so it wouldn’t look like we were trying to hog all the glory….
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Taking care of business
The Financial Post is pleased to report that Suncor Energy Inc., along with other oil companies, is preparing to return to the Libyan oil fields. After six months of intense fighting that shut down oil-production facilities and forced massive evacuations of expatriate oil workers, Libya’s future as a place to do business brightened dramatically as leaders of the Libyan uprising met with world powers in Paris to map out the country’s rebuilding and Canada lifted unilateral economic sanctions imposed last February. My emphasis. And that, after all, is what this has mainly been about, isn’t it? It wasn’t a matter of ensuring that Libyans could control their own destiny. It was about ensuring that the right Libyans ended up in control of the oil fields — the Libyans who were already on good terms with NATO countries, who were already in favour of privatizing Libya’s oil and who would be agreeable to giving easy access to the countries who helped them take control. Until recently I’d been thinking of NATO as an organization desperately seeking justification for its own existence since the original threat it was to protect against had faded. Now I think of NATO as just one more…
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Canada’s back!
Apparently we have a prime minister who will literally lock himself in the nearest bathroom when he doesn’t get his way. I suppose that’s marginally better than holding his breath ’til he turns blue. And it might help explain why he went missing for that G20 photo op a couple of years back. And to think some of us were worried about what John Baird would do to our international reputation. Later that same day: Canadian officials are, of course, denying the story but this report takes note of "obvious tension" between Brazilians and Canadians so obviously something happened. The added wrinkle here is Dimitri Soudas claiming a consistent record on the part of our government in fighting to provide access for journalists. I’m surprised the reporter who filed this could even manage to type it out for laughing so hard….
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: Simple Answers to Simple Questions
This could also be titled: Can’t anybody here play this game? There’s a post up at Let Freedom Rain based on a media story announcing the intention of the Liberal Party to adopt the Conservative tactic of running ads, and particularly negative ads, outside of election campaigns. Towards the end of the post, the blogger asks: …is it a great idea to announce to the Cons that a battle is brewing, giving them more than adequate time to gather their superior advertising work force? No. Anyone who’s been paying attention to Stephen Harper’s career in politics, and especially since he became leader of the CPC, will have noticed that if you give him the opportunity to plan how to beat you, he’ll do the planning and he’ll beat you. If you give him a chance to craft a messaging strategy to defeat (or deflect) your arguments and get that strategy distributed to the troops, you’ll shortly see countless Conservatives taking every opportunity to say exactly the same thing to anyone who will listen. Repeatedly. Over and over….
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: A matter of national security
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Canada is on the verge of imposing sanctions on Syria. Since the Americans, along with the EU, have already moved in that direction it’s only natural that the Harper Government™ would tag along. But I thought this part of the report was interesting: John Baird, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, will present his recommendations for punitive measures at the cabinet committee on national security, which was created as part of last week’s cabinet shuffle. Tim Naumetz of The Hill Times reported at length on this new cabinet committee last week. He described as "a dramatic measure…" the establishment of an entirely new committee of Cabinet ministers responsible for overseeing national security and intelligence agencies, even intelligence and information gathered through delivery of Canadian aid programs. It will be only the second of two Cabinet committees now chaired by the Prime Minister… As an aside: does this demonstrate a conscious intention to use aid programs as a means of intelligence gathering? Are we already doing that? But I digress….
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