Wednesday, March 31, 2010

More on Harper's New Anti-Embarrassment Police Division

I wrote earlier this month, that Canada's police forces have now created an anti-embarrassment division for our little dictator, to make sure that he's always zipped up, and if his plastic hair ignites because he's leaned too close to a candle, it's not caught on tape.

But apparently there are some Canadians who don't support this important branch of our law enforcement.
As I hope most Canadians know, the RCMP and municipal police services are mandated to uphold the laws of Canada, not protect politicians from legitimate public scrutiny and the repercussions that might follow.

RCMP Sgt. Robert Pilon's commendation of the Saskatoon Police Service for protecting Prime Minister Harper from "embarrassment," speaks to a disturbing underlying motive by the RCMP's brass that falls clearly outside that force's mandate.
Now c'mon Mr. Garden. Are you trying to imply that the RCMP are not allowed to beat up reporters if they try to ask Il Duce a question? He's gonna' be some mad at you.

I guess your next job will be covering tea parties and greased pole competitions.

Helena Guergis Encourages Staff to Lie For Her

In an attempt to change public opinion, Helena Guergis, the minister of putting women back in the kitchen; has had her staff (technically our staff, since we pay their salary) write letters to the editor on her behalf.

Now there's nothing wrong with her staff writing letters, but they must identify themselves as her staff.

A long-time spokesperson of Minister Helena Guergis insists there was no conflict of interest when she wrote a glowing letter to Maclean’s about her
boss—but failed to identify herself as the MP’s employee.


Knight’s stunt coincides with a similar incident: earlier Tuesday, another Guergis staffer, Jessica Craven, was caught sending flattering letters about the minister to Ontario newspapers using her married name, Morgan. She has apologized, and insists Guergis had no idea. The minister has since spoken out, calling these letters “inappropriate.”

Naturally she's denying that she was aware, but c'mon. Just how stupid do you think we are Helena?

Do you think we're all as stupid as .... ah, never mind. She's not worth it.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Harper Government Once Again Prove They Have Someting to Hide

As it is becoming more apparent that the so-called Economic Action Plan, was little more than a public relations scheme, to boost the Reformer's profile; a recent story helps to validate that claim.

Harper Aide, Ryan Sparrow, worked to keep the five million dollar price tag of the Olympic ad scheme, a secret.

A senior Conservative official repeatedly intervened last month to try and suppress the revelation that Ottawa spent $5-million on a TV advertising blitz surrounding the Vancouver Olympics, new records show.

In a tense exchange of e-mails over a two-day period, ministerial aide Ryan Sparrow blocked attempts by bureaucrats to reveal the price tag of the ads that aimed to promote Conservative budgetary measures.

The civil service had prepared the numbers in response to a question from The Globe and Mail, but records just released under the Access to Information Act show that Mr. Sparrow managed to temporarily hold back on their release.

Another journalist who tried to get information on ad spending for the action plan (now believed to be over one hundred million dollars), received over two hundred pages of junk.

If we are finding it this difficult to learn this government's secrets, what of the ones we don't find about? There is a very disturbing pattern here.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

Monday, March 29, 2010

If Obama Can Denounce the Corruption in Afghanistan, Why Can't Harper?

U.S. President Barack Obama made a surprise
visit to Afghanistan recently, and is committed to cleaning up the corrupt Karzai government.

We have been receiving reports of this for the past few years, and yet where's the debate over the issue?

Of course, we can't ask Harper himself because he doesn't take questions, and if anyone brought it up the House, they would be shouted down as a "Taliban dupe."

Isn't living in a fascist country grand?

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama yesterday arrived in Afghanistan on a surprise trip intended to push the government of Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption and drug trafficking.

From Kansas City:
But, the American President added, Karzai could do a bit more about corruption, and the rampant drug problems in Afghanistan. Corruptions after all helps build Taliban support. Afghans figure that if the legitimate government is cheating them, why not back the illegitimate one. And, of course, drugs, poppy crops and opiate production, directly funds the Taliban, and al Qaida.

Apparently most of the drug trade is being run by Karzai's own family, and yet according to the Harperites, he's the best thing that ever happened to the country.

We need to get out of there now. Too many lives lost for nothing.

Getting Rid of Stephen Harper May be Easier Than we Think

Just a click of a mouse may be all it takes. Though I think I'd wear out my clicker doing this.

Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper had three ads printed in newspapers on the weekend, and we are definitely attracting attention.

I'm just so tired of these Reformers lying and stomping on everything that Canada once stood for.

But we will get our country back one vote at a time, and then spend the next few years trying to undo all the damage this man has done.

Sigh!

When Canada Was a Democracy Our Leaders Cared About Basic Human Rights

Someone shared this video yesterday on Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, and it is a compelling reminder of why we need to get our country back.

Those two men were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but they both had a firm commitment to protecting Canadians of all race, colour and creed.

Yet today this horrible, destructive, neoconservative government is trying to challenge our human rights commission. Something they vowed to do long before coming to office.

Lawrence Martin wrote a great column on the weekend A capital where freedom's in short supply, where he reminds us that the Harper government is not really in favour of free speech. Just their brand of free speech.

It's always great fun to see conservatives getting all worked up about freedom of speech, as they did over the dust-up between Ann Coulter and the University of Ottawa. The dragon lady, of course, was entitled to the freedom to peddle her delicacies on campus, just as students were entitled to protest against her. The students won the day, and Ms. Coulter left fuming.

Harper's list of suppressing any kind of speech is long and alarming, as Martin points out.

Of course the sub-text with Ann Coulter for the Reformers is Muslim. They will always support someone's right to bash Muslims. This is so incredibly sad.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

A New Group is Asking to Please Fire Gail Shea

A young lady, Alishia Fox sent me links to two videos that she has made about Department of Fisheries and Oceans Minister, Gail Shea.

Alishia is frustrated with Shea, not only for her incompetence, but also her blatant disregard for protecting our oceans and their species.

She reminds us that Shea has no qualifications for this job, having worked in administration, with no background in science.

This is actually a tactic used by the neoconservative movement. Since their main goal is selling us off to multi-nationals, if they placed experienced people in cabinet posts, they may protest their actions.

Things like the selling of fish plants, slaughtering of Narwhals, salmon and shrimp farming that are destroying our shorelines; would go against the grain of someone who actually studied marine biology, environmental science, or in fact came from any scientific field.

But Gail Shea was just so tickled pink that she'd get a huge salary and perks, like a limo and driver; she'll let them do what they want.

I am always so inspired when I see young people getting involved. This land and it's future belongs to them, and we need to pay attention.

Alishia has set up a Facebook group: Please Fire Gail Shea, and plans to create more videos, which I will share. So please help her out.

Catch 22 Conservatives has adopted this riding, so you can check them out as well, and join the conversation. Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP) is still going strong and Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper (C.R.U.S.H.) have started running our newspaper ads. Our website is here.

It will be grassroots movements like this, that will get our country back, while there is still a country to fight for.

Thank you Alishia for reminding me why I do this.


Saturday, March 27, 2010

We Must See Our Way Forward and Start Challenging the Harper Legacy

There is a great new on-line publication and forum for progressive thought, that was shared on CAPP today. It's called 'Mayday Magazine' and they have published an excellent article "Canada on Trial', by Kevin MacKay.

As of this February 6th it will have been four years ago that Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party formed Canada’s government. Unable to win a majority in two elections, Harper and company have nonetheless been actively pursing a far-Right political agenda since gaining power, all the while wrapping themselves in the flag and presenting a tightly controlled, “compassionate conservative” facade.

We need more progressive forums and independent media sources. I'm so tired of spin. But as Mayday suggests:

The Harper agenda relies on our ignorance and passivity for its success. Let 2010 be the year we turn off our television, walk boldly into the world of the real, and send this malicious and anti-democratic government packing!

Touche!

Jason Kenney and Grover Norquist are Living the Dream

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In 1995, Jason Kenney, then head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, criss-crossed the country promoting his anti-tax philosophies. In fact when he was first named president of the CTF, some anti-tax groups lauded him as their hero.

While claiming to be a non-profit advocacy group:

.... the CTF in reality is neither a grassroots movement nor a democratically run organization. One critic has actually described it as 'more of a pyramid sales group than a bottom-up grassroots movement,' and an examination of CTF recruiting tactics explains why."Incredibly, the entire operation of the CTF depends on the recruitment of new members by some sixty-five salespeople operating on commissions .... In 1991 the Consumers' Association of Canada issued a warning about the CTF, noting that approximately 59.5 per cent of membership fees went to the CTF sales force, field managers and 'consultant' .... (1)
Most of their funding comes from corporate donors, a list they protect like the holy grail.

... well-known tax expert Neil Brooks has stated, the CTF's 'anti-tax rhetoric disguises a view that government should play a minimal role' ... David Perry of the Canadian Tax Foundation ... notes that much of the group's anti-tax sentiment is based on ignorance of the actual situation in Canada .... a perception of reality, rather than reality' .... "Many other tax experts ... have also pointed out that the benefits received from government in exchange for taxes have to be taken into account ... Kenney's response to this, however is instructive. 'We only look at taxes, not benefits'... leading Brooks and many other critics to conclude that the CTF agenda is simply lower taxes, not fairer taxes." (1)


As part of his little tour, he met up with Mike Harris who signed a pledge not to raise taxes if elected. He kept his promise, but between Harris and Guy Giorno, they almost destroyed Ontario, driving record numbers to be forced to live on the street.

But then Jim Flaherty came to the rescue suggesting that homelessness should be made a crime. I agree, except that he meant it literally and wanted to toss them all in jail.

Not the brightest bulb on the tree, because the cost to house them in jail would far exceed providing them with a home.

But remember, it's not about fairer taxes just lower taxes.

***************************************


Grover Norquist

In 2000 Grover Norquist criss-crossed the country to build support for a policy that would deliver $1.35 trillion dollars in tax cuts over ten years. As founder of Americans for Tax Reform, he had helped to get George Bush elected, on the promise of cutting corporate taxes.

Once elected, Norquist wanted to make sure that he could count on Bush, and the man delivered. As a result, the 400 richest multi-millionaires received tax breaks worth an average of one million dollars a year, a total of $58 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 per cent of the population. (2)

But like Jason Kenney and the Canadian Taxpayer Federation, this is only part of a larger agenda.

When Bush took office he was left with a surplus of 8 trillion dollars and the debt clock at Times Square had to be taken down, because Clinton had eliminated it. There was also trillions more in state public pension funds. Grover Norquist, architect of Bush's economic policy, had his eye on this money as well.

George Bush has followed to the letter the first two planks of Norquist's three-step formula for transforming government. First, he has radically cut taxes, especially to the rich, thus creating huge deficits. Secondly, he has used these deficits as an excuse to slash non-defence spending.

Now is the time for the third step. State by state, Norquist told the Nation's Robert Dreyfus, and at the federal level, he and Bush will be dismantling and privatizing public pension funds and "liberating" the trillions of dollars now held in trust for retirees. Referring to those who believe in public services such as public pension funds, Norquist stated, "We want to take that power and destroy it." (3)

When Stephen Harper first took office there was a surplus of 13 billion dollars. Since then his government "has followed to the letter the first two planks of Norquist's three-step formula for transforming government. First, he has radically cut taxes, especially to the rich, thus creating huge deficits. "

The Harper government's Halloween mini-budget contains corporate tax cuts that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty boasts are "much deeper and much faster than ever contemplated before". By 2012, the corporate tax rate will drop to 15% - almost half the 28% rate in 2000. The small business tax rate will fall to 11%. What's it worth? More than $13 billion annually in lost revenue: enough to pay for the previous Liberal government's child care deals, the Kelowna Accord with original Peoples, the Canada-Ontario Agreement, and the offshore arrangements, which would have cost $5 billion over 5 years (CLC Submission to the House of Commons Finance Committee 2007 Pre-Budget Consultations). How low can we go? According to Flaherty, the goal is to lower Canada's corporate tax rates below every industrialized country in the world. That's something, considering that our combined federal/provincial corporate tax rate of 36% is already lower than Japan (41%), USA (40%), Germany (38%), and Italy (37%). Among the G-7 countries, only France (33%) and the UK (30%) are lower. (4)

Despite this:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the federal government will run deficits until at least 2015 -- two years longer than originally forecast. (5)

And this:

Canada's richest are getting richer: Given the tumultuous economy, we might have expected another year of the rich bleeding money, but they are actually making it - a lot of it. The wealthy Thomson clan is at the top of Canadian Business magazine's 11th annual RICH 100 ranking, having amassed roughly $21.99 billion, up 19% over last year. But that growth rate is nothing compared with Ivanhoe mining executive Robert Friedland's. The ranking's highest climber this year, his worth rose 217% to $1.59 billion and he jumped 61 spots to No. 32 in the RICH 100. (6)

But he will do this:

Faced with the largest federal deficit in history, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he will start looking for programs to axe and government assets to sell off as soon as the economy recovers."It's necessary for restraint to happen" to rein in Ottawa's spending, Flaherty told the Toronto Star in a year-end interview. (7)

It's all about reducing the government's capacity to take care of it's citizens. If they can spend the cupboard bare, they can use that as an excuse to cut programs.

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist

"Whether Canada ends up as o­ne national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion… And whether Canada ends up with o­ne national government or two governments or ten governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be." Stephen Harper

It's about tearing down not building.

Sources:

1. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 416-417


2. Corrupt American-style capitalism: The Haves and the Have-Mores, George Bush, speaking at an $800 per plate fundraiser, October, 2000

3. Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America, By Maude Barlow, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 0-7710-1088-5, Pg. 54

4. FLAHERTY DELIVERS HUGE CORPORATE TAX CUT, By Liz Rowle, The People's Voice, November 2007

5. Government to run deficits until 2015: Flaherty, CTV, September 10, 2009

6. Canada's richest are getting richer. Canada Business Magazine, November 19, 2009

7. Flaherty vows Harris-style cuts to fight deficit, Toronto Star, December 23, 2009

Transparency Without Accountability. Reading Between the Lines

We need an unconstrained, unrestricted, full-fledged, unspoiled market economy, and we need it now ... We want to achieve the transition from a state-dominated economy to an economy based on the private sector, private initiative and private entrepreneurship . .. We are increasingly convinced that our country, or any other, is less unique than is often claimed ... The basic economic laws are valid across continents, economic systems, as well as ideological beliefs . . . The 'third way' [between central planning and the market economy] is the fastest way to the Third World. Vaclav Klaus, Czechoslovakian Minister of Finance, 1991 (1)

This two decades old quote was found in the introduction to the book Unfinished Business, written by former New Zealand finance minister Roger Douglas.

So what does a former Czechoslovakian Minister of Finance, and a former New Zealand Minister of Finance, have to do with us? Everything.

Rogernomics and Canada's Neoconservative Movement

Roger Douglas was the minister of finance in New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. Though elected with the left-wing Labour Party, he would take NZ sharply to the right, before the tables were cleared at his victory dinner. This was not by accident, as he would later advise the eager Canadian neocons:

"... beware the risks of candid disclosure before a fickle electorate, strike quickly once in power, define a total agenda, establish the essential control agencies, move simultaneously on a variety of policy fronts, embed the reforms as deeply as possible in legal and market channels so as to prevent early reversal, keep your nerve when faced with popular or electoral resistance and allow the programme to do its work." (2)
His policies were really not that new. Borrowed form Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan , they were just about dismantling a country's social safety net and paving the way for multi-nationals. And like Britain and the United States, under their neoconservative leaders; it was the ordinary citizens who suffered.
Saskatchewan political economist, Dr. John Warnock, travelled to New Zealand to study the effects of what New Zealanders dubbed 'Rogernomics.' The figures tell a story of devastation - a word used by New Zealand's own agricultural minister to describe the state of agriculture in four years after the 'reforms': A 40 per cent drop in farm income; a 50 per cent drop in the value of farm land; a policy of paying 3,000 farmers incentives of $ 45,000 to leave and the suggestion that another 15,000 (out of 79,000) should follow them.

Unemployment, which had been at 4 per cent before Douglas's reforms, jumped to over 12 per cent in just over a year and is still increasing.

"Douglas completely eliminated regional development grants and subsidies to rural services. Says Warnock, 'They had things like subsidized petroleum - regardless of where you were the price was the same - subsidized train service, bus service, airport service. They privatized all these things and the prices immediately skyrocketed.' A massive de-population of the countryside resulted, and approximately 40,000 New Zealanders per year have since left the country for Australia to find work since 'restructuring' took effect. (3)

But a handful of people got filthy rich, and isn't that all that really matters?

I picked up Unfinished Business at the library yesterday, because apparently it was the book that led Ralph Klein (Alberta Premier 1992-2006) and Mike Harris (Ontario Premier 1995-2002) through their years of slash and burn. I can't speak for Alberta, but in Ontario those years were horrendous.

More importantly, though; Roger Douglas also mentored Preston Manning and Stephen Harper, first speaking at the Reform Party's 1991 assembly, two years before his book was published.

He spoke of a ten point plan, which included messages, like "implement reforms by quantum leaps. Moving step by step lets invested interests mobilize. Speed is essential. It is impossible to move too fast. Once your momentum starts, never let it stop. Don't blink or wobble." (4)

Have you seen Stephen Harper "blink or wobble"? And another important thing to think about is that when Ralph Klein invited Douglas to speak to his caucus, a man by the name of Stockwell Day was in attendance. Our new unblinking head of the treasury. And when Douglas spoke to Mike Harris's crew, it included Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement, John Baird and Peter Van Loan.

Vaclav Klaus and Those Threatening 'isms'

Like Douglas, Klaus; now the President of Czechoslovakia, pursued a slash and burn agenda. He has been dubbed the Czechoslovakian Margaret Thatcher, and his policies called 'gangster capitalism", but it never stopped him or even slowed him down.

He gave a lecture a while back, where he warned his audience not to get trapped by 'isms'. His list included " ... feminism, environmentalism, socialism, multiculturalism, humanrightism and NGOism " (Jason Kenney got the vapours) (5)

He is also a staunch climate change denier and vetoed the Anti-Discrimination Law passed by parliament in 2008, that would have included protection for homsexuals, saying it was a dangerous threat to personal freedoms. (Jason Kenney swooned)

A Light Headed Jason Kenney Enters

So I mentioned that I picked up the book Unfinished Business, in an attempt to try and figure out what the Harper's government's agenda was, but was surprised to find that the first page would lead right to current headlines.

Not based on the dismantling of our social safety net, but the recent actions of our anti-multicultural, anti-immigration minister, Jason Kenney.

Earlier this month, Embassy Magazine ran a story: Federal Court asked to rule on Kenney's refugee claims: A Toronto-based lawyer is alleging the immigration minister might have interfered in the IRB's decision making.

Last June, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney publicly questioned the legitimacy of refugee claims made by Roma coming from the Czech Republic, saying they faced no real risk of state persecution.


The month prior to Kenney's announcement about Roma refugees, Stephen Harper visited Czechoslovakia, where the subject was discussed.

Harper also discussed with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek the soaring number of Romas, or Gypsies, entering Canada and claiming political asylum since late 2007, when Canada lifted visa requirements on Czech visitors. More than 80 Czech asylum-seekers have had their claims accepted, reflecting widespread concerns about discrimination and far-right violence directed against the community.

But Topolanek said the Roma are going to Canada for economic reasons rather than fleeing persecution, and blamed Canada's "soft" refugee determination process. Harper, meanwhile, indicated that Canada will bring back the visa rule if the situation isn't resolved.


Hmmmm. "Canada will bring back the visa rule ..." Not Kenney's idea after all.

But are these claims really "bogus"? Not according to Canwest European Correspondent Peter O'Neil.
A ghastly arson attack that has left a two-year-old girl fighting for her life contradicts Canadian and Czech government assertions that an exodus of Roma refugee claimants to Canada is driven by economics, rather than fear of persecution, say members of the Roma community here.

... They say they face a constant threat of neo-Nazi attacks and hateful demonstrations, where marchers head into Roma communities and call them "parasites," organized by increasingly sophisticated organizations such as the far-right Workers' Party.

"We are afraid for our lives," said Martin Duna, 31 ... "We are worried that Hitler is coming back." ... Duna's reference to Hitler, who sent Roma, as well as Jews and homosexuals, to extermination camps during the Second World War, isn't as extreme as it may sound ... Czech municipal politicians have won nationwide public praise for evicting Roma from apartments to live in metal containers in city outskirts; and human-rights groups have reported involuntary sterilizations of Roma women from the late 1960s to as recently as late last year.

Growing neo-Nazi violence, as well as discrimination and even segregation in areas such as health, housing, education, criminal justice and employment, have been reported in numerous publications issued by the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the U.S. State Department and Amnesty International.

These claims don't sound "bogus" to me. It seems more like Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, are just protecting one of their own.

But their actions could have very devastating effects. It will be almost impossible for Roma to obtain Visas, but since all Czech citizens will now fall under that rule, there could be increased violence as they blame the "victims" for the problem.

Don't you just love neoconservatism, where their goddess Margaret Thatcher once said: "There is no such thing as society."

Footnotes:

1. Unfinished Business, By: Roger Douglas, Random House, 1993, ISBN: 1869411994, Pg. 1

2. "The New Zealand Experiment: A Canadian Perspective", By Peter Clancy, Electronic Journal of Radical Organizational Theory, June 1996.

3. Preston Manning and the Reform Party. By: Murray Dobbin Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing 1992 ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 113-114


4. Preston Manning: The New Canada, By: Preston Manning, MacMillan Canada,ISBN: 0-7715-9150-0, pg. 276

5. Czech President Warns Against “Europeanism”, The Brussels Journal: the Voice of Conservatism (oops, another ism) in Europe, Paul Belien August 8, 2005

Friday, March 26, 2010

Why do We Need Armoured Vehicles in Canada?

I can't believe who we are now.

Since when did Canada's domestic police forces need armoured vehicles? Just how horrible are Harper's plans for this country that he needs this crap?

I'm just feeling so frustrated these days. Super prisons, the death penalty and soldiers in the streets. I guess we should have seen this coming.

Robert Gordon, director of Simon Fraser University's school of criminology and a former police officer, says armoured vehicles might make sense in the United States where there's a wider availability of guns, but he wonders whether they're necessary in Canada.

"What kind of urban warfare do police services think they're going to be encountering?" he said. "I think there is an element of this equipment being purchased because it's new toys for boys."

Gordon said, in his opinion, the line between civil police service and military service in the country is blurring.

I couldn't agree more. Puts those Liberal attack ads in perspective, doesn't it?

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Did Social Media Help to Cook Lee Richardson's Goose?

After Rabble revealed a questionable grant given to Mr. 'all criminals are immigrants' Lee Richardson, the mainstream media has now picked up the story.

He claims not to have known about it. Right. We believe ya' Lee. Just don't move next door to me.

A Tory MP who's chairman of a Calgary firm says he had no idea the company received a $185,000 grant from his government last year.

Lee Richardson told The Canadian Press he was looking into the matter after it was raised by Liberal MP Marlene Jennings. Richardson is chairman and director of Streetlight Intelligence Inc., which develops street-light systems.

Natural Resources Canada gave the publicly traded company the grant last March so it could demonstrate the benefits of one of its energy-efficient products across
Canada.

Understandably, the opposition wants an inquiry, which means the Reformers will be squealing like pigs again, instead of answering questions.

Lee Richardson told The Canadian Press he was looking into the matter after it was raised by Liberal MP Marlene Jennings. Richardson is chairman and director of Streetlight Intelligence Inc., which develops street-light systems.

But poor Mr. Richardson, has also been hit with yet another scandal. Taxpayer funded trips for his girlfriend.
CBC national political reporter Krista Erickson is registered as the designated traveller for Calgary Centre Conservative MP Lee Richardson, which means she is entitled to receive flights paid for by taxpayers. The Canadian Association of journalists and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation both said the designation raises tough questions for Erickson, Richardson and the CBC, since she covers federal politics as part of her job.

Erickson declined to comment Thursday. “If it’s about Lee, I’m not talking,” she said.
So that's how they control the media.

This is quite interesting though, because Erickson was the CBC reporter who was supposedly involved in a mini 'collusion' scandal, when she fed questions to a Liberal MP.

Doug Finley, the Tories' director of political operations, had complained to CBC ombudsman Vince Carlin that there had been "collusion" between a reporter and Montreal Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez, aimed at devising a series of questions about lobbying efforts by former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, directed toward the current Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

And the plot thickens.

Who's In? Who's Out? How Does Jason Kenney Keep Track?

When the Reformers decided to exploit the ethnic communities for votes, they went a little too far, and appear to have created a situation they are not equipped to handle.

With an extremely selective immigration process and 'visitor' policy, they have created divisions within those communities.

So Muslim hater Ann Coulter is in, British Member of Parliament is out. Human rights violator in, Sikhs out.

How does Jason Kenney keep track of it all? I just learned that he may even be going after the Mennonites for being anti-Semitic. Yes those radical Mennonites. Did I mention that Jason Kenney was nuts?
Members of Canada's Sikh community are planning a protest this evening outside a downtown Toronto hotel over the presence of an Indian cabinet minister they accuse of human rights abuses.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a lawyer and legal adviser to the group Sikhs for Justice, says India's Highways Minister Kamal Nath should have been barred from Canada. Nath has said he was sent to the scene of a New Delhi riot in 1984 in which Sikhs were burned to death to try to disperse the crowds.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Donating Money to the Reform-Conservatives Pays Huge Dividends

Investing money in the Reform movement pays huge dividends these days. Twelve million dollars to be exact.

Harper's so-called handling of the Haiti crisis has been just one disaster after another.

First we find out that the ships he rushed from shore arrived empty, and now a single source 12,000,000 contract went to a Harper friendly company.

The Conservative government has pledged to closely monitor a $12-million reconstruction contract in Haiti which it doled out without a public bidding process.

The government made the promise in the House of Commons Tuesday after The Canadian Press revealed the contract was awarded to a prominent Alberta company without public tendering.

The project to build a temporary shelter for the Haitian government was given to a subsidiary of Calgary-based ATCO Ltd., which has three Conservative donors on its board of directors.

Nice to know the first thing they think about at a time like this is profit.

Welcome to Harperland.

Why Is the American Ann Coulter Proud to be Canadian?

Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity (as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed'). Ann Coulter

There has been a lot of controversy this week over the projected visit of the highly controversial American journalist Ann Coulter. The provost of the University of Ottawa, Francois Houle, did not prevent her from appearing but did warn her to watch her mouth. (Many Americans would prefer she just kept it shut)

"Our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here." He continued, "Promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges."

Eventually, however the event was cancelled, which got organizer Ezra Levant in a flap:

"It would be physically dangerous for Ann Coulter to proceed with this event," said Conservative political activist Ezra Levant inside the hall. "This is an embarrassing day for the University of Ottawa and their student body . . . who chose to silence her through threats and intimidation."

Of course Levant was in full support of the ban imposed on British MP George Galloway, because he provided humanitarian aid, with the permission of his government, to Palestine. Talk about your double standard, huh?

Levant has been a long time supporter of Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day. Enough said.

However, since the warning, the Canadian right-wing is crying foul, calling it an assault on our freedoms. I guess forbidding us to criticize Israel or even mouthing the word 'Apartheid', without the risk of being charged with a hate crime, is A OK, though.

This sounds a lot like a tactic taught at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute. Blackwell was the Republican strategist who invited Stephen Harper to deliver a speech at the Council for National Policy in 1997. Both Karl Rove and Rob Anders are graduates of this school, and Preston Manning is running a similar program.

They call it 'Controlled Controversy' and Blackwell states that "Academia is the last unbreached citadel of the left, and I believe we are today over the moat." I would rather throw Coulter and Levant in it ... figuratively of course, not literally. Wouldn't want Ezra accusing me of violent intentions, now would I?

Why are so Many American Neoconservatives Proud to be Canadian?

This university speaking tour is not Coulter's first foray into Canadian politics, though. She has been contributing articles for some time now on a site called ProudToBeCanadian.

And while they claim to be proud Canadians, most of the journalists on the site, are from the American Right-Wing. Stephen Harper's former VP when he was running the National Citizens Coalition, Gerry Nicholls is an exception. And so is William Gairdner, whose book The Trouble With Canada became like a bible to the Reform Party under Preston Manning.

But I find the whole thing rather bizarre.

A true conservative site that helps explain the difference between liberals and conservatives.

We're: Pro-life. Pro-freedom. Pro-USA. Pro-Christian. Pro-Israel. Pro-family. Pro-traditional marriage. Pro-free market capitalism. Pro-war-on-terror and war on Islamofascism and terror in Iraq and everywhere else. Pro-military. We're for smaller governments. For less taxes. Against socialism. Against state-owned or state-run media. Against asinine state controls on our legal gun ownership. Against the so-called "progressive", left-wing church of liberalism. Against idiocy generally ...

Few of those things represent Canadians at all, so what exactly are they proud of?

Besides Coulter, their membership includes:

Republican activist Mike S. Adams, author of the book: Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" on Campus

David Warren who also writes for the right-leaning RealClearPolitics

Doug Giles, the Miami pastor who created and hosts Clash Radio. His bio claims that 'Giles’ interests include guns, big game hunting, big game fishing, fine art, cigars and being a big pain in the butt to people who dislike God and the USA'

For Coulter and PTBC, I believe they are just singing to the choir. Anyone attending her lectures, already believe in this nonsense, and the same could probably be said for anyone joining PTBC. I doubt they will lure anyone with their viciousness.

At least I hope not, because I want to still be proud to be Canadian, for all the reasons that actually define us as a tolerant and fair minded country.

PS: For anyone worrying about Ann of the Neocon's interview above; the Reformers have put it to right. In July of last year they erased any mention of our allowing Vietnam draft dodgers into the country.

Text on how both draft dodgers and resisters of the Vietnam War were ultimately allowed to stay in Canada suddenly vanished from the Citizenship and Immigration site earlier this year.

Jason Kenney to the rescue. Did he learn that one of them may have been gay?

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

Did Harper MP Lee Richardson Get Taxpayer Bailout?

You may remember Lee Richardson as the man who claimed that the majority of Canada's criminals were immigrants.

"Talk to the police. Look at who’s committing these crimes ... They’re not the kid that grew up next door.”

Maybe the people committing crimes are not the people who lived next door to Richardson, after all.

Now this is all still alleged, and nothing has been proven, but it looks as though Richardson may have been involved in some questionable practices himself.

Rabble has nicely exposed a transaction that took place between Richardson and Lisa Raitt, that saw his company receive a 'gift' from the Canadian taxpayer.

This was done when Raitt was Minister of Natural Resources and Richardson the Chair of the Natural Resources Committee. His company, Streetlight Intelligence Inc., secured a grant of $185,000.00.

The optics do not look good here and Richardson's folks next door may need to find a new neighbourhood.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Ann Farmer and Going Legit

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

After Don Andrews arrest, Wolfgang Droege and Alex McQuirter decided to focus their attention on promoting the KKK in Canada. With the assistance of David Duke, then Klan leader in the U.S., they attempted to bring the group into the mainstream. To appeal to a broader cross-section, Duke had for the first time in Klan history, allowed women and Catholics to become members, and this practice was also followed in Canada.

With Paul Hartmann leading the Toronto group, Droege and McQuirter headed West. According to Droege:

"We decided it would be a good time to go out west. McQuirter's father was in the car business, you see, and he was going to give us dealer's licences to sell cars. So we went out to Vancouver and got into the car business." The two Klansmen rented an apartment in North Vancouver and started to visit some of the men and women named on David Duke's Canadian mailing list. Whereas the used car trade did not appeal to Droege and McQuirter, white supremacist agitation clearly did. "We were selling cars here and there, but we didn't really do too well at it," says Droege. "So McQuirter and myself started visiting some of these people. That's how we got started. We eventually had meetings. For the first time ever in the post–World War Two era. there was a racialist organization in western Canada. We did much better out there [than in Toronto]. Here in Toronto is the toughest recruiting ground there is in Canada." (1)
When Don Andrews had served his jail time he threw his efforts into the Nationalist Party of Canada, and for a time Droege and McQuirter helped out. McQuirter returned to Toronto to serve on the Party's executive council, while Droege remained in British Columbia, working at a printing plant called Capital Business Forms.

But the two men soon grew weary of the NPC and resumed their Klan activities.
In April of 1979, Droege organized a publicity-grabbing B.C. tour by David Duke, during which he conducted more than 30 newspaper, television and radio interviews. "[The tour] was quite successful. We got massive publicity," Droege recalls now. "A Conservative member of Parliament told Duke I should be his advance man, his promoter." Interest in the B.C. branch of the Klan boomed as a result ... By October 1980, Droege says he had been forced out of his printing job. "The provincial government was putting pressure on the owner, and he was getting problems getting government work because of my organizing on behalf of the Klan." (1)
So Droege left the firm and devoted himself to working full time on Ku Klux Klan recruitment; often flying back to Toronto to confer with McQuirter. Then they caught a break. After listing their telephone number in the Metro Toronto phone book, the mainstream media picked up the story, and they became media darlings.
The phone line was installed at McQuirter's east end rowhouse. McQuirter later told Julian Sher, author of White Hoods, a look at Canada's KKK: "It was nothing planned, really. We had the phone installed so we could print up some literature. The news media really blew it up and did all our work for us."

In one fawning profile in The Ottawa Citizen in July 1980, a staff reporter, evidently expecting the Klan leader to burn a cross or shoot a non-white in her presence, describes McQuirter as "shy" and "better suited to a milk commercial." The Citizen writer declares, "Alexander McQuirter doesn't look like a racist." A December 1980 Canadian Press story that ran in a number of newspapers across the country struck a similarly artless tone, describing McQuirter as the "youthful, unlikely-looking leader of the Canadian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan," a leader who "speaks with the lofty ideals of a boy scout counsellor." (1)
As a result they attracted hundreds of inquiries from potential members.
Stanley Barrett, in his seminal work on the Canadian far right, Is God a Racist?, estimates that there were approximately 2,500 committed Klan members and activists at this time. Many of these new members were, by Ku Klux Klan standards, very young. Droege oversaw a massive recruitment campaign in urban B.C. schools. A number of Vancouver high schools as well as the University of British Columbia and the B.C. Institute of Technology were targeted. Those who responded received information packages mailed from Louisiana and application forms for the Klan Youth Corps. In Ontario, meanwhile, McQuirter was leading an effort to distribute Klan propaganda in Durham-area high schools. On cards handed out to children at junior high schools in and around Toronto, the slogan "RACIAL PURITY IS CANADA'S SECURITY" was prominently featured. Says Droege: "We seemed to have a good rapport with young people.(1)
 
Ian Verner Macdonald

But they also grabbed the attention of other less likely Canadians.
Though members of white supremacist organizations tend to be marginal individuals who achieve little, if anything, in some cities, the Klan's supporters were hardly stereotypical. According to McQuirter, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan attracted members of the news media, Armed Forces and various police agencies. (1)
And even higher up the food chain, they won the support of a senior member of the Canadian diplomatic corps, Ian Verner MacDonald.
Macdonald, a wealthy land-owner in Ottawa with a penchant for writing letters to the editor, admits he acted as an "adviser" to McQuirter. Says Macdonald: "When Alex would visit Ottawa, generally if I had a spare room, I would let him use it. We would talk about social problems and develop ploys to publicize his point of view. We weren't plotting any revolutions or insurrections .... In some ways, some of the Klan's comments ring very true. Any sensible Canadian who has the interests of the country at heart would want the borders controlled, for example. The potential for the white population to be completely overwhelmed is too real and too great to be ignored."

Ann Farmer


While in Vancouver, Wolfgang Droege recruited a bright young UBC student named Ann Farmer (not her real name) (2). She would become the Klan's provincial spokesperson and later Droege's live-in girlfriend.

The above picture shows Farmer with James R. Venable, a Georgia lawyer and white supremacist who organized a major Ku Klux Klan faction in 1963 and headed it for nearly 25 years; and Don Black* who would take over the leadership of the KKK in the U.S. after David Duke left to form the National Association for the Advancement of White People, to counter the National Association for the Advancement of Black People.

The third, smallest category of Klan members consisted of those who came to the KKK not as frustrated losers or longtime Nazis, but as middle class Canadians intellectually attracted to the Klan's racism. McQuirter fit into this category. So did Ann Farmer, a student at the University of B.C. who became a provincial KKK leader. Proud of her Christian upbringing, she said she was "concerned about the increasing number of non-whites in Canadian society" and decided to join the Klan "because I am impressed by the Klan's spectacular history of fighting for white rights." These young, articulate leaders provided the public image for the Klan, the sanitized facade behind which the confused "losers" and the committed Nazis could hide. (3)

But then key members of the Klan, including Droege and McQuirter became involved in a failed plot to launch a coup in Dominica and take over the island for profitable gambling and drug operations. This landed Droege in jail and Farmer was given a higher profile in B.C. McQuirter joined her and together they kept the PR going.

"Cross-burning B.C. Klan holds rally behind armed guards," read the headline in the Vancouver Sun when the first public cross lighting in the province took place in late May. Forty Klansmen burned an eight-metre cross at Stave Lake near Mission. At least two of the KKK members carried rifles and shots were fired into the air. "Let us offer a prayer of thanks to God for creating us in his image, for giving us white skin and superior intellect," said KKK leader Ann Farmer as she opened the ceremony with a prayer. The Klan crowd gave Nazi-style salutes and chanted "white power!"' Three months later, the same scene was repeated at the side of the Fraser River in Surrey, as 45 Klansmen — several of them carrying weapons — held a cross burning. The proceedings were seen on television, thanks to a BCTV film crew which had been invited to the event. (4)

The B.C. Legislature discussed this growing problem, describing a newspaper account of the Slave Lake rally.

"Let us offer a prayer of thanks to God for creating us in his image, for giving us white skin and superior intelligent." That's how the invocation begins at the famous Stave Lake cross-burning. "With that invocation, delivered by a blonde woman in her early twenties, the Ku Klux Klan's first public cross-burning in B.C. in years was underway Sunday. Before long, 40 white supremacists, a dozen of them wearing white robes, were brandishing flaming torches, making Nazi-style salutes and chanting 'White Power, ' as an eight-metre-high, rough-hewn wooden cross sent flames into the darkening sky."

"The woman speaking identified herself as Anne Farmer. She said she was the National Grand Chaplain of the Canadian Klan and the girlfriend of Wolfgang Droege, the ex-B.C. Klan leader, now in a New Orleans jail .... "Canadian Klan leader Alexander McQuirter, who attended the ceremony, was asked about the Klan's claim to have attracted a 'new breed' of recruit - businessmen instead of workers. He said 'the (people who wear) ties type' are the new Klan majority, but they want to protect their jobs, so they just provide money and other backroom assistance . . . . .. (5)

They were definitely getting money from somewhere. McQuirter himself would later be arrested for his part in the failed coup, and Ann Farmer would be made leader. This didn't sit right with many who felt that a woman should not lead, and the organization began to fracture.

Ann Farmer insisted her group was "very much larger" than her miniscule" rivals. Certainly Farmer's group was in the best position to assert itself as the dominant force on the extreme right in Canada. (6)

Though only 26, Ann had all the connections. When she was handling communications, she kept up a steady correspondence which American Klan leader David Duke, and would do the same when Don Black took over.

Farmer's Klan also benefited from having been given the official franchise for Canada by a revitalized and united American Klan. Six independent Klan organizations in the U.S. had banded together to form a Confederation of the Klans in Stone Mountain, Georgia, in September, 1982. Don Black, the leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, with which the Canadian Klan had been affiliated, was elected to a four-year term as Grand Wizard of the confederation. Black was still out on appeal of his three-year sentence for his role in the Dominica plot.

James Venable, a 76-year-old leader of another Klan group who traced his family heritage back to founding members of the post-Civil War Klan, was given the honorary title of Imperial Emperor. David Duke, who had handed his Klan organization over to Don Black in order to set up his National Association for the Advancement of White People, addressed the Stone Mountain rally, and it was expected that the NAAWP might affiliate with the confederation. Black called the confederation "the biggest step toward Klan unity in 50 years." The American media estimated that 6,000 people belonged to the new body.

Ann Farmer represented the Canadian Klan at the Georgia rally. Getting the stamp of approval from a large American Klan organization gave Farmer the same organizational, political and financial backing that McQuirter had received from Duke's Klan when the former was trying to establish his Canadian Klan four years earlier. In addition to her Stone Mountain visit, Farmer had spent several weeks in the U.S. as part of a "Leadership Training Program" with Don Black. She toured various Klan regional headquarters and took part in local Klan events across the U.S., visiting New Orleans, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Birmingham, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Washington, Arlington and Philadelphia. She also visited the headquarters of Duke's NAAWP. "During my stay in the United States, I learnt how to organize the Klan on a larger scale than presently exists in Canada," said Farmer. "I gained from the knowledge of Klan leaders who have many years of experience in Klan administration."

Farmer wasted little time in applying her training. Plans were made to resume publication of The Spokesman. Its operations were moved to New Westminster, and a promotional letter which carefully described the newspaper as "not primarily a Klan publication," urged KKK supporters "to subscribe to the fastest growing White Nationalist newspaper in the country."

Farmer's Klan also began to put out a newsletter, Canadian KKK Action, similar to the bulletin McQuirter had produced in 1981. Aside from ads for Klan paraphernalia, a glowing tribute to the imprisoned McQuirter and news of Klan activities, the newsletter presented a new, twenty-point program of the Canadian Knights. This was the first time the Klan had officially formulated a program.

Many of the points were the standard calls of the KKK: a return to the traditional white values on which Canadian society was built;" "a selective immigration policy, which includes the end of non-white immigration;" and the "repatriation" of non-whites "to their country of ethnic origin." The Klan also appealed to a larger conservative constituency by espousing such goals as the restriction of abortion and the expansion of the armed forces. The KKK even threw in some left-sounding positions, pledging "to end the exploitation of Canadian resources by multinationals corporations" and to provide "political and economic autonomy to the native Indian and Inuit nations."

Farmer claimed the Klan was growing steadily while maintaining a low profile. "Our activities include meetings, the education of members, the dissemination of our ideology to non-members, weapons training and a youth corps," she said. "I am very optimistic about the Klan's future in Canada. I have observed a positive correlation between growth in Klan popularity with an increase in non-white population. Today in B.C., people are becoming more overtly racist because there is a local influx of non-white immigration." (6)

And yet with all this publicity, Preston Manning claimed not to know of Wolfgang Droege's participation in the Klan. He would have been the only person in the country. And according to Dr. Debra Chin, it was Stephen Harper himself who arranged to have Droege's Heritage Front handle security when Manning was speaking in Ontario.

Stephen Harper was Reform Party Policy chief, at a time when it had numerous members of the white supremacist group Heritage Front as members. Trevor Harrison, further documents that Mr. Harper even had Heritage Front members doing security for Preston Manning at Reform Party events in Ontario. (7)

I guess it's possible.

Footnotes:

*Don Black also now runs the controversial Stormfront website.

Sources:

1. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By Warren Kinsella, Harper Collins, 1994, Pg. 214-217

2. Culture meets power, By Stanley R. Barrett, Praeger, 2002, ISBN: 13: 978-0275978075, Pg. 93

3. White Hoods, By Julian Sher, New Star Books, 1983, ISBN 0-919573-13-4, Pg. 117

4. Sher, 1993, Pg. 141

5. Official Report of DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, (Hansard), JUNE 23, 1981

6. Sher, 1993, Pg. 184-185

7. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper demonstrates continued ultra right wing affiliations by blocking pro social justice Toronto candidate, by Dr. Debra Chin, The Canadian

Monday, March 22, 2010

Why is the Irish Government More Concerned For our Workers Than Stephen Harper?

You don't really have to answer that question because I already know the answer.

In yet another proposed trade agreement being entered into by Stephen Harper and his neoncons, on Canada's race to the bottom; we learn from Ireland that our water is being privatized and our public services being put on the chopping block.

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

Our fascist dictator doesn't hold press conferences, so we can't ask him. Maybe we need to call Ireland to find out what's happening in our own bloody country. This is totally unacceptable.

Our new ferries are being made in Germany, Canada Post's new vans in Turkey, and now our public service is being privatized for the benefit of multi-nationals.

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA? SOON IT WON'T BE ANYONE'S!

Controlled Controversy at Dalhousie With Jared Taylor

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

There is a growing trend in this country to challenge our hate crime laws, by inviting some of the most controversial speakers to our universities in the hopes that there will be protests.

And when the inevitable protest happens, the news becomes about that, rather than the message that is being delivered, that got people so riled up in the first place.

Most recently it was Ann Coulter and the "controlled controversy" surrounding her visit became the debate, ignoring the question of whether or not it was OK to Muslim-bait.

What we should have also questioned was why a Danish hate group was sponsoring her visit, and why a member of Stephen Harper's staff was arranging the pre-show party.

Forget that Ezra Levant and David Frum had their fingers it, both bosom buddies of Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day.

These 'free speech' gurus love it when the hateful messages are not directed at them or their beliefs, but when they are they scream bloody murder. George Galloway is an excellent example of that.

However, before Coulter's visit there was another 'controlled controversy" on a University campus, when Jared Taylor, a notorious white supremacist was invited to debate a professor of black studies. Why they purposely chose Dalhousie, I don't know, perhaps it's because there is rather large black community in Halifax.

The organizer, Brian Boothe, claimed that he had hoped that the Dalhousie professor David Devine would win the debate, thereby proving that racism is wrong. Divine was under the impression that Taylor was a legitimate expert, and wasn't prepared to debate a devoted racist, who had honed his skill, by simply not listening to a thing anyone had to say that would contradict his already firmly entrenched opinions.

When word of the debate circulated around Halifax, the public outcry forced the professor to cancel the debate, but Taylor showed up anyway, garnering a lot of media attention, especially when after handing out hate literature on the street corners, he was attacked by a group who clearly wanted him out of town.


In its reaction to Mr. Taylor's brief visit last week, Halifax failed on almost every measure. Prof. Divine did not check his background before agreeing to debate him as an intellectual peer, an omission that later forced him to publicly refuse to debate. The media courted Mr. Taylor, then shunned him, then courted him again, turning a non-story into a near-scandal; and citizens stooped to mob violence and an anonymous e-mail that read: "Next time he comes, we're going to cut off his head." "Must be Muslims," Mr. Taylor said.

Literally overnight, this coincidence of failures transformed a harmless kook handing out fliers in a Maritime snowstorm into the hottest interview in Halifax. He is now hailed on the Internet among like-minded American "paleoconservatives" as a martyr for free speech in the face of aggressive Canadian political correctness. Even the local papers that refused his ads turned around and defended his right to get his message out.

"I felt very sad that someone of the calibre of Prof. Divine, with all the best of intentions, fell into that trap," said Dr. Mock, a psychologist who was once dubbed the "hate hunter" for her expert testimony on neo-Nazi tattoos. "It's an old Klan trick.... They can't be refuted because their lies are propaganda and the arguments are circular and conspiratorial." (1)
See how easily the story shifted from being about a white supremacist visiting Canada and handing out hate literature, to being about the actions of those who protested his racist messages, and Canada's arbitrary laws against freedom of speech.

The situation was handled all wrong and Jared Taylor was made a hero.

The anti-defamation League has actually covered similar situations involving Taylor and the company he keeps. Mobs follow him everywhere, and he knows just the right bombastic comments to fuel their ire. You can listen to the Taylor in the following video.



Jared Taylor and the Leadership Institute

Taylor has been linked with the Youth for Western Civilization movement, funded by Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute. He regularly gives them a plug in his American Renaissance newsletter.

However, he was also supposed to speak at a conference they were holding at the Institute on race and conservatism:

The forum was titled "Race and Conservatism" and was sponsored by the Robert A. Taft Club, a paleoconservative organization that was run by fellow Leadership Institute member Marcus Epstein. It was held at a satellite building for the Georgetown University Law School in Claredon, Va., having been moved at the last minute from its original location at the Leadership Institute building after calls from the Southern Poverty Law Center and One People's Project gave reason for concern. The panel included Jared Taylor, the editor of the white supremacist American Renaissance newsletter who is planning a conference of white supremacists in the Washington DC area next month, and John Derbyshire of the conservative periodical National Review.

According to a post on the white supremacist website Stormfront* at the time when it was still planned to be held at the Leadership Institute, it was just going to be Taylor and Derbyshire discussing the role of race in policy decisions and the racial future of the Republican party. After the controversy that prompted the Leadership Institute to close its doors to the forum, Kevin Martin of the black conservative organization Project 21 became a last-minute addition to the panel.

Approximately 40 persons attended this forum, the majority of whom, among them a longtime associate of Taylor's, Professor Michael Hart, were well-known in white supremacist circles. Other Leadership Institute members were also in attendance. (2)

We have to be vigilant here, because freedom of speech is one thing, but speech promoting hatred is something altogether different. Someone argued with me once that that our soldiers had fought and died for our freedom, so that we could speak our minds. But I'm pretty sure they didn't enter battle so that we could call each other names. It was hatred that put them on those battlefields in the first place.

Jared Taylor was told that the debate had been cancelled, but came to Canada anyway, with the intent of stirring up trouble. Then when trouble did find him, the media glorified him as a martyr for free speech. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Footnotes:

*Stormfront has a hate forum and a radio show that is a favourite with white nationalists.

Sources:

1. How not to handle a genteel racist. Fussing over his last-minute travel plans, David Divine, James R. Johnston chair of Black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University, seems a worldly fellow, not at all the poster child for naivete on racism, By National Post, January 27, 2007


2. HEY JAMES O'KEEFE, ABOUT THAT WHITE RACIST FORUM YOU ATTENDED IN 2006... By Dan Smeriglio, New Rogue's Gallery, January 30, 2010

Sunday, March 21, 2010

We are Sending Harper His Pink Slip. It's Long Overdue!


One of our amazing political activists, Grace Noël has started a campaign of sending pink slips to Stephen Harper, via all party leaders and the mainstream media. You can also send them to your MP.

I'm not sure if a link to Grace's page will work if you're not on her 'friends' list, but the image she created is here:


You can drag and drop it in an email to party leaders and copy to the media. Grace has prepared a lists.

HarpeS@parl.gc.ca

IgnatM@parl.gc.ca

caLaytoJ@parl.gc.ca

leader@greenparty.ca

DucepG@parl.gc.ca.

Mainstream Media:

letters@globeandmail.com

lettertoed@thestar.ca

newsonline@ctv.ca

news@ctv.ca

TheCurrent@CBC.CA

sdelacourt@thestar.ca

azerbisias@thestar.ca

editorial@thecanadianpress.com

letters@nationalpost.com

sunletters@png.canwest.com

letters@thecitizen.canwest.com

oped@thestar.ca

feedback@canada.com

letters@macleans.ca

news@hilltimes.com

info@rabble.ca

politics@cbc.ca

Kady.omalley@cbc.ca

checkup@cbc.ca

We also got a great plug for our online activism from the Hook:

The Victoria chapter of a national group that sprang up to oppose prime minister Stephen Harper’s proroguing parliament is morphing into an ongoing pro-democracy movement.

“Ironically, the extreme cynicism of Harper’s original action created the opposite result, bringing people who had been disengaged back into the discussion,” said Craig Ashbourne, one of the Victoria organizers of Canadians Advocating Political Participation, which has grown out of the group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.

And the C.R.U.S.H. ad has brought in a lot of new members.

We will get our country back one vote at a time.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

I am So Proud of Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper

Our first print ad was published in the Toronto Star today (A25) and I was so proud. I really feel like I'm part of something.

Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament is providing important news feed, and C.R.U.S.H. is busy getting the word out to the public. If we have any chance of getting our country back from these Zionist nutjobs before it's too late, we have to do what we have to do.

I want a government that puts Canada and Canadians first. That governs based on what is necessary for the times, not what is found in the Old Testament. And one that treats all of our citizens as equals.

I just learned that after the ad appeared today, we received $1,000.00 in donations online, with promises of cheques to be mailed later. We'll soon have enough for another ad.

NOW THIS ... THIS IS MY CANADA!

If You Are What You Eat, Harper Better Lay Off the Turkey

Neoconservatiam scores another victory, as the Harper government once again puts Canada and Canadians last.

In an attempt to bankrupt our nation and bust unions in the process, Canada Post will be replacing their fleet of vans, and instead of providing, or at least securing Canadian jobs; those vans will be made in Turkey.

Yes, Turkey.

CAW is furious, as we all should be.
WINDSOR, Ont. — Canada Post is replacing its aging leet of mostly urban light delivery vehicles with Ford Transit Connects made in Turkey, not the Windsor-made Chrysler minivan.

The decision was a final blow to an unsuccessful obbying effort by the Canadian Auto Workers and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers urging the post office to adopt a "buy Canadian" policy and to select the Chrysler minivan.

CAW Local 444 president Rick Laporte, who represents workers at the Windsor minivan plant, said he is outraged ... "It's mind-boggling to me that they would spend money on foreign manufactured goods when this country is struggling with its economy, and we're losing manufacturing jobs at an alarming rate."

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

New Airport Security Measures Mean No Conservatives Allowed

After Helena Guergis's airport melt down on Prince Edward Isalnd, another Reformer has made an ass of themselves.

Mind you when Jean-Pierre Blackburn lost it, it was because someone had taken his Tequila.

What was he supposed to do?

Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn has pologized for trying to bring a bottle of tequila through security at Ottawa airport last month.

Blackburn is the second member of Stephen Harper's cabinet forced to offer a public apology after recent exchanges with security personnel at Canadian airports.

"On February 23 I was at the Ottawa airport and a bottle of alcohol was confiscated from me because it exceeded the 100-millilitre limit," Blackburn said in a statement Friday.

Clearly, new security measures don't apply to the Harper government. But he apologized.

A lot of that going around lately. Maybe they should stop doing things they have to apologize for.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Reformers Use Stall Tactics to Avoid Accountablity

The ongoing story of the hostile takeover of Canada's Rights and Democracy Agency, by the Harper government, just took another turn.

Reformer Jim Abbott is now filibustering the committee looking into the matter, to avoid hearing from a key witness. The widow of the man who may have suffered a heart attack as a result of the actions of our government.

OTTAWA - Conservative MPs are preventing the grieving widow of former Rights and Democracy president Remy Beauregard from testifying at a Commons committee.

Suzanne Trepanier has requested permission to appear at the Foreign Affairs committee to defend her husband's record and provide her version of
events that she believes contributed to Beauregard's fatal heart attack following an agency board meeting in January.


Rights and Democracy, an arms-length, taxpayer-funded agency, has been in turmoil for months as factions on the government-appointed board battled
over three small grants to Middle East rights-monitoring groups that are critical of Israel.


But the committee must first agree to the witness list and Conservative Jim Abbott has begun a filibuster to prevent the issue from coming to a vote.

Critical of Israel. That's all it takes these days.

We also learned from the lawyer for Amnesty International, Paul Champ, that the stall tactic of the Reformers to pay a retired judge and corporate lawyer, $ 600.00 an hour to decide whether they have to abide by our Constitution, could take up to two years.

In the meantime, there is still a serious threat that detainees are still being tortured.
OTTAWA -- Canadian Forces should not transfer Afghan detainees to Afghan-run prisons because they currently face a "serious and substantial" risk of torture, Amnesty International lawyer Paul Champ warned Wednesday.

Champ also predicted it could take government-appointed former judge Frank Iacobucci two years or more to review the disclosure bans by government lawyers on hundreds of documents related to detainee transfers.

He told MPs at a House of Commons committee that while they are studying allegations of torture of transferred detainees in 2006-07, "there still remains the risk of torture" today.

It's time to put an end to this nonsense. Parliament is the highest court in the land, and they are legally entitled to see all documents. It doesn't matter what anyone says to the contrary.

And if that means hauling Stephen Harper out in handcuffs, then so be it. I'm getting sick of this.