FRESH MEAT

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Fair Vote Canada's letters to the PM and to the Opposition leaders

Challenging the Commonplace: Strongly-Worded Letters to PM, Opposition Leaders
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(excerpt)

At present the House of Commons embodies and projects a series of ridiculous untruths. Judging from the current “representation” most Quebecois want to quit the federation; most Canadians are reluctant to elect women; there are no Conservative supporters in Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto; there are no Liberal supporters in Alberta. There are no New Democrat supporters in Saskatchewan and remarkably few elsewhere, and no Green supporters anywhere in Canada...

Each of you should now be asking: does my party really want democratic representation for all Canadians, and what will my party risk or sacrifice, now, to achieve it?
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Worst Governer General Ever?

Pulse Niagara Online Edition

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Harper deliberately chose to pick a political fight with the opposition just six weeks after promising to work with them. Faced with certain defeat, he demands Jean prorogue Parliament. Did she consult with the leader of the opposition to see if he could lead a government? There’s no sign she did. Instead, she simply gave in.
Fast forward one year and Harper is again in trouble—this time over his government’s handling of the Afghan detainee torture issue. On the last day before the Christmas holidays, MPs passed a motion calling on the government to release thousands of uncensored documents on Afghan prisoners. Harper promised the committee looking at the issue they would receive “all legally available documents.” Instead, he prorogues Parliament, thus disbanding all committees in both the House and the Senate and killing government bills, no matter how close they were to approval.
And as many others have argued, Harper’s timing said everything. He chose to announce on December 30 – the same day five Canadians were killed in Afghanistan and at a time when the public and media were focusing on the announcement of Canada’s Olympic ice–hockey team that Parliament wouldn’t resume until March 3. Even more troubling is that Harper didn’t even bother to follow tradition and make his “request” of the Governor–General in person, instead telling her over the phone. Yet, the Governor General’s official residence is right across the street from the Prime Minister’s Sussex Drive home. Constitutional expert C.E.S. Franks, a Queen’s University professor, called Harper’s actions “an affront to the dignity of the office of Governor General.”

The British magazine, The Economist, an influential and largely right–wing publication, stated in an editorial, “Mr. Harper’s move looks like naked self–interest.” The magazine, which once dubbed former Prime Minister Paul Martin “Mr. Dithers”, said Harper’s a competent tactician with a ruthless streak. “The danger in allowing the Prime Minister to end discussion any time he chooses is that it makes Parliament accountable to him rather than the other way around.”

Top Ten Reasons Stephen Harper Prorogued Parliament

The Top Ten Reasons Stephen Harper Prorogued Parliament | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
Comic, but true!
(By true, I mean it had everything to do with the Afghan Detainee Scandal, etc.)

Y chromosomes evoloving

Chimp and human Y chromosomes evolving faster than expected

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Dr. who assaulted 2 cyclists with his car gets 5 years in prison

California doctor gets five years in prison for assaulting bicyclists | MNN - Mother Nature Network
California doctor Christopher Thompson was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and other charges for seriously injuring two bicyclists, Josh Crosby and Patrick Watson, seen in the photo above outside court, in 2008 by slamming on the brakes of his car after pulling in front of them. One of the cyclists smashed his face into Dr. Thompson's back windshield and the other seriously injured himself after bouncing off the car and onto the road. The good doctor told a police officer who arrived on the scene that he was trying to "teach them a lesson".
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Harper: Meddling with human rights

Dawg's Blawg: Harper: meddling with human rights
The non-partisan International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, established by Parliament in 1988 to promote human rights and democratic institutions around the world, is under siege by the ideologically-obsessive Harper government.

Calculate how much more the HST will cost you

HST Calculator | Block the HST
n this economy, it’s already tough to make ends meet, let alone put savings away.

But the Harper Conservatives aren’t making it any easier. Their HST means higher taxes on everyday products that used to not be taxed - like haircuts, the internet and home heating.

Stephen Harper doesn’t think you should know how much his high-tax agenda will cost you. New Democrats do.

Use the NDP’s HST Calculator to find out how little extra cash Ontario and BC families will have if the Harper Conservatives - supported by the Ignatieff Liberals - get their way.

A backgrounder on prorogue this time around.

What’s at stake - Andrew Coyne's Blog - Macleans.ca

... The government’s professed rationale, that this is all about economic planning, is obvious bilge: nothing prevents a government from planning and meeting Parliament at the same time, or certainly shouldn’t. The informal justification its supporters are putting about is scarcely better: it may be inconvenient to the government that its appointees do not yet control all Senate committees, but that is no reason to shutter Parliament. It is a motive, not a defense.

So that leaves the obvious. As KDO has explained, the fact that the government is proroguing in December, rather than in late January, suggest this had more to do with shutting down inquiries into the Afghanistan detainee affair than anything else. Is this what we should now expect: governments shutting down Parliament whenever the questioning gets too intense? What will remain of Parliament’s ability, already greatly weakened, to hold governments to account then?

Each time Parliament allows one of these abuses to pass, its power is reduced a little more. Indeed, so diminished has it become that it is hard for some observers to muster much indignation at this latest assault: it’s only Parliament, after all. It’s exactly this sort of whittling away by degrees that has allowed closure, for example, to be invoked more or less routinely to cut of Parliamentary debates, where once it was to be used only in the most extreme circumstances. It was the improper use of closure, recall, that set off the wild, four-week brawl known as the Pipeline Debate. Now, nobody can be bothered.

The time has long since passed for Parliament to take a stand against its own evisceration. The really substantive issue is whether the government will yield to the Commons demand that it produce the Colvin documents, and perhaps that fight can be resumed in March. But proroguing to delay that day of reckoning, possibly in hopes of sneaking through another snap election in the interval, is worthy of some sort of Parliamentary rebuke, which is why the symbolic measure (and it could only be that) of MPs meeting in another place came to mind.

I recognize that Parliament always retains the ultimate sanction of voting no confidence in the government — or at least, on those days that the government will allow it to do so, or deigns to bring forward legislation, or recognizes confidence votes when they occur (see Paul Martin, above). But this is a very blunt instrument. It shouldn’t have to take a vote of non-confidence to get the government to obey basic norms of accountability. I don’t mean only that the government should observe conventions of respect for Parliament, regardless of whether it is conforming to the strict letter of the law. I also mean there should be mechanisms for curbing such abuses, short of dissolving Parliament.

For example, should the power to prorogue rest solely with the Prime Minister (I know, I know: the Governor General, acting on his advice)? Should it not require a vote of Parliament? Might the same rule not also apply to dissolutions?

No Prorogue! - What's this about?

No Prorogue!
(visit the site for more)

What’s this about?

“When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is frankly when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.”
Stephen Harper, Canadian Press, April 18, 2005

On December 30th Stephen Harper announced that he will be Proroguing Parliament and suspending democracy until March 3. This is the second time he has done this in under two years.

Proroguing means:

All 37 bills being debated in Parliament are thrown in the trash. Discussion on bills starts from scratch in March, wasting months of hard work by all parties. These bills included new crime legislation, limits on credit card insurance rates, etc.
Committees investigating accusations of torture of Afghan detainees stop working
Discussions and decisions about the pension crisis affecting Canada’s seniors stops
Questions about Canada’s inaction at the Copenhagen climate-change summit are silenced. Opportunities to move forward with Canada’s plan for sustainable development are stalled for over a month.
Your MPs cannot raise your concerns in Ottawa

Conservative spin losing its thread

Liberal Arts and Minds: Spin, Losing it's Thread
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There is the need to consult over the economy, but Flaherty put that to rest by saying he'd consult with or without prorogation. Then there is the whole notion that the government has to set a new agenda, 'recalibrate', except they go on to say that it will be business as usual and the plan is simply to implement the second half of the EAP.

There is not one reasonable explanation that has been put on the table and they are now floundering and sound more ridiculous than usual.
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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Conservative use of prorogue is anything BUT routine

The rebuttal to Conservatives who protest that proroguing of Parliament is ‘routine’ « Scott's DiaTribes < read the full post.
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Conservative apologists for this have been saying, as has become their habit: What’s the big deal? Jean Chretien prorogued a few times too. It’s routine. Except it’s not routine in a minority Parliament. It’s not routine when you have dozens of bills on the table and work left undone. And it’s not routine to do it two years in a row, and in both cases when you’re under intense political pressure from the opposition.
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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Parliament should matter

Parliament should matter
Does Parliament matter? The question might once have been unthinkable; today, however, it's well worth asking.
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Harper outsmarts himself

Harper outsmarts himself - Winnipeg Free Press

Shutting down Parliament lights a fire under apathetic Canadians...

Friday, January 8, 2010

Britain covered in snow

BBC News - Frozen Britain seen from above

Great Britain

Time to fire his ass if can't figure it out by now

Hmm, Harper claims he needs almost 3 months to figure out how to govern. « Scott's DiaTribes

Conservative TV just torpedoed Harper

Far and Wide: "A Very Serious Issue"
For CTV (Conservative TeleVision, aka Canada's Tory Voice) to say this is a serious issue, I'd say Harper is in big trouble with his hard-core base of sycophants.

A video poking fun at Harper's current situation.

YouTube - Stephen Harper's Prorogation Downfall

NDP stance on the prorogation of parliament issue

Statement by New Democrat Deputy Leader and House Leader Libby Davies | NDP
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While Stephen Harper is blocking elected Members of Parliament from working in the House of Commons, he is in the process of appointing more and more unelected Senators, something he promised he would never do.

All this to run away from accountability and to further cover up the Afghan detainee torture scandal.

It is unacceptable. New Democrats will continue to work hard, and this is why our MPs will attend, as planned, the NDP Caucus retreat scheduled the week before the return of Parliament in Wakefield, Quebec.

The meeting will go ahead, because, more than ever, New Democrats are committed to keeping the Conservative government accountable. We may need to be creative. But we will be relentless.

Details on the recent polls about the prorogation

Far and Wide: Nobody Should Care About The "Unaware"

No Prorogue! site

No Prorogue!

The Economist steps in with words about the prorogation of parliament

Canada without Parliament: Halted in mid-debate | The Economist

Conservative MPs begin to show the true colours of the party

An apparent disadvantage of proroguing has emerged for Harper – his MPs are loose cannons « Scott's DiaTribes

Mr. Schellenberger admitted he may try to take two or three weeks off during the Winter Olympic Games and may try to get to Vancouver if he can find accommodation. The Olympics in Canada were another good reason to prorogue Parliament, he added. ”If we are sitting, how do MPs get to those events,” he said of the Olympic games. “It makes sense that we are not sitting.”
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Harper's plan was to prorogue while the other leaders were away on holidays

Yappa Ding Ding: More on the Democratic Crisis
For those who are complaining that Ignatieff and Layton are on holiday... did it occur to you that Harper timed this to embarrass them by choosing a time when it would be difficult for them to get back to Canada quickly? Just have a little patience. We need leadership from Ignatieff and Layton - not just one but BOTH - and it needs to be good. But quality is more important than fast in this case. We can wait a few more days or weeks.
read on ...

Harper and his supporters in the MSM

Montreal Simon: Stephen Harper and his Media Stooges
He thought he could get away with it. He said it was just routine. He said Canadians didn't care about torture. He said he needed to recalibrate.

Even though Canadians knew it was just a paid vacation.

He counted on the Con media to shrug it's shoulders, praise him for being so clever.

And smother the Facebook rebellion with cynicism.

Or this crock of stinking shite. From another old Con.

As if young Canadians were too stupid to care about saving democracy and their country.

So what are these MSM Con stooges saying now? About this and this.

Let me suggest something along these lines might be appropriate:

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo. We live in a dank little village called Ottawa. We walk around with our heads up our asses. We polish Great Ugly Leader's bum with our noses. We think cynical is cool. So how could we possibly know how irrelevant we have become?
Read on ...