The RCMP is investigating "G8 summit legacy fund" spending, citing a troubling lack of transparency in the administration of $50 million allotted to the riding of federal cabinet minister Tony Clement. Once again, the Harper government - elected on a platform of "law 'n order, transparency and responsible governance"- has left many with a bitter taste in the mouth through its blatant failure to live up to either the spirit or the word of its electoral commitments.
Acting federal auditor John Wiersema recently decried the virtual total absence of a papertrail in the allocation of G8 summit legacy fund monies:
"Wiersema called the complete absence of documentation “very unusual and troubling” and said he’d never encountered anything like it during his lengthy career as an auditor."
"Never encountered anything like it during his lengthy career as an auditor". That statement alone deserves a moment of quiet reflection. Just think who preceeded the Harperites: the Chrétien government and its procurement scandal!
LOL! You come off smellin' like s--t in comparison with THOSE guys! That ain't good. That definitely ain't good. Just think! It was exactly the public's disgust with the antics of THOSE guys which helped elect Harper and his crew in the first place!
And now.. and now, we find out that the Harperites are even creepier than the Chrétien crew: "never encountered anything like it during his lengthy career as an auditor"..
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1012610--rcmp-to-probe-g8-legacy-fund
Jeez! Are we being taken for another ride by another wing of the Old Boys Club?
And such transparency issues are a recurring problem with this government: this is not so much a glitch as a trend. Going back to March, accusations of attempting to hide the true costs of its budget policies flared, setting the stage for the last election. Guess we just like being whipped by these guys..
http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110321/ottawas-brink-of-election-politics-week-begins-110321/20110321/?hub=EdmontonHome
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Crysotile Asbestos: transparency or the lack thereof
Asbestos, the insulating fiber, is a known carcinogen. The crysotile variant is less so but requires special handling to prevent inhalation of the carcinogenic fibers. Canada exports the fiber to third world countries like India from mines in Québec. The trade has been denounced because the "special handling to prevent inhalation" is rarely, if ever, achieved in the third world. See, for example:
http://hesa.etui-rehs.org/uk/dossiers/files/Calvert_%20Canada_Asbestos_Tragedy.pdf
Why then does the Harper government continue to support the international trade in crysotile fiber when it is well known that lives in third world countries are being lost to lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses as a result of exposure to the fibers in unsafe working conditions? It is like a man profiting from selling hypodermic needles to junkies with the argument, "well, I don't know what they use them for". Out of sight, out of mind: it's a crappy morality..
Less we be accused of Left wing bias - US?? - it should be noted that Canadian unions don't come out smellin' like roses either. As a group they have been internally paralyzed by Québec unions in the industry who have placed local job security over 3rd world health and lives. Short term logic of course: we save our jobs in Québec and to hell with Asian workers. Did no one tell them of "Divide and conquer!"
http://hesa.etui-rehs.org/uk/dossiers/files/Calvert_%20Canada_Asbestos_Tragedy.pdf
Why then does the Harper government continue to support the international trade in crysotile fiber when it is well known that lives in third world countries are being lost to lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses as a result of exposure to the fibers in unsafe working conditions? It is like a man profiting from selling hypodermic needles to junkies with the argument, "well, I don't know what they use them for". Out of sight, out of mind: it's a crappy morality..
Less we be accused of Left wing bias - US?? - it should be noted that Canadian unions don't come out smellin' like roses either. As a group they have been internally paralyzed by Québec unions in the industry who have placed local job security over 3rd world health and lives. Short term logic of course: we save our jobs in Québec and to hell with Asian workers. Did no one tell them of "Divide and conquer!"
Friday, June 10, 2011
Tacky, tacky, tacky..: the face of populism in Canada
Magnificent example of populist rabble rousing! Krista Erickson stands up for the "little man" - the eternal Taxpayer - against that nasty liberal / artist Margie Gillis. Gillis manages to come off with some dignity despite the ambush - good thinking Margie!
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/971454253001Importante
Students of Authoritarianism (or aspiring führers), study the video carefully! Observe how Gillis' past statements are ripped out of context - "Canada not a compassionate society" - and then used to beat up Gillis. The internal dialogue of the viewer is being artfully programmed here by spinmeister Erickson: Oh! what a naughty, arrogant woman! how unpatriotic! and how terribly, terribly ungrateful, taking a million dollars from the Taxpayers in grants (over 39 years and for salaries for many aspiring artists, admittedly) and then claiming Canada is "not compassionate", tsk, tsk, tsk.. Oh, yes, it's all there, all the tools of the demagog's trade, masterfully - and yet apparently instinctively - deployed: the misquoting, the baiting, the rabble rousing followed by pandering to the baser instincts roused. Beautiful Krista, beautiful, you are a master..
Aside from the tactics employed, the video is also a showroom of the populist psychology on many different levels (astute observers could list more):
- reduction of life to the purely quantitative: how much is it worth?
- behind the rhetoric of hairy chested "individualism" and the incessant cant of "freedom" (or "democracy" in foreign affairs), the desire to suppress the natural diversity of opinion found in modern societies, the constant pressure to conform to rigid normes and to force others to adopt herd normes of conduct, belief, life-style, occupation..
Presently reading "The Authoritarians", a free access online text by an American prof of psychology teaching at the University of Manitoba, another recommended window into the populist / authoritarian mentality:
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
(One wonders why he chose to do his research on authoritarianism from a base in Canada given that he is American and the US seems to be the major current source of authoritarian thinking on the continent. Did his topic of research put him in the way of too many stray bullets.. )
Internal blog link: later article on Krista's bullying populist attack on the arts
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2012/02/krista-puts-her-hoof-in-it-again.html
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/971454253001Importante
Students of Authoritarianism (or aspiring führers), study the video carefully! Observe how Gillis' past statements are ripped out of context - "Canada not a compassionate society" - and then used to beat up Gillis. The internal dialogue of the viewer is being artfully programmed here by spinmeister Erickson: Oh! what a naughty, arrogant woman! how unpatriotic! and how terribly, terribly ungrateful, taking a million dollars from the Taxpayers in grants (over 39 years and for salaries for many aspiring artists, admittedly) and then claiming Canada is "not compassionate", tsk, tsk, tsk.. Oh, yes, it's all there, all the tools of the demagog's trade, masterfully - and yet apparently instinctively - deployed: the misquoting, the baiting, the rabble rousing followed by pandering to the baser instincts roused. Beautiful Krista, beautiful, you are a master..
Aside from the tactics employed, the video is also a showroom of the populist psychology on many different levels (astute observers could list more):
- reduction of life to the purely quantitative: how much is it worth?
- behind the rhetoric of hairy chested "individualism" and the incessant cant of "freedom" (or "democracy" in foreign affairs), the desire to suppress the natural diversity of opinion found in modern societies, the constant pressure to conform to rigid normes and to force others to adopt herd normes of conduct, belief, life-style, occupation..
Presently reading "The Authoritarians", a free access online text by an American prof of psychology teaching at the University of Manitoba, another recommended window into the populist / authoritarian mentality:
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
(One wonders why he chose to do his research on authoritarianism from a base in Canada given that he is American and the US seems to be the major current source of authoritarian thinking on the continent. Did his topic of research put him in the way of too many stray bullets.. )
Internal blog link: later article on Krista's bullying populist attack on the arts
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2012/02/krista-puts-her-hoof-in-it-again.html
Monday, May 30, 2011
From the "Incredible but True!" file: Shameful!
Vic Toews, federal public safety minister apparently feels that the private sector profits trump the welfare, the health or the safety of citizens:
At a time when distressed flood victims in Quebec’s Richelieu Valley were urging the federal government for more troops to help deal with the crisis, Ottawa refused to send in additional soldiers, saying it would put them “in competition with the private sector.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec/ottawa-initially-refuses-request-for-more-troops-to-aid-quebec-flood-victims/article2033562/
It appears that the bottom line - despite patriotric machismo - is, well, the bottom line.. What a travesty of the word "citizen" we have here! In a State shrunk to the point it "could be drowned in a bathtub", the citizen is finally reduced to the status of a mere "client", a "consumer" of State services. A purely mercantile relation. At the limit, the poor "citizen" (client), who does not have the wherewithall to purchase services, does without. Witness the progressive - sureptitious - privitization of the health services.. death by a thousand cuts.. Yet another example of the mercantile psychology behind neoconservative ideology at work, transparently, in the open.. "From the mouths of babes".. Toews you are an innocent..
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist
At a time when distressed flood victims in Quebec’s Richelieu Valley were urging the federal government for more troops to help deal with the crisis, Ottawa refused to send in additional soldiers, saying it would put them “in competition with the private sector.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec/ottawa-initially-refuses-request-for-more-troops-to-aid-quebec-flood-victims/article2033562/
It appears that the bottom line - despite patriotric machismo - is, well, the bottom line.. What a travesty of the word "citizen" we have here! In a State shrunk to the point it "could be drowned in a bathtub", the citizen is finally reduced to the status of a mere "client", a "consumer" of State services. A purely mercantile relation. At the limit, the poor "citizen" (client), who does not have the wherewithall to purchase services, does without. Witness the progressive - sureptitious - privitization of the health services.. death by a thousand cuts.. Yet another example of the mercantile psychology behind neoconservative ideology at work, transparently, in the open.. "From the mouths of babes".. Toews you are an innocent..
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist
Friday, May 20, 2011
Transparency and Murphy's Laws
Murphy's Laws
1- anything that can go wrong will go wrong
2- anything that can't go wrong will go wrong
3- any attempt to correct for failures of type 1 or type 2 will, by increasing the complexity of the system, increase the sources of failures of type 1 and type 2
As the "failsafe" nuclear power plant security failures in Japan have demonstrated clearly since 11 March, "failsafe" security measures don't work. We live in a universe ruled by Murphy's Laws!
Take the case of poor Mubin Shaikh.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/18/mubin-shaikh-wikileaks.html
This fellow, well intentioned and / or hopelessly naive, offered Canadian security agencies (CSIS, RCMP) his services as a mole within the radical Islamic community in Canada. His goal, he says, was to be a better-than-average citizen and personally run the risk of ferretting out terrorists plots. Weird. Pollyanish, maybe, but brave, at least (I mean, these dudes are willing to kill innocent people: what might they do to a mole if they found out? Would you do it..) At any rate, Shaikh's services led to the conviction of theToronto 18 plot members.
Normally, the guy should get a medal, right? He volunteered to put himself at risk to serve his country, etc. So how was Mubin Shaikh rewarded for his time, effort, courage?
According to a wiki-leaks document, Shaikh was amply "rewarded" for his services by being place on one or more American terrorist suspect lists. Note: I don't make this stuff up! - I simply don't have enough imagination.. However, I imagine this type of incredible cockup must have led engineer Murphy to formulate his famous Laws: engineers apply scientific theories to practical situations and thus are forced to deal with all the vicissitudes and perversities of the material world.
1- anything that can go wrong will go wrong
2- anything that can't go wrong will go wrong
3- any attempt to correct for failures of type 1 or type 2 will, by increasing the complexity of the system, increase the sources of failures of type 1 and type 2
As the "failsafe" nuclear power plant security failures in Japan have demonstrated clearly since 11 March, "failsafe" security measures don't work. We live in a universe ruled by Murphy's Laws!
Take the case of poor Mubin Shaikh.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/05/18/mubin-shaikh-wikileaks.html
This fellow, well intentioned and / or hopelessly naive, offered Canadian security agencies (CSIS, RCMP) his services as a mole within the radical Islamic community in Canada. His goal, he says, was to be a better-than-average citizen and personally run the risk of ferretting out terrorists plots. Weird. Pollyanish, maybe, but brave, at least (I mean, these dudes are willing to kill innocent people: what might they do to a mole if they found out? Would you do it..) At any rate, Shaikh's services led to the conviction of theToronto 18 plot members.
Normally, the guy should get a medal, right? He volunteered to put himself at risk to serve his country, etc. So how was Mubin Shaikh rewarded for his time, effort, courage?
According to a wiki-leaks document, Shaikh was amply "rewarded" for his services by being place on one or more American terrorist suspect lists. Note: I don't make this stuff up! - I simply don't have enough imagination.. However, I imagine this type of incredible cockup must have led engineer Murphy to formulate his famous Laws: engineers apply scientific theories to practical situations and thus are forced to deal with all the vicissitudes and perversities of the material world.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Transparency: neocon "Voter Suppression" tactics imported from U.S.
Harper and company promised "law 'n order, responsible government and transparency", right?
How's this for "transparency"? Anne Lagacé Dowson:
"The Conservatives’ latest voter suppression tactic is what is called "robo-calling" – fake phone calls directing voters to the wrong polling stations. These calls are standard operating procedure for Republican right-wingers in the U.S. Now they are apparently part of the Tory playbook.
The calls went out to ridings where the races were close, and where the difference between winning and losing is a couple of hundred votes. People were told to go to the wrong place to vote in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and the Atlantic region. The phone messages told voters that their polling place had been changed because of high turnout. Elections Canada never calls people like that, but most people trust such a call when it comes."
How's this for "transparency"? Anne Lagacé Dowson:
"The Conservatives’ latest voter suppression tactic is what is called "robo-calling" – fake phone calls directing voters to the wrong polling stations. These calls are standard operating procedure for Republican right-wingers in the U.S. Now they are apparently part of the Tory playbook.
The calls went out to ridings where the races were close, and where the difference between winning and losing is a couple of hundred votes. People were told to go to the wrong place to vote in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and the Atlantic region. The phone messages told voters that their polling place had been changed because of high turnout. Elections Canada never calls people like that, but most people trust such a call when it comes."
To my way of thinking - which apparently is not that of the Harper crew - being "transparent" means being open, honest, above board in dealing with others. It means probity, frankness - yes, at times it's needed, "telling it like it is". Above all, transparency is the opposite of dissimulation, "dirty tricks". And these are U.S. Republican style dirty tricks: not a good sign. One talks the moral "high road" and walks quite a different way..
At this early date, Elections Canada has been informed of the dirty tricks played the last few weeks of the campaign but has made no judgement. Rogue Conservative supporters may, of course, be responsible but this remains to be proven.. See, for example, CBC radio's The Current, May 11, 2011 for a discussion with an American author who wrote a book about his work as a Republic hatchet man (he spent time in prison for it):
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A STRANGE PUZZLING ELECTION - More questions than answers
As we expected, the Conservatives won with a big majority.
Division of the vote on the Left between Liberals and the NDP let Conservatives walk up the middle.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/map/2008/fullscreen.html
The election left Big Losers and Big Winners.
The Big Losers:
The Liberals: their lowest percentage of the popular vote in history. Leader Ignatieff, defeated in his own riding, fell on his sword and quit politics. What will now become of the beleaguered, once mighty, Liberal Party? It leaves the impression of a wounded animal crawling off to die..
Some pundits suggest a fusion of the Liberal Party and the NDP to create a unified party of the Left (as the Right did years ago with fusion / hostile takeover of the "Red Tory" Progressive Conservatives by the neoconservative Reform - Alliance). Other, more pragmatic voices claim that a fusion would destroy the former: the Liberal right wing - business - would rush to the Conservatives, fleeing the socialist hordes. The future of the traditional party of the center is, at best, uncertain..
The Bloc Québécois: A truly monumental defeat, giving new meaning to the saying "going down in flames". No one saw leader Gilles Duceppes' loss of his home riding: he, like Ignatieff, bows out, leaving the political scene in defeat. What will happen to the separatist movement in Québec? Will it die? No one can say..
The Big Winners:
Finally! Elizabeth May, head of the Green Party, wins a sole seat. Will she be able to leverage her win into a national paradigm shift on environmental issues? Good luck, Elizabeth!
Jack Layton's Orange Wave: Why did the NDP spike so quickly the last two weeks of the campaign? Why did the wave begin and crest so high in Québec, formerly closed to NDP wooing because of the Province's "made-in-Québec" brand of social democracy? Why did the Orange Wave spread to other parts of the country? Was the wave just another example of "social mimicry", the recent democracy movements in the Middle East serving as role-models? If so, this would suggest there is an underground current of fear, frustration, rage and desire for change waiting to be tapped by emerging social / political movements..
The election raises more questions than it answered, revealing fracture lines of fear and distrust, revealing also an alien political landscape for which we possess no maps..
For the first time in history the Reds have been denied the role of Official Opposition by Jack's neophyte Orange team. A first! - but what does it really mean for the long run? Does the Liberal rout indicate a fundamental shift in our political perspective: a potentially creative polarization of Canadian politics between a neoconservative Right and a "Social Democratic", possibly green, Left? Or did people vote for Jack merely in protest? Only time will tell if the Orange Wave was a fluke created by circumstances or a real paradigm shift..
Just as puzzling is the role Québec now finds itself in: undefined! Not only did the Orange Wave begin there but more than half of Layton's team hail from la belle province - no one, but no one, saw this coming. To be effective the Orange team will need to reach across the linguistic divide and develop a common political vision and strategy. This alone could - potentially - usher in a new era of Canadian federal politics. Decades ago, in their heyday, the centrist Liberals played this bridging role. Now the role of bridge builder falls to a party of the Left. How will this reconfigured political map play out in the decades of environmental / ecological turmoil ahead? One can only speculate!
One thing seems certain though: the Bloquistes, the Liberals and the NDP itself will have a long stretch ahead to discover their new roles, formulate new goals and try out new strategies in this political Wonderland we have suddenly fallen into. They will all have their work cut out for them too: with their strong majority, the Harperites will feel their hand free to do pretty much as they see fit..
One thing I think we can count on: the unexpected.
Attendre l'inattendu! / expect the unexpected!
Politics is the art of the possible
Politics is the realm where Murphy's Laws have their fullest, most complete and most diversified expression
Division of the vote on the Left between Liberals and the NDP let Conservatives walk up the middle.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/map/2008/fullscreen.html
The election left Big Losers and Big Winners.
The Big Losers:
The Liberals: their lowest percentage of the popular vote in history. Leader Ignatieff, defeated in his own riding, fell on his sword and quit politics. What will now become of the beleaguered, once mighty, Liberal Party? It leaves the impression of a wounded animal crawling off to die..
Some pundits suggest a fusion of the Liberal Party and the NDP to create a unified party of the Left (as the Right did years ago with fusion / hostile takeover of the "Red Tory" Progressive Conservatives by the neoconservative Reform - Alliance). Other, more pragmatic voices claim that a fusion would destroy the former: the Liberal right wing - business - would rush to the Conservatives, fleeing the socialist hordes. The future of the traditional party of the center is, at best, uncertain..
The Bloc Québécois: A truly monumental defeat, giving new meaning to the saying "going down in flames". No one saw leader Gilles Duceppes' loss of his home riding: he, like Ignatieff, bows out, leaving the political scene in defeat. What will happen to the separatist movement in Québec? Will it die? No one can say..
The Big Winners:
Finally! Elizabeth May, head of the Green Party, wins a sole seat. Will she be able to leverage her win into a national paradigm shift on environmental issues? Good luck, Elizabeth!
Jack Layton's Orange Wave: Why did the NDP spike so quickly the last two weeks of the campaign? Why did the wave begin and crest so high in Québec, formerly closed to NDP wooing because of the Province's "made-in-Québec" brand of social democracy? Why did the Orange Wave spread to other parts of the country? Was the wave just another example of "social mimicry", the recent democracy movements in the Middle East serving as role-models? If so, this would suggest there is an underground current of fear, frustration, rage and desire for change waiting to be tapped by emerging social / political movements..
The election raises more questions than it answered, revealing fracture lines of fear and distrust, revealing also an alien political landscape for which we possess no maps..
For the first time in history the Reds have been denied the role of Official Opposition by Jack's neophyte Orange team. A first! - but what does it really mean for the long run? Does the Liberal rout indicate a fundamental shift in our political perspective: a potentially creative polarization of Canadian politics between a neoconservative Right and a "Social Democratic", possibly green, Left? Or did people vote for Jack merely in protest? Only time will tell if the Orange Wave was a fluke created by circumstances or a real paradigm shift..
Just as puzzling is the role Québec now finds itself in: undefined! Not only did the Orange Wave begin there but more than half of Layton's team hail from la belle province - no one, but no one, saw this coming. To be effective the Orange team will need to reach across the linguistic divide and develop a common political vision and strategy. This alone could - potentially - usher in a new era of Canadian federal politics. Decades ago, in their heyday, the centrist Liberals played this bridging role. Now the role of bridge builder falls to a party of the Left. How will this reconfigured political map play out in the decades of environmental / ecological turmoil ahead? One can only speculate!
One thing seems certain though: the Bloquistes, the Liberals and the NDP itself will have a long stretch ahead to discover their new roles, formulate new goals and try out new strategies in this political Wonderland we have suddenly fallen into. They will all have their work cut out for them too: with their strong majority, the Harperites will feel their hand free to do pretty much as they see fit..
One thing I think we can count on: the unexpected.
Attendre l'inattendu! / expect the unexpected!
Politics is the art of the possible
Politics is the realm where Murphy's Laws have their fullest, most complete and most diversified expression
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