This photo is courtesy of sweet Alex. I have been spending the past few weeks cooking up spring food (asparagus!) just like in the picture, but there’s a serious side to this blog and I hope you’ll allow me it.
The Canadian Federal Election is three weeks away and I’d like to do a little legwork towards reminding people why this is an extremely important time to exercise your right to vote.
Mr. Steven Harper wants to be Prime Minister again.
1) Firstly, I’d like to remind Canadians that this election was called because OUR PRIME MINISTER WAS FOUND TO BE IN CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT.
That has never happened before.
And it’s not to be taken lightly, either: one of the penalties for this sentence is jail time.
Why was the government found to be in contempt of Parliament?
It refused to disclose how much money was going to be spent on new prisons, jets (not $ 9 billion as the Tories suggested, but$ 30 billion: more than the total federal spending on health care), and corporate tax cuts (an estimated $ 6.14 billion).
How can you possibly think that refusing to tell taxpayers how much of their money you are going to spend on these things means that you’re an accountable kinda guy?
2) Where is this money going to come from, if the Conservatives regain control of Parliament? When asked about his plans for increasing revenue to pay for the above expenses, Harper replied that “there won’t be any drastic cuts.” Really? With a $ 56 billion deficit and lots of expenditures in the works, where is the money coming from? Opposition leaders have some ideas. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff reminds Canadians that Canada’s Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty indicated that the 2011 budget showed health care spending post 2014 to be “subject to change.”
3) Moving right along! During the G8/G20 summit last June, Mr. Harper decided to focus on maternal health in developing countries. That’s a great idea, but not at all heartfelt.
According to the Conservative government, maternal health shouldn’t include the right for a woman to decide whether to carry a pregnancy to term or not. Can we just stop the posturing for a minute? If you legitimately care about women’s health, let them control what happens to their bodies.
“Women who live in conflict zones where rape is a tool of war, or young girls who are married off to older men and find themselves pregnant at age 10 or 11, will be left to their own devices when trying to access a safe abortion.”
Of course Harper’s decision provoked a backlash. Women’s groups gathered in protest, and Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth told them to “shut the fuck up” (yes, those are her exact words) on the abortion issue lest the PM decide to take a closer look at the current standing of the reproductive rights of Canadians.
Then, the Conservative government cut funding to 11 women’s groups.
International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said the removal of funding was due to “performance issues”.
Also I’m not afraid of pointing at the awful injustices that happened during the summit, namely the price tag (the costliest G8/G20 summit ever, more than $ 1.24 billion, is more than three times what they’re proposing to provide to seniors over the next year), and the horrible ways protesters, journalists and passers-by were treated during the rallies.
Ok that’s a lot of information, so LET’S SUMMARIZE: The Conservative party, led by Steven Harper, doesn’t believe that women should have access to safe, legal abortions. (**More on women’s rights below.) Also, international meetings should be seen as chances to blow tons of cash on fake ponds and beat your citizens (this is sure to impress visiting dignitaries).
4) And while we’re on the topic of Bev Oda, let me give you a bit of background on an issue that had a hand in the “contempt of Parliament” ruling:
Oda represents a conservative riding in Durham and as I mentioned above, is the Minister for International Cooperation. In her position as Minister, Oda is responsible for doling out money to certain international development organizations under the moniker of CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency).
CIDA has been giving millions of dollars each year to an organization called Kairos. Kairos is an ecological justice and human rights activism group.
In 2009 Oda rejected the renewal of the CIDA grant to Kairos, calling the rejection “a CIDA decision”, despite the fact that top CIDA officials had signed a note recommending approval of Kairos’s funding. It turned out that the note had been altered: the word “not” was handwritten into the typed document, to read “not approve”.
At first, Oda said she didn’t know who wrote the word “not”. Later she admitted that she had ordered the document to be changed. Surely this deserves at least a wrist-slap from the PM, if not a full-blown public inquiry. After all, millions of dollars were at stake!
Not the case. “Ignoring the core question of whether Oda had misled the House, [Steven Harper] asserted that what was really at issue was the right of an elected minister to refuse to be dictated to by unelected mandarins. ‘This is what democracy means,’ Harper said in question period.”
Again, LET’S SUMMARIZE: Minister Oda disrespected Parliament by ordering the alteration of a signed government document and lying about the source of the alteration. In a bid to cover up the scandal, Harper plays it like it’s a good thing and gives her commendations for being “democratic”. Now I see where the problem is with Harper: he thinks “democratic” means “secretive” and “willing to abuse power”.
5) And that’s not the worst of the sneakiness. Since it’s the middle of election season, party leaders have been skipping from rally to speaking engagement to rally, peddling their particular brand of optimism and pessimism in turn.
There’ll be a hitch though, if you want to attend a Conservative event. Despite Steven Harper’s insistence that the Conservative rallies are attracting more people than any other parties’, you’ve got to jump through hoops to get there. If you’re thinking of attending a Conservative rally, you must pre-register at least two days beforehand with your name, telephone number, home address, and e-mail address.
Then, the officials get to work on your background check. If you don’t pass the test, your name doesn’t get added to the list. No other political parties require these insane measures if you want to hear a leader speak. What kind of sins must you have committed to be ejected from His Harperness’s Presence? Despite pre-registering as required, the following individuals are among those who complained of being told to leave:
- Joanna MacDonald, 21, not allowed in to a Guelph rally: part of an environmental club at Guelph University (though not affiliated with any party).
- Brad Deighan, Mathieu Arsenault and Megan Burnside were denied entry from a P.E.I. rally: were part of an anti-conservative rally that week.
- a young woman told to turn her t-shirt inside out because it was printed with an environmental slogan
- Awish Aslam, 19, University of Western Ontario student was removed from inside the rally: her facebook profile showed a picture of her standing beside Michael Ignatieff.
In response to the outcry by young people and journalists, Harper said: “If anybody is kept out of any of our events that is there to hear our message, we obviously apologize to them. Our interest is in having as many people out to hear our message as we can.” Well, naturally. It’s called a campaign for a reason.
How can the Conservatives dig up your Facebook photos to make sure you’re not smiling with the opposition? This brings me to my next point.
6) With the release of their election platform, Conservatives vowed they will fast-track several bills regarding internet privacy (among them: C-46, the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, and C-47, the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act) and pass them within 100 days of winning a majority government. The provisions laid out in these bills are as follows:
- the government can obtain customer information without court oversight or a search warrant (information like your IP number, address, telephone numbers, and e-mail)
- internet surveillance capabilities will be mandated: all internet service providers will be forced to build in a capability allowing the authorities to intercept communications on their networks (and even if they WANTED to comply, this mandate is going to hit the third party ISPs right in the wallet).
- law enforcement will be able to order preservation of subscriber information (including specific communication information) for 90 days.
- new “transmission data warrants” will grant real-time access to all information generated during the creation, transmission, or reception of a communication including the type, direction, time, duration, origin, destination, or termination of the communication.
Let’s Summarize: You figure what you do on the internet is your own business? Not for long.
I’m going to leave you shining and upstanding individuals with a set of other topics I wanted to get to. Unfortunately I don’t have infinite patience so this blog post will be cut short, and expanded at a later date. Here are some topics that will have to wait until next time:
- the unnecessary and democratically harmful proroguing of Parliament by Steven Harper because he couldn’t be bothered to be held accountable for the Afghan detainee scandal where the government covered up that they knew Canadian prisoners were being TORTURED,
- Late last year, bureaucrats were directed to start using the “Harper Government” in place of Government of Canada on departmental news releases. Yep.
- Harper spent $26 million an ad campaign promoting his “Economic Action Plan”. (same source as above)
-In just one month, the Conservative party and four of its top officials have been charged with election overspending and two RCMP investigations have been launched against former political staffers.
**Serious question: Is the crazy spreading re: reproductive freedom?
The American issues last week with “settling their budget” really meant that the Republicans had a chance to gang up on Planned Parenthood. Why are women’s health services so bad? Besides the fact that they SAVE LIVES, I mean. Free cancer-screening techniques like mammograms and pap smears, and cheap contraceptives should be first fucking priority. Or don’t you care about your own damn sisters and daughters? Oh yeah, and when women can’t access safe, inexpensive alternatives, they end up having lots of kids. And then the Republicans kick them when they’re down, saying shit like “welfare makes black people rut like rabbits”. That sounds a lot like the cart pulling the horse to me.
Republican Senator for Arizona Jon Kyl decided to make up his own statistics and rile the Pro-Lifers by saying Planned Parenthood’s business was 90% directed towards funding/performing abortions.
Whoah, whoah, whoah. Not even close.
Kyl’s office relayed a message afterward, saying “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, an organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.”
You’d think that considering the statement was made at a budgetary hearing that Sen. Kyl would have been more careful with his numbers. Since when are Senators allowed to spout complete fictions, posturing as fact?
In reality, (you know, REALITY?) about 3% of PP funding is directed towards abortions.
And with that, I am off to wash my mouth out with soap. I hope everybody will be watching the debate very carefully tonight. 7 pm EST.
Tagged: abortion, Bev Oda, C-46, C-47, Canada, CIDA, conservative, contempt of Parliament, democracy, election, G20, G8, internet, Jon Kyl, Kairos, Michael Ignatieff, planned parenthood, rallies, Steven Harper, US budget
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