The Great Con — A postmodern poem about the Canadian Election of 2019.
This is some short prose about the previous Conservative Government(s) in Canada, a reign of terror that lasted from 2006–2015.
They drew their swords on all of us who were not oil barons or right-wing think-tank specialists or CEOs. Many of us became second-class citizens, many of us lost our loved ones due to their psychopathic policies, and many of us suffered as our services were cut by their pens, and our government failed us beyond reproach. This is by no means an exhaustive list, for that would be a Homeric epic of corrupt proportions.
Remember When
An Ode to the Authoritarian CPC.
Remember when the last Conservative government, under Stephen Harper, now leader of the IDU, a far-right organization whose goal is to elect governments that bailout their corporate friends, renamed the “Canadian Government” to “The Harper Government” like an authoritarian who loves to put his names on things?
And lest anyone forgets, a directive went out to public servants late last year that “Government of Canada” in federal communications should be replaced by the words “Harper Government.”
Remember when the Harper Government restricted scientific information about climate change, wildlife, and the arctic?
One example of this alleged muzzling is the media protocol introduced at Environment Canada in 2007, which came under fire for limiting the freedom of federal scientists to communicate publicly and professionally (Holmes, 2013; Klinkenborg, 2013; Linnitt, 2013; Mancini, 2013). It stated, for example: “Media relations will work with individual staff to decide how best to handle the call; this could include asking the programme expert to respond with approved lines” (Environment Canada, 2007). A protocol requiring scientists to obtain official approval before speaking with the press can delay or prevent interviews with journalists, and can also force scientists to stick to the official party line. Other federal departments, such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada, were said to have similar media policies (Linnitt, 2013). It has also been reported that while the Harper government was in office (in the period prior to the refocusing of the NRC on applied, industrial research), the number of peer reviewed NRC-authored publications dropped significantly — from about 1,800 in 2006 to 570 in 2012 (Shendruck, 2013).
Remember when the Harper Government sent “official minders” attending a polar conference to make sure they did not make any “previously un-vetted” comments to any journalists or other scientists?
Next, the media control center would contact the journalist to request written questions, and then go back to the scientist to get written answers. Then, they would decide whether to send these directly to the reporter or to change or omit parts of the answers. This bureaucratic thicket became so dense that, at one point, it surfaced that a request from a journalist from The Canadian Press to speak with Bothwell resulted in 110 pages of emails between 16 different government communications staffers.
Remember when the Harper Government froze NSERC (National Science and Engineering Research Council) funds, ensuring that decades of research was lost, and then tried to blame “mismanagement?”
If NSERC funding for climate science continues at the current level of at most $10 million per year (Section 3.1.1), then the numbers in Table 6 shows that the government’s abandonment of CFCAS will result in total federal funding for university-based climate science research (excluding infrastructure) falling, in 2010–11 and subsequent fiscal years, to less than half of the level at which it has been for the past several years. The additional decrease in funding resulting from the end of the International Polar Year makes matters even worse.
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Since taking office in 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has appointed three climate change “skeptics” to the boards of two key granting agencies for university-based scientific research (see Section 3.1), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). Table 12 below summarizes the three individuals’ views on climate science in comparison to those of the IPCC — representing the international scientific consensus on climate change — and the stated views of federal ministers.
Remember when the Ocean and Ecosystem Science Director General Dave Gillis was questioned about not receiving the proper paper correspondence regarding the closure of the ELA, and he responded that anything to do with the 2012 budget had to be spoken and not written down to avoid accountability, as mandated by the Harper Government? (Where else have we heard this before?)
“When a DFO employee questioned [director general] Dave Gillis about why they have not received some promised correspondence about the ELA, he responded that all communication about anything to do with Budget 2012 must be spoken, not written in an email. This is a blatant and despicable strategy by Harper to avoid accountability. No email correspondence equals no tracking record, making access to information requests, audits, and other means of holding government transparent and accountable for decisions completely useless.” — An email from an ELA insider to author and journalist Michael Harris. This is from Harris’s Book Party of One, Chapter Seven: The Death of Evidence
Remember when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was personally complicit in hiding the actual figures and costs of the disastrous F-35 contracts?
The Conservatives are hoping most voters will dismiss the spate of accusations that the government has become autocratic and undemocratic — over everything from possible election-campaign-financing abuses to using taxpayers’ money to fund government ads that could be seen as Conservative propaganda — as opposition posturing, and can be persuaded that on the issue that matters, protecting the economic recovery, only the Conservatives can be trusted.
Lest we forget this is how kickbacks work, did our previous Prime Minister want to give kickbacks to Lockheed Martin? His Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, responsible for the $90,000 theft of our tax dollars, was an executive with the ONEX Corporation, who had ties to the former program manager of the F-35 Larry Lawson?
“Edwards was one of the key figures outside of cabinet who had the prime minister’s ear in December 2012, when Stephen Harper was formulating Canada’s new policy on foreign takeovers. It was the Calgary billionaire who warned the prime minister that the $15-billion Nexen takeover by China’s state-controlled CNOCC Ltd., a controversial deal that the Harper government approved, would be “the first of many” if Ottawa didn’t move to put conditions on state-owned entities buying into the Canadian resource sector. As reported by Shawn McCarthy in The Globe and Mail, the prime minister’s ultimate policy decision on foreign investment “closely mirrored” the tycoon’s views.
And then there was Nigel Wright. Before becoming Stephen Harper’s chief of staff on January 1, 2011, Wright had been a high-powered executive with Onex Corporation, dealing specifically with the aerospace industry. Wright was the face of Onex in Wichita, Kansas, when the company purchased Boeing’s commercial aircraft division in 2005. Renamed Spirit Aerosystems, the company is now run by Larry Lawson, former program manager of the F-35 at Lockheed Martin, and chief executive of the company’s aeronautics division.”
Excerpt From: Michael Harris. “Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover.” Chapter Six: The Big Lie
Remember when the ‘92 Newfoundland Conservative government wiped out the third largest biomass in the world because of “business and industry” and votes even though studies about the Great Cod stocks and dangers were readily available since ‘86, warning us that exploitation and overfishing will lead to disaster, all of which the Conservatives ignored? (NL’s northern cod population is at a critical level as of April/3/2018.)
Present and past fisheries for Atlantic cod, whose over-exploitation and collapse have been well documented, provide one example. On the basis of global estimates of decline, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed Atlantic cod as ‘vulnerable’ in 1996, the same status applied 2 years later by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Other marine fishes assigned to risk categories by these agencies include the Pacific sardine (Sardinops sagax; Clupeidae), haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus; Gadidae) , Bering wolffish (Anarhichas orientalis; Anarhichadidae), and the pleuronectid flatfishes Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) and yellowtail flounder (Pleuronectes ferrugineus).
Remember when the Harper Government closed seven of nine world-famous Department of Fisheries libraries across the country purportedly to save us $443,000, which was less than half of what he paid China to rent their pandas? This was while he was pouring 24.6 million into the “Canadian Institute for Extractive Industry” — a Newspeak mouthful for oil drilling and fracking?
The Harper government has dismantled one of the world’s top aquatic and fishery libraries as part of its agenda to reduce government as well as limit the role of environmental science in policy decision-making.
Remember when Harper ordered rare collections from our nation’s science libraries, including fifty volumes produced by the 1872–76 HMS Challenger science expedition, to be dumped into landfills? (Obviously these weren’t the only copies of the documents available.)
… The Harper government in late 2013 when it shuttered seven out of eleven Fisheries and Oceans Canada libraries, consigning much of these collections to dumpsters. Official explanations that the closures were undertaken to save taxpayers’ dollars and that collections would be digitized were poorly-received, particularly when a memo marked “secret” obtained by Postmedia emerged in December indicating that the only articulated collections activity was “culling”.
Remember when the Harper Government cut $2 million/year in funding for the ELA, and slashing Library and Archives Canada funding by 9.6 million, while spending $30 million to commemorate the War of 1812? Why fund science and evidence-based policy when you can have war?
It was released as part of a government commitment to spend $28 million to commemorate the War of 1812, money that has helped to finance monuments, public enactments, a documentary film, and even a government Web site that offers educators advice and materials to help them teach students about the war.
Remember when the Harper Government, after cutting that $2 million/year ELA funding, spent nearly $50 million “beautifying” the affluent Muskoka riding of his friend Tony Clement as a kickback for his support? Lest we forget that there was no “paper trail” behind the selection process.
Senior Conservative officials broke federal rules to shower $50-million on the riding of the minister now overseeing Ottawa’s austerity plan, according to the final audit of a G8 program that fuelled opposition charges of pork-barrel politics.
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“It is very unusual and troubling. There is no paper trail behind the selection of the 32 projects,” said John Wiersema, the interim Auditor-General who recently took over from a retired Ms. Fraser. “I, personally, in my career in auditing, have not encountered a situation like that.”
Remember when the Harper Government got rid of its science advisor at the personal behest of PM Stephen Harper in 2008? And remember that under the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, Canada was supposed to have 10% of its waters designated as “marine-protected” but the actual number was 0.5%? Then we all realized that Bill C-38 compromised that international promise, like our withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol? Lest we forget that this caused our international standing to drop significantly, and when the lone Conservative MP holdout: David Wilks, expressed concern about the state of democracy in Ottawa, he got a call from the PMO and changed his tune?
To add injury to insult, Conservatives limited the number of days allowed for debate at [the] second reading of C-38. Government House Leader Peter Van Loan puffed himself up to pronounce that this was a longer time for debate than other budget bills. Meanwhile the Opposition MPs are left to protest that no other budget bill in Canadian history had repealed, amended or overhauled 70 existing pieces of legislation.
Some laws are the stuff of future Conservative campaigning. They are over-sold and put in the front window. Then there is the orphaned and unloved bastard child of Harper’s legislative agenda. It is hidden. It is not to be placed in the front window, nor proclaimed as it should be: “Vote for the Conservative Party, tough on nature!” The good news in this is that Stephen Harper knows that his base would hate a lot of what’s in C-38. That’s why he is hiding it — in a way that hides it in plain sight for anyone who is willing to dig deep and read the fine print.
Remember when Stephen Harper ousted Linda Keen, the award-winning regulatory and scientist from our Nuclear Regulatory body despite her legitimate claims that the Chalk River reactor required a second pump?
Regardless of who made the call, her firing just 16 hours prior to her scheduled appearance before the committee had the effect of silencing her, which may have been the government’s intent.
Lest we forget that during this, Harper only gave two hours notice for a special session on Dec/11/2007 in order to overrule the regulator and promise us no accidents would happen despite the evidence-on-hand?
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) seemed to be operating with relative autonomy until Mr. Lunn stomped all over its erstwhile president. He ordered Linda Keen to reopen the Chalk River reactor despite her concerns that it did not meet safety requirements; he introduced legislation to overrule the CNSC when she refused; he questioned her credibility and job performance in a letter leaked last week; and ultimately he fired her on Tuesday night. When he finally emerged in public yesterday, appearing before Parliament’s natural resources committee after disappearing underground for a month, the spectral minister failed — as he did in his letter — to present any evidence that Ms. Keen had violated or exceeded her mandate. Instead, he argued that she had failed to “consider fully, in a timely fashion, the serious consequences of the growing shortage of medical isotopes.” But whereas Ms. Keen’s mandate explicitly instructs her to ensure that Canadians do not suffer radioactive exposure — presumably her intention in refusing to allow the reactor to come back on line — it in no way requires that she take into account medical concerns such as the supply of isotopes.
Then immediately and quite casually, he engaged in regulatory capture and installed his crony Mike Binder, who was chummy with both the AECL and SNC-Lavalin? Binder reported directly to the company’s board members, who had free-rein of our tax dollars — $820 million — and still had to be closed for 16 months from May 2009 to August 2010 when the reactor leaked 7,001 litres of water twice? (The first time leaked 47 litres.)
The commission invited Stensil to speak about nuclear safety issues, but wouldn’t let him comment about a remarkable anonymous letter that raised serious engineering and procedural issues questioning whether the agency was doing a bad job overseeing reactors. The commission’s president and chief executive, Michael Binder, led a series of jokes ridiculing the whistleblowers the night before, prompting a public rebuke by the union representing government scientists. Today, Binder cut off Stensil’s microphone.
Remember when Harper personally appointed woman-batterer, sexual assaulter, cocaine-addict, and second-rate “boxer” Patrick Brazeau to our Senate despite serious and credible allegations of sexual harassment from his time at CAP (Congress of Aboriginal People)? Lest we forget that Harper then used this stooge to discredit the Kelowna Accord and provide cover for this deception: to support the racist “off-reserve” funding at CAP?
Remember the meeting on Feb/11/2013? During the Senate expenses scandal, when party leaders in the Senate tried to pass reform on taxpayers over housing expenses, to be repaid with interest, and Harper tapped Nigel Wright, his ONEX corporation board member chief of staff, following a meeting with Mike Duffy, to tell CPC members “coordinate with the PMO before taking any steps?” I guess the senate shouldn’t control the senate; Palpatine… I mean Harper, was the senate.
“As Nigel Wright set out to resolve the Duffy matter, party leaders in the Senate were making his task harder. They released a joint statement saying that any senator found to have broken Senate spending rules should repay every cent, with interest. When Patrick Rogers, manager of parliamentary affairs in the PMO, emailed Wright about the new development, Wright replied, “Can the leadership PLEASE coordinate every move with us before taking ANY steps?” He knew how unhappy Duffy would be about the statement.”
Excerpt From: Michael Harris. “Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover.” Chapter Thirteen: A Tangled Web
Remember when Robert Fife, now readily available to defend the racist Ezra Levant, broke the story about Nigel Wright, Harper right-hand ONEX board member chief of staff, had actually “personally” paid Mike Duffy’s theft of our $90,000 tax dollars? And Tory bloggers, trolls, and operatives, who are paid around the clock to dissector and disavow facts, came out in droves?
Remember when the Harper Government committed war crimes by handing Afghan detainees to be tortured and abused by other authorities? And now the trolls have attempted to discredit the supreme court’s decision to recompense those citizens?
No one knows exactly how many Canadian-transferred detainees were tortured, disappeared or died under custody. This is partly due to the lack of a rigorous monitoring regime for the conditions of detainees, and partly due to the cloud of secrecy the government has maintained over this issue to date.
What is clear is the following: despite a flagrant human rights record in Afghan detention facilities, Canada signed two arrangements with Afghanistan to allow for transfers; relied in those arrangements on diplomatic assurances against torture, which have been shown to be unreliable in countries with consistent patterns of human rights abuses, such as Afghanistan; and made hundreds of transfers to Afghan detention facilities. Canada thus failed utterly to take credible and meaningful steps to prevent the torture of many detainees.
Remember when the entire Conservative caucus, including now leader Andrew Scheer, American citizen who lied about his insurance credentials, voted against an exemption for veterans-affairs centres from government cuts? Remember when the Harper Government employed Newspeak after closing those VA Centres while the caucus applauded, citing “small caseloads” in those offices, and we found out there were between 2,065–4,113 cases?
Stephen Harper tried to downplay the VAC closures. He said that these “duplicate” veterans offices had “very small caseloads.” but figures presented to Parliament in 2012 showed caseloads of between 2,065 and 4,113 for each of the closed offices. The remaining Veterans Affairs offices would now be saddled with huge new caseloads due to the closures. The Halifax office had just inherited over 4,000 new client files from the shuttered Sydney office, a third more than its present caseload. Already down five client agents since cuts in 2012, the Halifax VAC was only given three more case managers to deal with the influx of thousands of new clients.
Lest we forget this was a failed attempt to “balance the budget”, a result of their many screw-ups? Now Scheer expects us to believe he will support veterans? Remember that during the same time, Veterans Affairs minister Julian Fantino showed up ten minutes late to a meeting with vets in their 80s? Vets who’d travelled twelve hours for the meeting, and then chickened-out and blamed the unions and vets for his government’s callous decisions to close their centres?
Lest we forget that old tactic, just as Scheer was exposed for the fake ad targeted at Chinese-Canadians regarding the legalization of hard-drugs, the CPC has no problem doubling down on their bilge, under Harper’s leadership, Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant, who in this election cycle has been absent from all-candidates meetings, employed Newspeak and said vets weren’t getting help because they chose not to get help rather than address unavailable access as a result of government cuts.
You in particular have intimate knowledge of the pressures that face our veterans, and more so those that face the prospect of a posting to the Joint Personnel Support Unit (JPSU) (references B thru N.) In sending you information of the JPSU in the past many years, I knowingly risked censure, disciplinary measures and my very livelihood, but I did so knowing it was for the best of reasons: our injured and ill troops. This said, when you spoke before Parliament recently to chide our veterans and promote a dysfunctional organization (the JPSU), I was left in shock, disillusioned and most certainly dismayed.
This prompted Sergeant Major Barry Westholm to resign from the Conservative party while our soldiers were committing suicide as a result of Harper’s war in Afghanistan? (As of Jan/24/2014, eight members of the Canadian forces had committed suicide.) Remember when the Harper Government employed Soviet era silence-tactics by requiring vets to sign a waiver agreement not to criticize Conservative senior officers? Lest we further forget when Harper breached the privacy of disabled veterans by having his goons access their medical records in order to smear them once they tried to further cut their benefits through clawbacks — a case they lost?
As Bruyea explained, many others who might challenge the department remained quiet because of the power the ministry had to curtail benefits.
Bruyea paid that price personally, as reported in 2013. “His medical and financial details had been circulated after he criticized the New Veterans Charter. In the minutes of a [Veterans Affairs Canada] conference call, a senior veterans official said, ‘It’s time to take the gloves off.’”
Remember when Harper leaked the personnel file of Harold Leduc, a Veterans Affairs Appeal Board member, and had his goons harass and intimidate Leduc? An RCMP investigation then forced the board to pay $4000 for legal costs and harassment? I repeat, now Scheer expects us to believe the Conservative party and caucus will support veterans?
Remember when the Conservatives committed and were convicted of election fraud and voter suppression in 2011? Remember Ken Morgan, Burke’s campaign manager, running away to Kuwait — a non-extradition Arab slave state — in the middle of the investigation? Lest we forget that the Conservative party had their in-house lawyer, Arthur Hamilton, sit in on interviews with the RCMP, and had directed the investigation away from the PMO on numerous occasions, culminating in the CPC’s announcement that one person: Michael Sona, was responsible for the entire fraud. Harper and the Conservative Party had no qualms throwing him under the bus to serve a measly nine months, despite evidence to the contrary?
I remember. Vote Well Canadians, and Vote always remember your ABCs.
Required reading list:
Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence Compiled. A fantastic and compiled printable PDF is available on the Tyee website.
Michael Harris’s Party of One (Published by Penguin Random House) is a comprehensive book about Harper’s takeover and his malicious success in moving our Overton Window to the right.
Note to the reader: I did not include anything on racism, or their innumerable ties to various media outlets who now peddle their propaganda. I assume no person of colour or anyone who’s a member of a minority or oppressed group ever contemplates voting for the xenophobic Conservative Party of Canada.
There is ample evidence that the CPC is linked to white-supremacists, to neonazis, and to anti-semites. A simple search for “Canada Conservative Party racism” will yield a plethora of credible results.
