I think if you’re going to watch the Hindenburg that is our country go up in a blazing ball of glory, it should at least be against a backdrop.

Maybe on a base of that special ruddy blush of our country’s French province, Quebec. Oh, they’re probably not implicated, but whoever it is thought it was clever to use the name Pierre Poutine. And Quebec doesn’t much care for Conservatives.

Nevertheless, it’s a pretty massive breach of electoral rules, and it basically makes the Harper government illegitimate. Little wonder they’re in no hurry to get to the bottom of things.

Oh, they’ll go after Joe Everydude before you can bat an eyelash, but then they turn around and “misplace” $3 billion dollars, and it’s basically just “oops!”

Harper had this to say:

The auditor general himself said today this has nothing to do with improper use of government money . . . There is some lack of clarity. The auditor general has made some suggestions on how we can be more clear in our tracking in the future.

So, basically, nothing’s wrong here, we just need to tweak a few (billion) things.

The audit people were in lock-step with the Prime Minister:

… audit officials chalk up the discrepancy to lax bookkeeping. The audit suggests several scenarios for what may have happened: the funding may have lapsed and never been spent; or it may have been spent on anti-terror efforts but reported as other program spending; or it may have been spent on program unrelated to security.

Basically, the money could have gone anywhere and been spent on literally anything.

The (Harper-appointed) auditor concluded:

We didn’t find anything that gave us cause for concern that the money was used in any way that it should not have been,

Nothing to see here!

That massive pile of cash that could’ve helped to pay for things like Toronto transit … better that that money just disappear and no, you aren’t allowed to ask any questions. Heil Harper!

The mainstream media are barely naming Bill S-7 (to be debated by MPPs today), and good luck finding anyone in the industry who will provide an accurate list of all the draconian, tyrannical measures that Harper is trying to institute in his “but it’s for terrorism!” bill.

Apparently, the fact that Canadians are to be subjected to the following measures doesn’t warrant so much as a passing comment from most in the news industry (though you can find an occasional aside):

• People may be put under “preventive arrest” for up to three days.
• The “preventive arrest” may be due to an alleged association with a “terrorist” (which may include everything from environmentalists to anyone critical of the government), alleged knowledge of a “terrorist” or their dealings, or — my favourite — being suspected of future involvement with terrorists.
• As with all good Kafkaesque schemes, those arrested are not allowed to know the details of their arrest or know any of the evidence against them.
• Those arrested must stand before an “investigative hearing”.
• A judge can jail those arrested for up to year if they don’t enter into recognizance, which is a fancy term for a conditional release — you have to appear regularly before a court, may have to wear a tracking device, etc.
• Such arrests can occur without any charges being laid. In other words, they don’t really even need a good reason, just that something didn’t seem right about the person.
• Any evidence that is used against the arrested person (which, of course, they are not allowed to know anything about), can be obtained from foreign sources or through torture.
• These changes would become part of the Criminal Code of Canada — everyone would be subject to them.

Instead of fully laying out all of these incredibly corrupting and corruptible powers for all Canadians to judge, we have moist bags of flesh like CP24’s former cop-turned-TV-schill Cam Wooley and other “specialists” (most of whom were weather or traffic “specialists” this time last year), leaving out crucial information and instead saying simply that S-7 provides needed new police powers and creates …

“… new offenses for Canadians who become radicalized … with the permission of the Attorney General, [police] can bring a person before a judge and have hearings. They’ll be able to have a lawyer, that sort of thing, but a judge can compel someone to give information on terrorism. Police can, apparently through a well safeguarded process book recognizance and conditions through the courts on someone to prevent terrorism.”

And in 30 seconds, the piddling report is over, followed shortly afterwards by an in-depth, five-minute-long interview with “cultural icon” Kat Con D about her new book. The same reporter who found S-7 “fascinating” now gushingly describes the book as a veritable “work of art”; clearly, this is what really matters!

In case you didn’t believe that destroying Canada is run-of-the-mill for the Harper government…

… 33,000 companies and agencies who have applied to the federal temporary foreign worker program in Canada stretch to almost every corner of the economy, ranging from the biggest players in the finance and resource sectors to airlines, hotels, government agencies, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The lengthy list of companies and groups, obtained through federal Access to Information laws, spans 475 pages and demonstrates how widely used the federal program has become since it was expanded in 2006 to help Canadian employers deal with shortages of specialized skills in Canada.

Yeah, sure, 1 out of 20 Canadians is out of work (if it’s measured the same way as it is in the US, that only means people actively seeking work and reporting to the government). Clearly we have no labour shortage. Clearly the Harper government continues to tell the truth about everything. Clearly nothing is wrong; now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

In Google’s latest transparency report there was a minor note about how Passport Canada had requested to ban a YouTube video featuring a passport being pissed on and flushed down the toilet. I’ve tried looking for the video but can’t seem to find it, suggesting that maybe the government had used other means to have the offending material removed.

I can only imagine that the government would’ve use the “passports are government property” excuse as a basis for this, yet considering the fact that a passport is required to both leave and re-enter Canada, to claim that they can control a person’s actions using a passport as a threat (if they can have a video banned, why stop there?), this would go directly against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Mobility Rights clause as well as the Fundamental Freedoms portion. And since this is the highest law in the land, this is a pretty clear-cut example of the government breaking the fundamental laws governing the country, or at least coming very very close. Will anyone be held to account for this? How about a mild reprimand? Maybe a stern nod?

Originally posted at: http://patrickbay.ca/blog/?p=4081

Is it any wonder that while the government is pushing in Employment Insurance changes that will impoverish Canadians, they’ve simultaneously hid key statistical data from their reports?

And just in time, too! Gotta hand it to the Harper government, when they screw over the Canadian population, they make sure to do it right!

Demand for information about EI is running high right now due to the government’s slow strip tease on changes to the program.

“Loss of data will make it much more difficult to analyse the impacts of changes to the EI rules as they are implemented,” said Andrew Jackson, chief economist at the Canadian Labour Congress.

He is concerned that stricter criteria for EI claimants are coming at the same time as Ottawa reduces the avenues for appeal — leaving adjudicators with little leeway to allow for local and personal circumstances.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Politics/20120523/employment-insurance-rules-120523/

Rob Ford, Dalton McGuinty, and Stephen Harper are all into the austerity game. Oh yeah, we all lived way beyond our means and it’s time to start paying back!

Except guess what…it’s an unbelievable scam being perpetrated by the big banks that’s bankrupting our economy, not any of our social programs, our schools, our libraries, our garbage collection…

I think it’s about time to start electing politicians that will:

a) Tell the goddam truth about where our money is really going
b) Stand up to the banking cartels (let’s not mince words, they are criminal enterprises)

If you’re not quite sure, have a gander at this documentary. All the numbers and facts are correct, and none of the stinking politicians seem in the slightest interested in fixing it.

You can have a gander at the report yourself via the link above, but it’s interesting to note that Canada ranked a B- while simultaneously being put on America’s “watch list” as an IP infringer (i.e. our measures don’t go far enough).

Most notable in the category scores was a F (complete fail), in the “freedom and access to use” in public affairs category, and D grades for both “scope and duration of copyright” as well as “freedom to share and transfer”.

Read the whole post here: http://patrickbay.ca/blog/?p=2746

Other than Michael Geist who mentioned it on his blog a couple of years ago, not a single Canadian mainstream media outlet has made so much as a peep about Access Copyright which, within a week, will see Canadian students paying upwards of 1000% (yes, that’s a thousand percent), on course materials.

Clearly no rush, and a thousand percent increase obviously isn’t worth reporting on. Nope.

That’s why you’d be hard-pressed to find anything on it except maybe in a few US tech blogs and publications (which astutely describe it as “insane” and “disastrous”). Students are about to be ensnared into paying through the nose for course materials, as are taxpayers who will be dragged into paying for the oppressive copyright regime sweeping the globe — and without any say or even notification. That’s right, everyone will be forced to pay, no questions asked.

This could almost be called a conspiracy theory if only it weren’t fact. And where is the illustrious mainstream media? Talking hard topics like the NHL, Harold the scumbag, erm, “Jewelry Buyer”, bullshit elections in Alberta, and Bev Oda’s continuing abuse of taxpayer money.

This is where our once great country is heading, folks; hope this helps to wake some of you up. These kinds of backroom abuses will just keep getting worse until we stand up and start fighting back — and bull-horning each other on the streets just ain’t doing the trick any more.

Are you familiar with the 8 #Millennium #Development #Goals  (#MDG)??  http://bit.ly/ceWCnH

A few years ago I worked on a video for my UofT group (EWB – UofT/ ewb.ca) regarding our government’s commitment to international aid + MDGs. If I can get my hands on that video, I’ll post it because the responses to our questions were so thrilling and yet the reality if that we as a country, province and a city made me sad.

Questions were asked regarding: Do we need to keep promises made from the past? is 0.07% of our GDP too much or impossible to donate to the international money pot? If other smaller countries are able to keep the commitment, why do you think we have not EVER kept ours?

Despite our promise made to the UN back in 1969 we STILL HAVE NOT KEPT OUR WORD, EVER. Now, you can say I am biased but Pearson thought it was worth thinking about and i think we should do the same.

If you’d like to make a difference I suggest you check out this site: www.makepovertyhistory.ca and ewb.ca

TOGETHER we can make change happen, and Toronto being the most populated city in Canada who  donate 40+% of the Canada’s GDP,  I think we can definitely MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN. Together we can…

The reason for this post is PM Harper keeps making speech after speech about the economy et al. and NOT addressing our commitment to the world as a whole. Be a global citizen and take an interest one way or another.

thanks for reading and please discuss, comment, and surprise me if u like ;)

Your gal, SarahD