conservatives

PMO and the Mounties

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I grew up with tales of the Mounties, of their bravery and determination in facing criminals in the early years of Canada’s expansion into the West. Now, in several provinces, they are the community police as they were then.

Maintiens le droit. Defend the law.

In High River, Alberta, homes lay unlocked and unguarded; weapons, mostly, I presume, the long guns that people in farming communities keep for ridding themselves of groundhogs and coyotes. What did the people of Alberta want the Mounties to do? Leave the guns there for anyone to take and perhaps use?

Not according to Premier Alison Redford, quoted in the Globe and Mail: RCMP officers who removed guns from evacuated homes in High River were doing necessary work to secure the flood-ravaged town in a crisis, Premier Alison Redford said in response to criticism.

But the PMO(Harper) knows better. The same article: “We expect that any firearms taken will be returned to their owners as soon as possible,” PMO spokesperson Carl Vallée said in a statement on Friday. “We believe the RCMP should focus on more important tasks such as protecting lives and private property.”

In my view that is what the Mounties were doing when they removed the guns, protecting lives.

Apparently, playing to the hard-core Conservative voter trumps common sense in the PMO.

That same article in the Globe talks about the increasing tendency of the Harper government to interfere in policing decisions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pmo-says-the-rcmp-should-have-better-things-to-do-than-seize-guns/article12882952/#dashboard/follows/

University of Ottawa professor Philippe Lagassé, who is an expert on defence and security matters, quoted in the above article:

However, Mr. Lagassé said the PMO was walking a fine line by criticizing the RCMP’s activities, even though it clearly avoided giving a specific directive to the Mounties.

“This is not the norm,” he said. “We can say that we are starting to get into a zone where it is less legitimate for the government to tell the RCMP to follow other priorities,” said Mr. Lagassé.

Does anyone believe the PMO makes its pronouncements without Harper’s hand all over the script. Not our micro-manageing Prime Minister. Where will this need to control end?

Sunday Morning Thoughts

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The deadline for the Ontario Arts Council works-in-progress awards is June 17th. My prose selection is finished, read by knowledgable people— an art director and a writer, both of whom gave generously  of their time and expertise— and the final polishing done. The application allows for up to two pages of supplemental material, synopses, table of contents and so forth, if I choose to include it. I don’t. I doubt a synopsis of an unfinished novel, even one that is complete in first draft would help my case. No, the work must stand on its own.

Now, I’m not the best form-filler in the world. There is something about all those little squares. If the instructions say “mark with an X”, I’m sure to use a checkmark. Indeed, I have to remind myself of that every time I vote.

Even my own address can bring on a sudden episode of panic—what did I print? It may be an old address from Toronto, or the first one here in Lindsay, but not the one the computer—it does know where I live—wants.

“Ah, poor soul,” I hear you say. “Her age is starting to show.” Not at all. I’ve always been this way. I have trouble staying within the signature box on the passport application.

I think it must be some subliminal resistance to the rule-makers.

Speaking of the rule-makers, the ones in Ottawa seem to be in a spot of trouble. Apparently the holier-than-thou Tories aren’t so. According to Margaret Wente in the Globe on Saturday, that’s just how it’s done in the Senate—perks, thousands of dollars of them, all round. http://tinyurl.com/m7pgjsb

I’ve always thought we needed the two houses in Parliament, hoping the Senate would be the source of sober second looks at legislation. I wasn’t all that bothered by the appointed rather than elected basis either, until recently. I do think that, whatever way we decide to choose them, the senators must be more accountable for their actions, their decisions and their budgets. If that means elected, so be it, but let’s look at countries other than the USA as a model. However much our PM admires their system, it’s in worse gridlock than Toronto’s roads.

Australia has a bicameral system. The upper house comprises 76 senators, elected for 6 year terms, 2 from each state and territory. The senators are elected under a proportional representation form of voting.

According to Wikipedia: Unlike most upper houses in parliamentary systems, the Senate is vested with significant power, including the capacity to block legislation initiated by the government in the House of Representatives, making it a distinctive hybrid of British Westminster bicameralism and US-style bicameralism.

New Zealand has a unicameral system. it abolished its Senate in 1950.

What we do need to do is make sure the “hands-in-the-cookie-jar” sense of entitlement goes.

Tragic loss to Science

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Save the Experimental Lakes Area petition | Ontario Chapter.

Please go to this website, download a petition and send it to join your voice to the many others from many countries who feel this priceless resource must not be lost.

It is difficult to understand why this project, after 50 years of productive scientific experimentation was chosen by the federal government to be closed. I don’t believe it was a financial decision, but rather one to discourage voices from the environmental community who deliver unpalatable facts to the politicians.

The lakes, the land, are irreplaceable and only ours for a short time. We don’t own them, we are charged with caring for them. We need the information the scientists bring from the ELA in order to do that.

The decision to stop funding is narrow-minded and damaging and should be reversed.

The Harper Government and Statscan

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Ottawa set to announce major overhaul of EI | CTV News.

At the end of this story from the Canadian Press is the following:

Human Resources Minister Diane Finley’s department has stopped sending Statistics Canada key and current information about how much federal money is flowing to each of the provinces for EI claimants.ndrew Jackson, the Canadian Labour Congress’s chief economist says the loss of data will make it much more difficult to analyse the impacts of changes to the EI rules.

So they are changing the rules, but don’t bother them with the facts about the consequences of their actions. If there were ever the hallmark of the ideologue, this has got to be it. This government has the same approach to science– the Conservatives have fixed ideas, based on some political theory, and not rigorous scientific investigation, and are making decisions in that fashion. I wonder how they would react to a physician who made decisions about treatment based on a belief, not investigative studies. Their decisions, based only on belief, may alter our country beyond recognition. Who voted for that?

Who’s in charge here?

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Tory ministers crash budget hearing, leaving little time for questions – The Globe and Mail.

The Harper government appears to think that this is very clever political behaviour. Can’t you just hear them chortling in the men’s room over the way they’re going to put one over on the committee?

But this is not adult political behaviour. The Parliament in my view has a responsibility as a whole to consider well legislation that is before it and it is the duty of the Ministers of the Crown to answer questions about legislation. The more the Harper government plays these games, the more they look like they have something to hide.

The Omnibus bill is too large, and too vague to be passed as responsible legislation. There are far too many non-budget items included and they are too ill-defined.

Today, for example they floated some idea of paying EI recipients to move to where the jobs are. This was in response to the suggestion that a person should take any job, picking tobacco for example, even if the person’s training was teaching or nursing or engineering or graphic design. What nonsense is this? It reminds me of the Chinese sending their best and brightest to be reeducated in the countryside, with a subsequent loss of knowledge and skills that took two generations to recover. This country is supposed to be about progress and opportunity, and an insurance plan is supposed to provide insurance, not a bludgeon to take away people’s right of movement.

Did we decide as a people, sometime when I wasn’t paying attention, that the only thing that matters is the bottom line, that there is no room for compassion, or art, or history or a social safety net? I don’t think we did.

I’m tired of the posturing and the lies and the games. I want  transparent, responsible and good government.
Didn’t the Harper Tories campaign on something like that?

Another sensible programme gone

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Prison rehab program axed due to budget cuts – Canada – CBC News.

The CBC reports this morning that the government has cancelled the rehabilitation programme that has operated successfully in prisons, helping prisoners fight addiction and return as better and safer citizens to the outside world.

This government has curious pseudo-logic — put more people in prisons so you have to build more prisons, and make sure the prisoners continue to be addicted so they will reoffend when they hit the streets, and justify the increase in prisons.

Humane civilizations treat those who fall within their care, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the sick, and yes the prisoners, many of whom fall into the last two groups as well, with compassion. It does the country no good whatsoever to return the untreated addicted to the streets.

The more bizarre the actions of this government, and that’s without considering Peter McKay, the better Thomas Mulcair looks.

Sunday

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The myth of Tory economic performance – The Globe and Mail.

Check out Lawrence Martin’s assessment of the Harper record. The out-of-control cuts and spending left us with a deficit where there had been a surplus. Martin puts it all together in this fine article. Politics is ever the same. The politicians “spin”, trying to convince us that up is down, black is white and guys who denied the economic downturn in ’08 are somehow our saviours in ’12.

Writing: I’m working on book three in my Dangerous Journey’s series. Anne is in Bermuda this time, fending off a police detective who thinks that Anne is a killer, and a killer who thinks she’s a nuisance that needs to be eliminated. I hope to be finished by the end of March, so watch for it next fall. Title, as always, pending.

Reading; I finished The Hare with the Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal. De Waal writes the biography of his family’s collection of netsuke and through it a memoir of his family of Russian Jewish bankers and their sad fate at the hands of Austrian Nazis. A fascinating and moving story, and a very good read.

Old-time Politics

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Auditor blasts lack of transparency in doling out generous G8 funds – The Globe and Mail.

In the Ottawa Valley, prior to elections, the spending on the roads, where unemployed men could find some summer work, increased so much that locals knew before the writ was dropped that an election was coming. All of those men were expected to vote and did, for the party in power, that had bought the votes with road work, much of it un-needed–or so it was said.

The Globe and Mail article above gives details from the report, some of which are below, along with my opinion.

The Conservatives have taken it to a new level. In the Auditor-General’s report on G8 expenditures, tabled conveniently after the election, it becomes clear(as the process of funding was not) that large sums of money were dispensed by politicians alone. Not one civil servant was involved in the decisions. The civil service of course has to follow the rules. As Bob Rae said, quoted in the Globe  article above, “they just basically go  in a back room and cut up the funds.) They hid it, burying it in a bill to provide funds to relieve border congestion.

Now the Minister who spent all that money in his riding, Tony Clement, is the Minister responsible for forcing governmental cuts so they can balance the books. First they spend the money, then they use the deficit as an excuse to cut programmes they don’t like. It’s your money they’re playing these games with, and your services they’re going to cut. Does it sound fiscally prudent to you?

About that new level, it’s low. And it’s for four more years.

Oda

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/stephen-harpers-worst-enemy/article1913681/

The worst enemy of Stephen Harper described in this article by Gerald Caplan, is Harper himself, at least the mean-spirited, nasty, revenge-seeking, never-say-you’re-sorry side of the man. He punishes dissent as quickly as any Middle-Eastern despot, although not with bullets and truncheons. The article above is dealing with the ramifications of the Oda affair, which has the autocrat’s stamp all over it. What I found disconcerting was the line-up of members of Kairos, churches from the Anglican Church of Canada to the Evangelical Lutheran, to the Mormon Church, all of them working together for decades to bring compassion and health care to violated women in Africa. But they spoke out against the decisions of Harper with which they disagreed, and so the funding, long-established and carried forward for thirty-five years is gone, as has the funding for countless other smaller organizations on the other side of political debate.

And then they lied, yet again. “Who did that? Not me?” she says to the Commons committee, not to a newspaper, or her friends at lunch, but to Parliament. Apparently the Harperites despise, not just the Upper House, but the whole thing. And it’s not the first time.

Gerald Caplan writes that this reflects the abandonment of the view that a government of the people is responsible for maintaining civil society. That is the difference that Canadians, who value our civil society and its support of the ill and the weak and the old, will have to consider at the next election.

Go to the end of the article and read the list of activities Harper has indulged in over the five years he has been in power. Why would we want to keep him?

He isn’t conservative with our money either. Look at the millions of dollars that is the estimate to carry out his further acts of vengeance against those convicted of crimes, many of them minor ones committed by people with serious mental illness, condemning them to be stacked like cordwood in cells barely adequate for one let alone three or four. Our prisons are going to resemble those in the third world. And for what? Rehabilitation doesn’t occur under these circumstances. Education in crime does. Getting mental heath resources for children is extremely difficult in this country. Perhaps he could spend a few dollars at the root of the problem.

Prisons

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http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/922295–expanding-prisons-getting-it-right-on-crime

The web address of this editorial in the the Toronto Star this morning is a little misleading. I was as astounded as the editorialist to read of the conversion of Newt Gingrich to the side of those of us who are against the expansion of prisons. It would seem that the Harperites are operating about ten years behind American conservatives. The prisons are full of petty thieves and the drug addicted(many of whom are the same people) and serve as finishing schools for criminals. Amongst the things they do not do are: halt recidivism, especially with dollars going to buildings, not programs; address a soaring crime rate–the evening news notwithstanding, it is lower–; treat the mentally ill within the walls; or decrease the use of illegal drugs. As far as I understand it, the prisons are incapable of keeping drugs out of the buildings themselves.
The amount of money spent is staggering. According to the Star editorial, 68 billion dollars/year in the USA. 68 billion! A fraction of that amount would go a long way towards mental health programs, literacy programs, drug rehabilitation, housing the homeless. According to the Star, the amount of new money here over 5 years will be 5 billion. That’s new money, for new beds, not for refurbishing the old prisons that are a crumbling disgrace.

The list of the root causes of crime goes on and on, but tossing people into a revolving door system that turns out ever more hardened criminals is not, to my mind, the answer. I think that Corrections(and isn’t that a misnomer) needs to look at the hospital system, which has turned from a totally inpatient to a largely outpatient system, trying to care for people in their homes, as opposed to beds in an institution as it was when I started(40 years ago). They could begin by eliminating prison time for petty crime and soft drug offenses, turning to community-based initiatives, saving prison for those so dangerous that there is nothing to do except lock them up.