Tag Archives: harper government

The Real Reason Behind Harper’s Annual Arctic Trip

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August 18, 2013

By Andrew Chernoff

According to reporter, Michael Den Tandt, Postmedia News, Prime Minister Harper and his Conservative government are planning on staying the course with no intent on turning back on the federal Conservative government agenda. Full steam ahead. Damn the torpedo’s!

In his article, “Stephen Harper uses first speech of northern tour to lambaste oppositions’s dangerous ideas and vacuous thinking’, Tandt writes:

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper used the occasion of his eighth annual Arctic summer tour to deliver a blistering, highly partisan and combative speech in which he defended his record across the board and hammered the opposition relentlessly.”

Was this a good news speech Harper was delivering to the people of the North and the city of Whitehorse? Oh…..wait….it was a speech to Conservative Party supporters at a barbeque for about 200 supporters.

Tandt noted that, “Harper sounded more like a campaigner than a mid-term prime minister on a relaxed visit to one of his favourite regions. “You have trusted us, and we have delivered, despite the Opposition,” he said. Indeed, Harper claimed, the government has delivered on 84 of “more than 100 specific pledges” made in the last election.”

Of course Harper was just a wee tiny bit biased to the Conservative faithful in touting his federal government record.

Are they really “accomplishments” as reporter Bryn Weese , of QMI Agency wrote in his article, “Stephen Harper harkens back to gold rush, slams opposition to kick off northern tour”?

Harper lauded his actions, you know….the negative consequences being felt by 99 per-cent of Canadians; of his policies and the Conservative governments unapologetic support of global threats to Canadian sovereignty and shameless submission to the powerful and filthy rich 1 per-cent.

Anti-union sentiment is rampant with Bills before Parliament that seek to continue eroding what is left of the middle class in this country; trade agreements like CETA and TPP threaten Canada’s autonomy from coast to coast to coast; federal government layoffs threaten access to government; changes to EI seek to add more anxiety and stress to an already high unemployed Canadian population especially amongst young people.

Harper has never known what it feels like to be on welfare. Harper has never known what it is like to go hungry and scrounge for food; Harper has never had to use a food bank; Harper has never known what it is like to live from pay cheque to pay cheque with no savings to speak of or cushion to fall back on if your budget gets hit with a surprise.

Harper has never had to rely on the social safety net like many Canadians have and do.

Harper never has to worry about his defined pension benefit unlike many Canadians who are facing attacks on theirs and being threatened with a defined pension contribution. Parliament has decided their own fate on that subject, whether Canadians like it or not.

The point is, Harper is completely, unapologetically, unequivocally out of touch with the majority of Canadians.

Harper has no empathy or understanding of the reality of the work of nurses, steelworkers, sawmill workers, fisherman, coalminers, janitors, bus drivers, policeman, fire fighters and the rest of Canadians on the front-line like retail and service sector workers. Many Canadians have more than one job, as they struggle to make ends meet with a minimum wage.

When is the last time Harper had to make ends meet with one or more minimum wage jobs? Never!

Harper does not care how his policies are impacting the reality of the majority of Canadians and their families, many of them working in jobs highlighted above.

Harper’s arrogance is too far gone.

He believes his speeches. The speeches are not words to him. The speeches are not spin or hype. To him, the speeches are the truth.

Harper’s personal philosophy and political beliefs are his Bible. To question his integrity and direction is to commit the most unpardonable sin and to take his name in vain, is blasphemous.

Harper spoke of the mining of the North, how it led to the finding of gold over a century ago. But he did not speak of the sweat and toil, the strife and hardship, the impact on the health and well-being of the miners that slaved to extract that gold in harsh, inhumane conditions.

“The North is Canada’s call to greatness. As Conservatives we believe this with a passion… And as Conservatives, we have pledged that northern development will mean northern prosperity,” Harper told his faithful.

Of course Harper is excited about the potential of the North; of course, he believes the North is his…oops….Canada’s,,,, call to greatness.

The North, the Arctic, will be the cherry on Harper’s political legacy: the tapping of the North and Arctic’s economic richness and development of its land and resources are his ultimate goal, in my opinion.

We have seen it with the Alberta tar sands, and his unrelenting pursuit of the development and selling of “dirty oil”. Why should the North and Arctic be any different?

It may provide some northern prosperity, however long, or, short lived it may be, as history has already shown. But the expanded raping and further imperialising of the North and Arctic will provide untold wealth and riches to the 1 per-cent, with only a few crumbs to appease Canadians but many negative consequences because of it.

That is the real reason behind Harper’s annual Arctic summer trips.

Advocates take Harper to court over ‘pattern of muzzling’ energy critics

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By David P. Ball
Published August 14, 2013    From:  http://thetyee.ca

One of Canada’s top constitutional lawyers is taking the Conservative government to court over increasing restrictions on who can speak at energy board hearings — and what they are allowed to say.

Decrying federal changes to the National Energy Board Act as a “chilling effect” and “breach of constitutional free speech,” Clayton Ruby launched a court challenge yesterday on behalf of ForestEthics Advocacy, an organization he chairs.

The lawsuit, which has not yet been given the go-ahead by a judge, is challenging increased limits on who can address the board on applications for such projects as oil sands pipelines. The reforms force participants to prove they are directly impacted by a project, for instance if it crosses their property.

“This is part of a pattern of muzzling to keep the Canadian public from getting concerned,” Ruby told The Tyee. “These are vital issues, and the government wants as little discussion about them as possible; they want silence… you can no longer talk about certain subjects, they narrowed the scope of what you can say, they will not hear you if you are indirectly affected, and the process requires a nine-page application form, even for a one-page submission.”

Ruby cited as proof of the “muzzling” rules barring citizens from discussing climate change or impacts of the oil sands in general during pipeline or tanker hearings, even when they transport bitumen proven to escalate greenhouse gas emissions.

Compared to the more-than-thousand submissions to the board’s Enbridge Northern Gateway hearings — completed earlier this year, and almost exclusively in opposition — current hearings into the Line 9B oil sands pipeline through southern Ontario allowed only 175 submissions, despite blockades and growing public protest. 

But Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver retorted that the board has not impinged on free speech, since it “permits submissions from individuals impacted by the project.”

“The democratic right to express a public opinion is honoured in Canada,” Oliver said in an emailed statement. “The board must hear from those who are directly affected and may choose to hear from those with information or expertise relevant to the scope of the hearing.

“Focusing submissions ensures the review is informed by the facts material to the scope of the hearing and protects it from being used as a tool to delay decisions. This concern arose in the context of the Northern Gateway hearing when over 4,000 people registered to be heard, but only 1,179 actually showed up at the hearings.”

Oliver came under fire in 2012 when he accused some Northern Gateway critics of being “foreign-funded radicals” in a widely reported open letter. That allegation started a firestorm where organizations such as Tides Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation were ordered to appear before a Senate committee in Ottawa and faced tax scrutiny over their pipeline advocacy.

Ruby described the government’s approach as creating a “chill effect on free speech,” because small organizations are scared of losing their charitable status, and increased hearing restrictions will dissuade citizens from participating.

“These hearings — which they view as troublesome — will no longer cause them any trouble,” Ruby claimed. “They’ve turned the National Energy Board from a final decision-maker into an advisory board. The final decision is now made by Mr. Harper and his cabinet, not by the board.”

David P. Ball is a frequent contributor to The Tyee.

Labour force numbers worse than they look

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Jim StanfordBy Jim Stanford  August 12, 2013  http://rabble.ca

Last week’s Labour Force numbers provide more evidence that Canada’s labour market is still mired in a three-year funk. Following one year of decent recovery from mid-2009 (the trough of the recession) to mid-2010, driven mostly by extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus, further progress has been stalled ever since.

Most headlines focus on the unemployment rate, but that is a misleading indicator — especially during sluggish times (when many workers give up looking for non-existent jobs, and hence disappear from the official unemployment rolls). The Canadian unemployment rate rose to 7.2 per cent in July, and is now just a smidge below the U.S. rate (7.4 per cent). Conceivably those two lines could cross imminently, casting some additional symbolic doubt on the Harper government’s broken-record claim that Canada survived the recession much better than other industrial countries. As previously noted, adjusted for population, Canada’s labour market performance since 2008 has clearly been worse than most other industrial countries.

The employment rate is a better indicator of labour market performance (relative to population trends), and by that measure July’s performance was even worse than the headline unemployment number seems to suggest. Labour force participation declined one-fifth of a percentage point in July; its decline has continued despite the so-called “recovery.” Indeed, at 66.5 per cent of the working age population this month’s participation rate (tied with April) is now at the lowest level since early 2002. This exodus of workers from the formal labour market helps to artificially suppress the official unemployment rate.

The employment rate also declined a fifth of a point, to 61.7 per cent. That’s lower than June 2010, the level reached after just the first year of stimulus-fuelled recovery (and not much better than the miserable 61.3 per cent recorded at the trough of the recession). Summer of 2010 is when governments shifted from stimulus to austerity, and the recovery stalled. (Erin Weir’s post illuminates the strong link between austerity and the falling employment numbers.) Job-creation for the past 3 years has only just kept up with population growth. The decline in the unemployment rate over the past three years is thus purely due to Canadians abandoning the labour market in droves. That’s hardly an accomplishment; it implies isolation, inactivity and poverty.

At the pre-recession participation rate (67.8 per cent), July’s unemployment rate would have been over 9 per cent. Add in involuntary part-time workers and other pools of hidden unemployed (e.g. those waiting for a job to start), and Canada’s true unemployment rate is over 12 per cent — or over 2.3 million people.

The painful reality is this: Labour is not scarce; jobs are scarce. And Canada’s labour market is not healthy; it’s been stalled in recession-like conditions for years. So much for the myth of Canadian exceptionalism.

Jim Stanford is an economist with CAW.