Harper Watch – June 10 to 16, 2013

IS GLASNOST COMING TO HARPER LAND?!!

May 2013 federal polling averages
The Liberals averaged 40% in polls conducted in May, a gain of 6.6 points from their April averages. This is the highest Liberal number on record (going back to January 2009, as will be the case for the rest of this post) and the largest month-to-month gain by any party since the New Democrats jumped nine points between April and May 2011.

The Conservatives averaged 27.6% support, a drop of 2.6 points and the lowest number they have put up since at least the beginning of 2009. This is the fourth consecutive month of decline for the Conservatives, and the gap between themselves and the Liberals is the largest since the Tories had a 12-point lead over the Liberals in April 2011.

iPolitics (Michael Harris) – Who can save the Conservatives? Nobody obvious
The essential reason that no Harper cabinet minister can ride to the party’s rescue is that they are all part of the problem. They all bought in to the model Harper built for winning and holding power. But the model was flawed, the principles it espoused were inimical to civil public life, and now people are throwing off this Steve-Power that he tried to pass off as conservatism and democracy. If Canadians no longer want the organ grinder, why would they want the monkeys?

CBC – Trudeau to compensate charities that paid him to fundraise
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is offering to compensate charities that paid him to participate in fundraising events, saying “political leadership is about raising the bar on openness and transparency.”

Trudeau’s decision follows a complaint by the Grace Foundation of Saint John, N.B. last week, saying they lost thousands of dollars after they paid Trudeau $20,000 to speak at an event nine months ago.

REVELATIONS OF ELECTION FINANCING FRAUD CONTINUE

CBC – Tory MP’s campaign alleges Elections Canada ‘vendetta’
(Last week Glover and Bezan fighting Elections Canada, this week Watson and Adams)
Watson’s campaign was told early last month that it had overspent by $10,799.94, partly because Elections Canada changed the value of signs used in the election.

It’s not clear how Little assessed the value of the signs. In a July 2012 letter to Elections Canada, he said the small signs used by the campaign were worth $1 each and the large signs $10.  Elections Canada recorded the commercial value at $6.77 for the small signs and $39.55 for the large ones, for a difference of $8,612.43.  Little then tried to change the filing to remove a $5,765.71 phone bill that the campaign never paid.

CBC – Expenses claimed by Tory MP include cupcake, steakhouse
The 2011 campaign of Conservative MP Eve Adams is trying to claim $2,777 in personal expenses, including salon visits and dry-cleaning costs, as her campaign works more than two years after the election to close the file.

There are also multiple entries for costs incurred after the May 2, 2011, election, including a purchase three weeks later at Glitz Cupcakes for $2.63 and several restaurant charges as late as July 11, 2011.

REWRITING HISTORY

Ottawa Citizen – Library and Archives Canada private deal would take millions of documents out of public domain
Library and Archives Canada has entered a hush-hush deal with a private high-tech consortium that would hand over exclusive rights to publicly owned books and artifacts for 10 years.

The plan is scheduled to be announced publicly on Friday and according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, a gag order has been placed on everyone involved in the project until then.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) staff and others told about the plan have had to sign non-disclosure clauses but it isn’t clear why the process has been wrapped in such a dark cloak of secrecy.

CBC – Scholars, authors wary of government review of Canadian history
Ramsay Cook, a Governor-General’s Award-winning author and professor emeritus at York University, said he suspects the government’s motives are driven less by curiosity than by politics.

“I think the problem is that governments, when they interest themselves in history, they have answers already of what they believe Canadian history is, whereas trained historians ask questions about the past. We have questions, but they have answers, which means they have an agenda.”

PROTECTING THEIR RICH BUDDIES?

CBC – Revenue Canada rejected secret tax haven files
The Canada Revenue Agency had an early chance to gain access to what is believed to be the largest-ever leak of tax-haven data, containing financial information on hundreds of Canadians involved in secretive offshore accounts, but missed out because of a policy of not paying for information, sources have told CBC News.

On Monday, Revenue Minister Gail Shea rose in the Commons to say the government now has access to the data – over two months after the first media reports.

SUPPRESSING INFORMATION AND DISSENT

CTV - Injured soldier who testified about struggles given discharge notice
An injured Canadian soldier who testified about his struggle for health benefits has been notified that he will be discharged in six months, despite assurances from Defence Minister Peter MacKay that he would suffer “no ramifications” for speaking out.

Vancouver-native Cpl. Glen Kirkland, who nearly died in Afghanistan five years ago when he was ambushed by the Taliban, said mere days after his impending discharge.

Huffington Post – Feds Want To Extend Permanent Secrecy Blanket Over 11 New Agencies
Proposed new rules would forbid a number of federal officials from forever discussing sensitive aspects of their work.  The officials would include the prime minister’s national security adviser, federal lawyers who work on terrorism cases and intelligence analysts in the Privy Council Office.

The Harper government wants to pull the cloak of eternal secrecy over past and present employees of nine federal agencies and those who used to toil at two now-defunct branches.

Winnipeg Free Press – Training manuals for Parliament guides boost Senate, praise two-party system
Summer students hired as tourist guides for Parliament Hill and area have been trained to praise the Senate and disdain democracies with three or more political parties.  

A training manual for the 2013 summer season features an eyebrow-raising section about the value of the Senate, now embroiled in expense scandals and ethical breaches.

CONTINUING EMBARASSMENT ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE

iPolitics – Harper speech to UK Parliament ‘not prime ministerial’ says Labour MP
While the British conservative base seems to have been generally pleased that Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a stop in London to speak to members of both Houses of Parliament Thursday, one shadow cabinet minister was annoyed by Harper’s partisan tone.

John Spellar, the Labour party’s shadow minister for foreign and commonwealth affairs, told iPolitics Friday he found Harper’s address to the members “distinctly partisan,” saying parts of the speech would have been more appropriate for “a meeting of the parliamentary Conservative party.”

Huff Post – John Baird Says Canada Not Among 60 Nations Signing Landmark Arms Treaty
Canada isn’t saying whether it will join more than 60 other countries in signing a landmark treaty to regulate the multibillion-dollar global arms trade.

The federal government hasn’t decided whether it agrees with the UN’s arms trade treaty, despite having voted to move it ahead in the first place, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Monday.

In defending the decision not to sign immediately, Baird suggested the government sees a potential link between signing on to the treaty and the now-abolished long gun registry.

The Tyee – Human Rights Clause in EU Pact Gives Harper Gov’t Pause
It’s good that the Canada-Europe Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations have stalled. But the cause of the most recent impasse is a damning comment on the Harper government’s thinking.

To conclude the CETA negotiations, the Conservatives have been willing to undercut municipalities’ right to “buy local,” grant foreign investors special rights to sue governments and significantly increase drug costs, but they are drawing the line on human rights commitments. According to a recent Embassy article, a significant stumbling block to finalizing CETA negotiations with the European Union is a political text that commits both sides to basic human rights standards.

In the Canada-EU Strategic Partnership Agreement, the sticking point is a clause giving either side the ability to suspend CETA if the other engages in serious human rights violations. Ottawa says it’s concerned that this provision could be abused in a trade dispute and that tying an economic accord to human rights commitments unduly impinges upon this country’s sovereignty.

Harper Watch – June 3 to June 9, 2013

Canadian actor Eric Peterson (Corner Gas) offended by Heritage Minister’s insensitivity (VIDEO)

CTV – Sen. Pamela Wallin could be paying back taxpayers an additional $20,000 for improperly claimed travel expenses
(Wallin made a million in fees and stock option in the last 3 years on top of her Senate salary and she feels she needs to cheat on her travel expenses. Outrageous? Yes, but you almost have to pity someone who is so souless.)

The Saskatchewan senator has already repaid $38,000 in travel expenses she claimed over the last 19 months, as CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reported in May.  Just last month alone, the embattled senator reimbursed taxpayers almost $8,000 for a personal trip that she had improperly billed the Senate…..

Wallin has earned at least $1 million in fees and stock options from corporate boards since her appointment to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009.  That’s in addition to her annual Senate salary of $135,000.

Toronto Star – MP Brent Rathgeber quits Tory caucus
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has suffered another blow as a Tory MP quit the Conservative caucus Wednesday night, decrying the Conservatives’ lack of progress on open government.

“My decision to resign from the Caucus is because of the Government’s lack of commitment to transparency and open government,” he announced on Twitter.

G&M – Tories have lost their way, MP writes after quitting Conservative caucus
It was, he says, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” But for Alberta MP Brent Rathgeber, the unrest dates back before a committee meeting this week. In a blog entry published Thursday morning, Mr. Rathgeber further details his decision to suddenly leave the Conservative caucus the night before. He supports the Prime Minister, but sees his party as one that has lost its way.

MORE ELECTION FRAUD

Canada.com – Elections Canada asks that two Tory MPs be suspended from House of Commons
Two Conservative MPs are in legal limbo after Elections Canada sent letters to the Speaker of the House of Commons asking they be suspended for failure to file campaign documents from the 2011 election.

“Those letters advised the Speaker that an elected candidate shall not continue to sit or vote as members of the House of Commons pending the filing of complete and accurate returns,” said Elections Canada spokesman John Enright on Tuesday.

CBC (Kady O’Malley) – Liberal, NDP MPs refuse to vote on Bezan bill
(Great to see the opposition parties working together and taking a stand.)
Not only did New Democrat and Liberal MPs pointedly abstain from voting on Bezan’s bill, but Liberal MP Scott Andrews rose on a point of privilege to protest the decision by the Speaker to unilaterally decide to wait for the court ruling before bringing the matter to the House.

He also called on Scheer to table all correspondence on the issue,which would presumably include the following letters, including the initial notice of failure to report, and the subsequent response — and counter-response — from lawyer Arthur Hamilton and Elections Canada:

The Hill Times – Tory MPs slam Federal Court’s findings of fraud, ‘concerted campaign’ to suppress voters in last election
In an interview with The Hill Times, Conservative MP Joyce Bateman, who was elected in Winnipeg South Centre for the first time in 2011 by a 696-vote margin, focused on the fact that Justice Mosley found “no wrongdoing” on the Conservative Party’s part.

When asked what she thought of the fact that Justice Mosley found fraud occurred and read the applicable sentence in the ruling, Ms. Bateman said, “it’s one sentence in 100 pages.”

GREAT OPINION PIECES

National Post (Andrew Coyne) –  Rathgeber returns politics to normal, where conscience does not submit to power
(MUST READ – Conservative corporate media shill Andrew Coyne has another attack of truth telling.)
Then the social conservative movement outside Parliament began signalling it had had enough. This week the Canadian Taxpayers Federation added its voice to the din, with a harsh critique of the government’s fiscal and economic policies.

And how did the government respond? Did it learn from its mistake? Yes, indeed — and repeated it almost exactly. Rathgeber’s private member’s bill, requiring disclosure of senior bureaucrats’ salaries and opening the CBC’s books to public scrutiny, was eviscerated — a gross offence against a traditional prerogative of MPs, and done with the PM’s signature flourish of contempt. But plainly this was only the last in a long train of abuses.

iPolitics (Michael Harris) – Harper needs a better brand of B.S.
Like high-functioning psychopaths, the Tory pols keep trying versions of a given story until it has the desired result. In themselves, the words they use are meaningless. It all comes down to producing the desired effect. Let’s go through some of the classics from the Harper BS manual….

The prime minister, who spoke to Duffy about his expense problems in February, never knew a thing about how the problem was resolved until mid-May — and only then from his trusted confederates in the media. Stories like that got Pete Rose and Lance Armstrong into the Hall of Shame.

Toronto Star (Susan Delacourt) – Where is Conservative outrage over ‘robocalls’ scandal?
In a recent court ruling, Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley said systemic efforts were made to suppress the vote across Canada in the 2011 campaign and that the unknown perpetrator used the Conservatives’ database, the Constituent Information Management System (CIMS), to pull it off.

The judge also said that Conservatives were not all that helpful during the trial, playing it as “trench warfare” instead of a legal proceeding.

If that had been my database (or yours, I suspect), my reaction would be similar to the one I experienced after hearing of the fake Facebook account: surprise, dismay, anger and then swift efforts to get the fraudster(s) shut down.

Edmonton Sun (Warren Kinsella) – Wright was protecting Harper, not Duffy
Why would the prime minister’s chief of staff — the most powerful unelected person in Canada — put his reputation at risk for a lowly senator, one who was already distrusted and disliked by the Prime Minister’s Office?

None of it makes any sense. None of it adds up. And that’s particularly so when you look at the background of players in the controversy, which has left Stephen Harper’s Conservative regime battered and reeling. I’m familiar with both Duffy and Wright. Trust me when I say there could not be two people in Ottawa more unalike.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSCENE AND ABSURD DEEDS

HuffPost – Shawn Atleo: First Nations Unrest This Summer Depends On Stephen Harper
Atleo says talks between senior government officials and First Nations from some parts of the country over how to fully implement historic treaty rights seem to be inching ahead. Atleo and many First Nations leaders argue that full recognition of the treaties will lead to improvements in conditions across the board — in education, housing, and the sharing of the bounty from Canada’s natural resources.

But at the same time, the federal government continues to fight First Nations in court over child welfare funding, continues to impose legislation without consulting those it will affect, and resists widespread calls for a national inquiry into hundreds of missing or murdered aboriginal women, the national chief added.

Action Canada Press Release – Canada blocking efforts at the UN to address sexual violence against women
Ottawa/Geneva – June 7 2013 – Governments and civil society are calling into question the leadership of the Canadian government on the theme of Violence Against Women at the 23rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC).

Rabble.ca – The Harper government’s detainee torture scandal will soon resurface
Following last June’s UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) report, the Harper government immediately showed open contempt by publicly criticizing the widely esteemed committee in the international media for pointing out Canada’s deficiencies.

And it has since ignored the committee’s recommendations, which would bring Canada into compliance with international law, by once again having an official policy in Afghanistan of transferring detainees to the United States — a nation known to torture.

CTV News – Military police investigated how CTV obtained info after report on Natynczyk
Military police were used to investigate how CTV News obtained information Gen. Walt Natynczyk’s use of government VIP aircraft for trips to fundraising dinners, sporting events, and a Caribbean island, according to a report….

But one week after the report aired, the military’s second-in-command, Vice Admiral Bruce Donaldson, called in the military police to investigate whether the information had been leaked to CTV.

Harper Watch – May 27 to June 2, 2013

ELECTION FRAUD

Toronto Star – Conservatives not helping Elections Canada on robocalls,election-law reform
Federal Conservatives have been dragging their feet in helping Elections Canada get to the bottom of alleged fraud in the 2011 campaign, according to Canada’s chief electoral officer, Marc Mayrand. And the Conservative government hasn’t consulted with Elections Canada on reforms that Mayrand says are urgently needed to be turned into law by next spring, if Canada is to avoid the kind of dirty tricks and alleged fraud still hanging over the last election.

Torstar (Thomas Walkom) – Senate and robocall scandals different versions of same pathology
In short, whoever committed this fraud almost certainly had access to the Conservatives’ carefully guarded computers.  Second, the judge found the Conservatives to be unduly obstructionist, at one point referring to their delaying tactics as a form of “trench warfare.” The Conservative Party itself, he noted, made “little effort to assist with the investigation at the outset.”  Indeed, Mosley was so unimpressed by Conservative tactics that, in a break with normal practice, he awarded key court costs to the lawsuit’s losers.

RIGHT WING MEDIA – OR SHOULD I SAY FORMER RIGHT WING MEDIA

NP (John Ivison) – Stephen Harper making things worse for himself with silence over Mike Duffy
(Pretty good article from a columnist who has been a staunch defender of the Harper regime.  Reader comments are great too – and this is the right wing National Post.)
Mr. Martin, and I dare say most Canadians, would likely agree with termination when it comes to the Senate, particularly if they watched the Red Chamber’s internal economy committee Tuesday evening. It revealed that Senator Mike Duffy claimed 49 days of per diems to cover his expenses in Ottawa when he does not appear to have been in the national capital region. Twenty-four of those claims were turned down by the Senate administration, so it was clear someone knew there was a pattern of questionable behaviour.

iPolitics (Tasha Kheiriddin) – The robocall ruling: Have we hit bottom yet?
Is there any integrity left in the Conservative party? If so, it’s getting harder and harder to find. Just as the Senate spending scandal was cresting in Ottawa and the prime minister was AWOL in South America, the Federal Court delivered a legal bombshell that strikes at the core of the democratic system: Canadians’ right to vote.

G&M (Jeffrey Simpson) Conservatives have been sailing close to the wind
Then there was the “robocalls” affair, recently the subject of a ruling from a judge of the Federal Court. He found that Conservative candidates in six ridings were not involved in telephone calls that told supporters of other parties that polling station locations had changed. But he noted that the calls were based on Conservative Party lists.
Conservative spokespeople immediately cried victory because their MPs were exonerated. But the judge noted that these MPs had tried systematically to “block these proceedings by any means.” Moreover, left open was the obvious question: Who would have had access to the Conservative Party’s lists if not a person or persons close to the party?

Canada.com (Michael Den Tandt) – Harper’s Conservatives burned too many bridges to earn benefit of the doubt
The ground is shifting in Ottawa. Everyone can feel it and few would privately deny it, least of all the woebegone Conservatives, who are busting new spokes, springing new leaks, any old metaphor will do, by the day.
The question is why. Why all this, why now? It’s not just about the metastasizing spectacle of the Duffy expense-claims mess, or the curious exploding contagion of ancillary scandals, or the sudden focus on debate in a Senate that has been catatonic for, oh, 150 years, or the clash of reactive positioning from opposition leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau.

Harper comments on Harper  (VIDEO)

OTHER OPINION PIECES

iPolitics (Michael Harris) – Is Duffy a bomb set to explode in Harper’s face?
Could it be that Harper, eyes popping as his pulse weakens, is twitching in a mouse-trap of his own making? Could it be that Mike Duffy only did what the PMO asked him to do — pass the Kentucky Fried Chicken barrel for the party at fundraising events across Canada, while working on the Senate’s dime? Does Duffy have proof his marching orders came from the PMO — including possibly damning details in the matter of the $90,000 gift from Harper’s former chief-of-staff?

Torstar (Thomas Walkom) -New EI tribunal promises good pay for Conservatives, bad wages for the rest of us
Undeterred by the Senate scandal, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is quietly forging ahead with its war against good wages…..So far, most public attention on the new Social Security Tribunal has focused on the juicy patronage opportunities it offers the government. When the tribunal is fully staffed, its 74 full-time members will earn between $91,800 and $231,500 a year. (To put this in context, members of the much-maligned Senate receive a basic salary of $135,200.)

A CRIMINAL ENTOURAGE

Ottawa Citizen – Former CSIS watchdog boss Arthur Porter arrested on fraud charges
The former head of Canada’s spy-agency watchdog, who received prestigious appointments from different levels of government and was nearly honoured with a street in his name, has been arrested abroad on fraud charges.
Arthur Porter has been detained by Panamanian authorities, along with his wife Pamela, several months after Quebec police announced they wanted to charge him in connection with the province’s ongoing corruption scandals.

ANOTHER POTENTIALLY DISASTROUS APPOINTMENT

Toronto Star – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s bodyguard, Mountie Bruno Saccomani, faces workplace harassment probe
The Star has learned that RCMP Supt. Bruno Saccomani, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s bodyguard since 2006 who is about to become Canada’s ambassador to Jordan, faces several ongoing investigations for workplace harassment.

MISCELLANEOUS MISDEEDS

Vancouver Sun – Coast Guard did not do written report on risk analysis of closing Kitsilano rescue base
The federal government, which has always said it did a careful analysis of the potential public safety risk of shutting down the Canadian Coast Guard station in Kitsilano, says it has no report showing the review’s findings.
That was the message in a letter this month to B.C. New Democratic Party MP Fin Donnelly. Donnelly had filed a request under the Access to Information Act seeking a copy of a report that Donnelly assumed had been produced by Coast Guard officials.

Huff Post – Tory Bill Targeting Unions Has No Backing From Constitutional Experts
The bill was drafted by lawyers from the House of Commons and one of those experts testified before a private member’s business sub-committee that the bill “met all tests including constitutionality,” the bill’s creator, MP Russ Hiebert, said in an email to Huffington Post Canada. Hiebert has said the bill was brought “to a variety of constitutional experts in Canada … and they assured us the way its drafted would sustain any constitutional challenge.” But when asked at a press conference in December to name some of the experts, he replied: “I don’t have their consent to disclose their names.”

Montreal Gazette – Harper government eliminated reviews for oilsands projects following warnings of water disruption
The federal government removed some oilsands projects from a list of those requiring environmental screenings, after being told in an internal memorandum that this form of industrial development could disturb water sources and harm fish habitat.
The memo to the deputy minister of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, dated May 5, 2011, came a year before Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government introduced hundreds of pages of changes to Canada’s environmental laws, which will allow the government to exclude some oilsands projects from reviews.

G&M (Gerald Caplan) – Harper should not be promoting mining interests in Peru
For years, knowledgeable civil society critics have demanded that Canadian mining operations abroad be toughly regulated. Both Opposition parties strongly favor such regulations, which Liberal MP John McKay has incorporated in a private members bill now before parliament. Yet the government continues to take the corporate side, insisting, against a mountain of evidence, that voluntary codes are sufficient. That’s why an extraordinary 75 per cent of all the world’s mining companies have registered in Canada.

FOR THE RECORD

Justin Trudeau blasted for defending senate (But what did he really say?)
Trudeau said it is Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives who want to hurt B.C. and Alberta by pushing to create an elected Senate without making other changes. Giving senators additional democratic legitimacy by electing them will make the Senate more powerful. Unless the seat distribution is changed, Trudeau said, that will hurt B.C. and Alberta which are grossly under-represented in the Senate given their populations and economic clout. “Electing senators will have a terrible impact on the West,” Trudeau told The Sun.

Canada.com – Western premiers slam Justin Trudeau over Senate comments
Western premiers joined a wave of Conservative MPs Monday in slamming Justin Trudeau over the Liberal leader’s argument in favour of keeping the $91.5-million-a-year Senate…..“He opposes abolition because Senate status quo gives advantage to Quebec over the West,” Wall wrote on his Twitter account…..
The Harper government’s Senate election plan, meanwhile, would hurt B.C. and Alberta because it would give democratic legitimacy and therefore greater power to an institution in which the two provinces are grossly under-represented, Trudeau said.

Harper Watch – May 19 to 26

HAS THE MEDIA FINALLY TURNED AGAINST THE HARPER REGIME?
Prior to the 2011 election, the Conservatives pretty much owned the media. What criticism there was, was lukewarm and included some outrageous statements such as “Once Harper gets a majority, he will be able to ease up, be kinder, less controlling”.  And of course, the media repeated the Harper propaganda that “The Conservatives have done well on the economy.” throughout the election campaign giving the Harper gang millions in free advertising.   There was also the oft repeated  ”They run from the right but govern from the centre.”

Well, ladies and gentlemen it looks like the times they are a changing.  This issue of Harper Watch features commentary articles from a wide range of journalists.  Some like Gerald Caplan, Lawrence Martin and Michael Harris have been critical of the regime for some time but the list also includes, Andrew Coyne, John Ivison, John Ibbitson and Tasha Kheiriddin.

National Post (Andrew Coyne) – Wright’s resignation not the government’s moral reclamation. It’s the next act in the tragedy
Section 17 (1) of the Senate Conflict of Interest code states: “Neither a Senator, nor a family member, shall accept … any gift or other benefit, except compensation authorized by law, that could reasonably be considered to relate to the Senator’s position.”

Section 16 (1) of the Parliament of Canada Act states that “no member of the Senate shall receive or agree to receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, for services rendered … in relation to any bill, proceeding, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest or other matter before the Senate or the House of Commons or a committee of either House. Moreover, Section 16 (3) makes “every person who gives, offers or promises to any member of the Senate” such compensation liable to imprisonment for up to one year.

Section 121 (1) of the Criminal Code states that anyone who “gives, offers or agrees to give or offer” to an official or “being an official, demands, accepts or offers or agrees to accept” any “loan, reward, advantage or benefit of any kind” in return for “cooperation, assistance, exercise of influence or an act or omission” in connection with “any matter of business relating to the government,” is guilty of an offence punishable by up to five years in jail.

Translation: paying a Senator under the table, for any reason, under any circumstances, is serious business. But when the recipient is under investigation by a Senate committee, when the purpose of the payment is to relieve him of responsibility for the expenses for which he is at that moment being audited, and when his benefactor is the most senior unelected official in the government, “serious” does not begin to describe it.

G&M (John Ibbitson) –  Harper refuses to give any answers on Senate expenses scandal
A visibly unhappy Stephen Harper sought to refocus his government in a speech to caucus Tuesday morning that made several claims but answered no questions….
Instead, he reminded his colleagues of previous reforms aimed at making MPs and senators more accountable. And, as predicted, he sought to swing the discussion back to the government’s record on jobs and the economy.

National Post (John Ivison) – Harper’s speech was a chance to be accountable. He blew it
He refused to take questions from a furious press corps. A good number of his own caucus were equally upset that he didn’t level with them about what he knew and when he knew it. “Honest backbenchers didn’t start this mess — it started at the centre.  There needs to be an apology to caucus and the public,” said another MP.

iPolitics (Tasha Kheiriddin) The cover-up is the scandal — not the Senate
This isn’t about Senate reform. This isn’t a distraction. This isn’t about protecting anyone — except the people at the heart of this mess, whose resignations the government dragged out over the Victoria Day long weekend, hoping that Canadians would be too busy seeding their lawn or opening their cottages to pay attention.

This is about integrity. This is about transparency. This is about a problem that people in the Prime Minister’s Office tried to bury under a pile of money.  This is, increasingly, about a cover-up.

G&M (Gerald Caplan) – Conservative attacks are nothing but bullying
One of them saw a Conservative ad on TV sneering at Justin Trudeau for doing a mock strip tease for a charity event. The class had only recently learned about cyberbullying after Rehtaeh Parsons and other high-profile teenage suicides by kids who’d been humiliated online.

“Yeah, they’re really not nice,” this 10-year old told his teacher. “He did a charity and they’re laughing at him and he looks like a clown and they’re saying he’s just a simple teacher and that’s not fair. They can’t do that, Madame, that’s cyberbullying.” Several students were seriously concerned that “Justin” would be “really sad about this.”

iPolitics (Michael Harris) –  Harper abandons his underlings to the heat on the Hill
The backbench of the Conservative party is suddenly important again — if they dare to be. They have got to stand up and be counted. It is one thing to have caved in to a personality cult based on a vision of discipline somewhere between vindictiveness and sheer intimidation. But it is another to be constantly going back to their constituents defending Stephen Harper values rather than Conservative values. The gap between the two is widening and the PMO/Senate scandal could turn it into a chasm.

iPolitics (Lawrence Martin) – Serial breaches of trust will doom the Harper machine
The soft treatment accorded Senator Mike Duffy begins to make more sense with recent revelations. Duffy billed Tory campaigns while campaigning for the party in the 2011 elections. He did this, according to reports, while also receiving an allowance for supposedly being in Ottawa on Senate business….
What arrangements Duffy made with party headquarters (which organized his campaigning) we don’t know. But we do know there is a lot more to this story, a story which focuses public attention on the Conservatives’ moral character like never before.

iPolitics (Don Lenihan) – Stephen Harper and the ‘noble lie’
… the philosophy of neo-conservatives like Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush was heavily influenced by the political philosopher Leo Strauss — a quintessential anti-populist who taught that the public lacked the capacity to make informed decisions on political affairs.
In Strauss’ view, successful democracies are led by an elite group which can make the right decisions for the public, even though these will often conflict with what the public would expect or accept. Enlightened leaders bridge this gap by telling the public a story it can accept — what Strauss called a “noble lie.”

SAD WEEK IN THE COURTS

Canada.com – Federal judge confirms election fraud in 2011 vote
Electoral fraud occurred during the last federal election, a federal court judge ruled on Thursday, but there is no proof that it affected the outcomes in six ridings at issue, so the elections will not be overturned….Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley ruled that the calls “struck at the integrity of the electoral process by attempting to dissuade voters from casting ballots for their preferred candidates. This form of ‘voter suppression,’ was, until the 41st General Election, largely unknown in this country.”

The evidence points to “a concerted campaign by persons who had access to a database of voter information maintained by a political party,” Mosley writes, but says there was no allegation that any of the candidates in the six ridings were responsible for the campaign.

RELATED – COUNCIL OF CANADIANS PRESS RELEASE ON THE RULING -

Canada.com – B.C. mining company justified in bringing in Chinese workers,Federal Court rules
The government was justified in issuing a positive labour market opinion that allowed a British Columbia mining company to hire 201 temporary foreign workers from China, the Federal Court ruled Tuesday.

The decision comes after two unions challenged the government and the companies involved, arguing Canadians are available to do the jobs required and that it was not necessary to look outside the country for foreign labour.

National Post – Andrew Coyne: Judge finds smoking gun in robocalls scandal but who pulled the trigger?
(A better headline would be: Federal Court grants licence to commit election fraud with impunity in the future.)
 …But as to the question of whether an electoral fraud occurred, of that the judge was in no doubt. He found that the calls were made, by the thousands, to scores of ridings nationwide; that they were not random, but targeted at non-Conservatives; that they commonly presented themselves, falsely, as being from Elections Canada, and provided false information about where to vote. Neither was he in doubt that they prevented at least some voters from getting to the polls, even if their numbers were not enough to be decisive in any riding.

And, troublingly, the judge found that this was no accident, nor the coincidence of a few bad apples with demon diallers. Rather, it was a deliberate and systemic attempt to subvert the democratic process, using resources ordinarily accessible only to a few: namely, the Conservatives’ highly prized Constituency Information Management System (CIMS). The evidence, he writes, suggests “there was an orchestrated effort to suppress votes during the 2011 election campaign by a person or persons with access to the CIMS database.”

AD WARS – GO SHD!!

Harper government buying ads to promote job grant program that doesn’t yet exist
Ottawa Citizen – The Harper government is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising a program that does not yet exist.

Prime-time ads began airing this week during NHL playoff games — currently the priciest advertising real estate on the dial — that tout a new federal Canada Jobs Grant for training workers.

The trouble is, the freshly announced program is at present little more than a concept that has yet to be negotiated with provincial governments, and requires buy-in from employers as well.

Yahoo! News – Anti-Stephen Harper group raises enough money to air attack ad on Hockey Night in Canada
It’s a big success for a witty group of political activists.

Last month, Yahoo! Canada News reported that the ‘Sh#$ Harper Did’ group had produced an anti-Harper attack ad and were crowdfunding to have it broadcast on television.

Well, they’ve surpassed their goals and raised $76,412.

The commercial will be broadcast twice on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, including Friday night’s Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins playoff game.

According to the group’s executive director — and comedian — Sean Devlin, their goal is to counter the Harper government’s Economic Action plan ads which he says are “devoid of facts.” (Also see: Economic Action Plan ads cost taxpayers $21 million: report)

YET ANOTHER HARPER APPOINTMENT GONE WRONG

The Star – Stephen Harper should appoint a pro to head Canada’s library and archives: Editorial

As the head of Library and Archives Canada, a seemingly sleepy position, Daniel Caron was remarkably controversial. He stepped down Wednesday after being castigated by Heritage Minister James Moore for spending $4,500 of federal funds on Spanish lessons. Shortly thereafter, the New Democrats released a document detailing his “titanic expenses” — $174,000 over the past two years.

HARPER WATCH – MAY 13 to 18, 2013 (The Duffygate Edition)

MIKE DUFFY IN DEEP DOO DOO

CTV News – Mike Duffy made secret deal with Harper’s chief of staff during audit
Two months before the audit was released, Harper’s top advisor Nigel Wrighthad a PMO lawyer work on a letter of understanding with Duffy’s legalcounsel.

Sources told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife that the deal involved Duffy reimbursing taxpayers in return for financial help and a promise from the government to go easy on him.

CBC – Senator Mike Duffy quits Tory caucus
Senator Mike Duffy has resigned from the Conservative caucus and will sit as an Independent amid controversy over his living and travel expense claims….

Conservative sources told The Canadian Press the vast majority of Duffy’s Senate colleagues had signed a petition calling for his ouster from caucus and were prepared to confront him with that petition at a meeting next Tuesday evening.

CTV – Mike Duffy tried to influence CRTC decision on Sun Media: source
Sen. Mike Duffy attempted to influence the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission’s upcoming decision involving the right-leaning Sun News Network, a source has told CTV News.

A well-placed source told CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife that Duffy approached a Conservative insider with connections to the CRTC three weeks ago to discuss Sun Media, which is asking the federal regulator to grant its news channel “mandatory carriage,” or guaranteed placement on basic cable and satellite packages.

CTV News – Pamela Wallin forced out of Tory caucus over preliminary audit results
Prime Minister Stephen Harper forced Sen. Pamela Wallin out of the Conservative caucus after learning the preliminary findings of an audit looking into her travel expenses, a source has told CTV News.

Wallin issued a statement Friday evening saying she has recused herself from the caucus as she awaits the results of the external audit.

CTV News – Damning findings removed from Sen. Mike Duffy’s audit report
The Senate’s internal economy committee sanitized the original audit of Sen. Mike Duffy’s expenses to remove damning findings, documents obtained by CTV News show.

A confidential report obtained by CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife shows the original version of Duffy’s audit found that the senator broke the Senate’s “very clear” and “unambiguous” residency rules.

G&M – Conservative MPs drop out of CBC and CTV talk shows at last minute
The Conservative Party pulled out of popular political talk shows on CBC and CTV on Friday in what appears to be a response to heavy news coverage of the Senate expenses story.

The hosts of CBC’s Power and Politics and CTV’s Power Play – two competing programs that feature commentary and political panels – both announced that Conservative MPs cancelled their appearances at the last minute.

iPolitics (Michael Harris) – The senator, the PM and the rot at the top
(Hard facts and superb analysis in a creative writing style.  A delight to read.   Micheal Harris at his best.)
In a better world than this one, here is what would happen. Duffy, Brazeau and Harb would quit the Senate; Duffy quit the caucus, but it’s not enough.

The PM’s chief of staff would resign. The leadership in the Senate would be replaced. The Senate itself would have nothing further to do with adjudicating this matter, having disgraced itself.

iPolitics (Lawrence Martin) – More hard times in Harperland
This one — the latest imbroglio in the Mike Duffy saga — is hard to figure. There is much that goes on in Harperland that is difficult to fathom. There are scandals of greater potential heft — the robocalls’ story being one of them, should the allegations be proved.

But the case of a senator’s duplicity in the handling of his living expenses now reaches deeply into the prime minister’s office. As such, it could prove more punitive than imagined.

Even Rex Murphy turns on the Harper government over pork barreller Duffy (VIDEO).

AND THE OTHER ATROCITIES GO ON

CBC – Disgust with Tories led to Labrador byelection win, Liberal says
Yvonne Jones, the Liberal who defeated former federal cabinet minister Peter Penashue in Monday night’s Labrador byelection, says voters were turned off by how the Conservatives managed the campaign.

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party of Canada raised eyebrows by suggesting that new Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau should be blamed for dragging down the party’s turnout.

Hill Times – Tories ‘doing away with research’ in more cuts at Agriculture and Agri-Food, say unions
Hundreds of job cuts at Agriculture and Agri-Food announced last week are further targeting science and innovation inside government, say union leaders.

“Basically, they’re doing away with research. If you’re not going to facilitate industry, creating a gimmick for sale in two years, they don’t want to hear from you. Basically every research program that sort of put Canada ahead worldwide in agriculture, these guys just don’t see a value for any more,” said Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union, which represents 235 of the affected Agriculture workers.

Hill Times – Government vows to fix widespread ‘irregularities’ in election day voting procedures, but opposition parties say Tories stalling
Former British Columbia chief electoral officer Harry Neufeld conducted the compliance review and said in his report that 114,693 Canadians’ votes from the 2011 general election are “in question” because Elections Canada employees did not follow proper voting day procedures in 165,000 cases. That’s 0.9 per cent of all votes cast on election day, and an average of 372 “irregularities” per riding.

Toronto Star – Critics slam government’s ‘secretive,’ ‘shadowy’ handling of millions in taxpayer-funded consulting contracts
(The Harper government promised to reduce the Public Service, forgot to mention it was by contracting out to corporate buddies.  2.4 Billion for “management” consulting while people who do real work like scientists, borders services agents and Canada Revenue Agency investigators are getting their walking papers.)
The federal government should be required to provide descriptions of the work done for the millions of dollars it routinely spends on management consulting, opposition critics say…..

While the government’s public disclosure sites show it has paid $2.4 billion for management consulting in the past decade, 90 per cent of those contracts come with no description of the actual work done.

G&M – Harper government withheld documents in indigenous human-rights case
The Harper government withheld tens of thousands of documents that it was obligated to disclose as part of a human-rights case in which it is accused of discriminating against indigenous children. Now, it is using its failure to hand over the files to try to get the proceedings put on hold.

The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in 2007 saying it is wrong for the federal government to pay 22 per cent less for child welfare on reserves than the provinces pay for non-aboriginal welfare services.

Liberal.ca (Wayne Easter) – Harper Government axes U.S. Advertising – Major Concern for Tourist Operators in PEI
(Millions for Economic Action Plan propaganda ads but nothing to promote tourism!!!)

“It was unbelievable,” said Easter, “to hear that it didn’t seem to matter to the Minister of Industry (responsible for tourism), Christian Paradis, that Canada has slid from 7th to 18th in terms of being a destination for international tourists. He confirmed that the Canadian Tourism Commission has eliminated its general advertising program into the United States promoting Canada as a tourist destination. For Canada to ignore the United States as the largest middle class base in the world is extremely poor decision-making on the part of the Harper  government”, continued Easter.

CBC – Fracking may jeopardize Gros Morne UNESCO status
Gros Morne National Park’s status as a world heritage site may be in jeopardy due to plans for controversial oil exploration on Newfoundland’s west coast, CBC News has learned.

Black Spruce Exploration wants to use hydraulic fracturing — the so-called fracking process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth — to find oil and gas in Sally’s Cove and other areas, which lie just a few kilometres from the boundaries of the park.

Harper Watch May 6 to 12, 2013

MUST READ – TIME TO RAISE CORPORATE TAXES!

Toronto Star – Roll back corporate tax cuts to pay for transit Corporations have never had it so good in Canada
Canada has emerged relatively unscathed from the recent global economic slowdown, boasting growth since 2009, unlike our G20 counterparts. Still, Canada and Ontario have reduced taxes on big business to skeletal levels with little or no economic stimulus to show for it. These corporate tax reductions are precisely why we cannot afford to pay for transit and infrastructure. They need to be reversed — and the additional revenue should be tied to transit expansion.

BULLYING AND SECRECY

iPolitics (Michael Harris) – Harper comms 101: When cornered, blame a bureaucrat
It is bred in the bones of this regime. Everyone knows that the Harper Conservatives have made a policy out of excluding sitting MPs from events to announce federal initiatives in their ridings. It’s dirtbag politics at its grimiest and the message is as unambiguous as a punch in the gut: “All goodies come from Steve, not your MP, or the government of Canada.”

Toronto Star (Editorial) -Ontario judge blasts Harper government’s ‘tough on crime’ agenda
We’ve known for some time that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “tough on crime” agenda carries a stiff and wasteful price tag. Canadians are spending $5 billion more a year on the criminal justice system since the Tories were elected in 2006, even as the crime rate has plummeted. Those billions would be better invested in economic growth, productivity and jobs.

What’s less well-recognized is the corrosive effect the government’s punitively blind obsession with crime is having on the justice system itself. Changes to the Criminal Code have cast what one respected jurist calls a “dark shadow” on foundational principles of proportionality and restraint that hark back to Biblical law thousands of years ago. Today sentencing seems to be more about exacting vengeance than about deterrence, rehabilitation and making good.

CBC News – Emails shed light on politics of RCMP report release
Newly-released documents obtained under Access to Information legislation shed more light on the role played by the office of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews in how the RCMP communicates with reporters and the public.

That letter, released to reporters soon after it was sent to Paulson, blasted the commissioner for the scope of the report, which Toews characterized as analysis that “confirmed issues that we have all known to exist within the Force.”

He ordered Paulson back to the drawing board and gave him three weeks to come up with an action plan. Toews’ correspondence also made it clear he was not happy that Commissioner Paulson had talked about the gender based audit to reporters before he’d had the chance to see it with his own eyes.

Toronto Star (Linda McQuaig) Harper stokes resentments in discreet class war
Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s why there’s been such a public outcry since the temporary foreign worker program was exposed as a mechanism by which the Harper government has flooded the country with hundreds of thousands of cheap foreign workers, thereby suppressing Canadian wages in the interests of helping corporations.

Apart from this clumsy fiasco, the Harperites have been adroit at keeping their anti-worker bias under the radar. Instead, they’ve directed their attacks against unions, portraying them as undemocratic organizations run by “union bosses” who ignore the interests of ordinary workers.

HARPER GOVERNMENT JOB CREATION – FOR TFW, LAWYERS AND ADVERTISING AGENCIES

G&M – Harper cites civic pride in defending ‘economic action plan’ ads
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is justifying the more than $100 million his  government has spent on economic advertising by pointing to Canadians’  confidence in the economy. Taxpayer-funded government ads are supposed to inform citizens about programs and services, according to Treasury Board guidelines.

Guelph Mercury – Temporary foreign worker program could be distorting labour market needs: report
Canada’s temporary foreign worker program was under renewed scrutiny Tuesday, as a new report suggested the increasingly controversial system “could be distorting” the natural supply and demand of the country’s labour market.

The study from the University of Calgary’s school of public policy suggests Canada isn’t facing a wide-scale labour shortage, but rather is experiencing a “serious mismatch” between the skills of its residents and the demands of the labour market.

CBC – Temporary foreign workers hired in areas with EI claimants
The minister responsible for the temporary foreign worker program was told last year that employers were hiring temporary foreign workers in the same jobs and same locations as Canadians who were collecting employment insurance, CBC News has learned.

On May 29, 2012, the deputy minister for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada wrote a briefing note to the minister, Diane Finley, which cited four examples in which there was deemed to be a “disconnect” between the temporary foreign worker and employment insurance programs.

One example cited in the briefing note revealed that “in January 2012, Albertan employers received positive confirmation for 1,261 TFW (Temporary Foreign Worker) positions for food counter attendants. At the same time, nearly 350 people made a claim for EI who had cited significant experience in the same occupation and province.“

NO SCIENCE, NO EVIDENCE, NO CONSULTATION, NO COOPERATION

G&M – Scientists find new obstacles to freshwater research base
Scientists who study the effects of pollutants on fresh water say they are being barred from the Experimental Lakes Area and their work is in jeopardy despite Ontario’s promise to put up money to keep it operating.

The federal Conservative government stopped most scientists from entering the world-renowned freshwater research station in northwestern Ontario at the beginning of April, saying the ELA no longer fits with the mandate of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

CBC.ca- Canada drops out of race to tap methane hydrates
Canada is abandoning a 15-year program that was researching ways to tap a potentially revolutionary energy source, just as Japan is starting to use the results to exploit the new fossil-fuel frontier: methane hydrates…

Despite the success, Canadian federal funding from Natural Resources Canada for research into exploiting methane hydrates was cut as of March 31 — just a couple of weeks after the offshore production tests in Japan. The ministry told CBC News the decision was made in 2012.

Huff Post – National Household Survey That Replaced Long-Form Census Is Unreliable: Experts
Economists and statisticians are skeptical about the accuracy and usefulness of data that begin to trickle in this week from the inaugural 2011 National Household Survey. The Conservative government decided in 2010 that the survey would replace the mandatory long-form census, despite their acknowledgement that the decision was made without consultation, an ensuing outcry over the hasty move, and warnings it would jeopardize the quality of Canadian information.

Canadian Association of University Teachers – Transformation of NRC short-sighted, misguided and unbalanced
“Basic research that forms the core of all scientific advances and innovation is under siege,” warned Turk. “It is disingenuous of Minister Goodyear to suggest that universities will pick up the slack left by the abandonment of basic science at the NRC because his government has drastically cut back funding for fundamental academic research.”

Harper Watch – April 28 to May 5, 2013

HARPER REGIME – A DISGRACE ON THE WORLD STAGE

Embassy – UN human rights review an opportunity to act

The government of Canada wants the world to believe that we are still a leader in the area of human rights. But in a UN review that wrapped up last week, Canada’s peers have challenged this and expressed numerous concerns about Canada’s human rights record….

Of course there is a long list of countries where the gravity of human rights violations is considerably worse than in Canada. But this process is about universality. All peoples’ rights are to be protected, in all countries. All governments should be praised when they live up to their commitments; and all governments held accountable when they do not.

ipolitics (Paul Adams) – When remembrance becomes forgetting
(A very moving article about ALL those who died during WWII – and Harper’s politicization of this horror for partisan purposes.)
The festival of blood we call the Second World War remains the most confounding moral mystery of our civilization. How in the heart of Europe did murderous ideologies emerge that would take the lives of so many people for no other reason that who they were? Last week, the Harper government announced the location of a National Holocaust Monument to be erected not far from Parliament Hill. But the announcement was as striking for what it ignored as what it included.

G&M – Ottawa accused of neglecting joint Canada-U.S. water commission
Two of Canada’s three seats on a key bilateral institution have been allowed to go vacant, raising questions about Ottawa’s commitment to the joint body that oversees waters shared with the United States….

The commission, which was established by the U.S. and Canadian governments more than a century ago to prevent and manage water-related disputes, is responsible for the Great Lakes and other shared bodies of water.

Independent (UK) -George Orwell’s Guide to Canadian Politics
A critical analysis of the Harper government’s behavioural patterns reveals two possibilities: it’s either an enormous coincidence or the Conservative Party of Canada is staging its own production of ’1984′.

MORE ORWELLIAN NEWS

Ottawa Citizen – Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to lead review of Canadian history
Federal politicians have launched a “thorough and comprehensive review of significant aspects in Canadian history,” in Parliament that will be led by Conservative MPs, investigating courses taught in schools, with a focus on several armed conflicts of the past century. The study was launched by the House of Commons Canadian heritage committee that went behind closed doors last Monday to approve its review, despite apparent objections from the opposition MPs.

Hill Times – CBC wants meeting with feds on Harper Cabinet’s new powers over CBC’s collective bargaining
A Hill Times review of annual reports from nearly one-third of Canada’s federal Crown corporations and union contract terms for three of the biggest—the CBC, Canada Post and Via Rail—raises questions about the timing and intent of legislation that will give Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Cabinet unprecedented control over Crown corporation collective bargaining.

The CBC, which is fighting back against the measures, released a statement Wednesday night warning of possible “unintended consequences” and said it is requesting a meeting with the federal government to ensure Cabinet ministers have “accurate information” about its record on restraint, employee salary increases over the past several years, and its mandate under the Broadcasting Act.

rabble.ca – Former Tory strategist Allan Gregg rips Harper Cons’ ‘systematic attack’ on facts and reason
Long-time Tory pollster and strategist Allan Gregg ripped into the Harper Government on Saturday for what he termed its “systematic attack on evidence-based research.”

The rampage, he noted, began with the notorious abandonment of the mandatory long-form census. “Why would anyone forsake these valuable insights and the chance to make good public policy, rather than bad public policy, under the pretense that rights were being violated when no one ever voiced concern? Was this a crazy one-off move … or was there something larger going on?”

It was pretty quickly clear to Gregg — as it was to many of the rest of us — that there was indeed something larger going on.

Maclean’s – When science goes silent
With the muzzling of scientists, Harper’s obsession with controlling the message verges on the Orwellian
Sometimes, the efforts to silence scientists verge into the Orwellian. In one widely reported 2012 incident, Environment Canada researchers attending the International Polar Year conference in Montreal were shadowed by media handlers tasked with squelching any impromptu conversations with reporters about climate change or dying polar bears.

Another researcher, who is scheduled to lose his job this summer, but fears speaking out will hurt his severance, laments how the current government has “politicized” the role of public servants. “It’s almost as if that job we had as scientists to explain things to the Canadian public is gone.” The scientist says he and his colleagues always understood that certain lines couldn’t be crossed when they dealt with the media—stepping outside your area of expertise or criticizing government policy were both definite no-nos, for example. But soon after Harper won his first minority in 2006, it became clear that the minister’s office viewed every media interaction as a minefield—to be entered into only if absolutely unavoidable.

RELATED: Government Weather – A new service of the Canadian Ministry formerly known as Environment’

ATTACK ON UNIONS

Huff Post – Mr. Poilièvre, You Want a Union Registry But Not a Firearm Registry?
Everyone knows how little empathy the government, including yourself, has towards unions. In reality, Bill C-377 is your way of attacking a workers freedom of association. Under the guise of what you hypocritically called “transparency” in your statement yesterday, you will require unions to make public a vast amount of information that may be personal, violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and creating a cumbersome system within the Canadian Revenue Agency that will cost taxpayers a lot of money.

Vancouver Observer – Oil sands bitumen exports undermine Canada’s economic future
(The Harper Government’s energy plans mean profits for foreign multinationals and higher prices for Canadian families and businesses.)
Canada is headed down the wrong economic path by exporting raw oil sands bitumen, former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan said in a stirring presentation a week ago at the West Coast Oil Pipeline Summit. Allan highlighted the economic danger posed by oil sands pipelines including Keystone XL, Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan that the federal government has been promoting in the name of jobs and growth. Below are excerpts from her presentation, “Oil Sands Development and the Economic Consequences”.

ELECTION FRAUD

Ottawa Citizen – Procedural errors by elections officials rife during 2011 federal vote: report
The integrity of Canada’s electoral process is at “serious risk” due to rampant procedural errors made by polling officials, a report commissioned by Elections Canada says….

The report, by former British Columbia chief electoral officer Harry Neufeld, includes the results of a national audit of the documentation filled out for electors whose names were not on the list of registered voters or who failed to bring the required identification with them to their polling stations. In those cases — about 15 per cent of electors — polling officials were required to administer special procedures, such as the swearing of oaths or having someone vouch for the voter’s identity.

Ryan Leef, Tory MP, Slammed Over ‘Shocking’ Polar Bear Letter
(Note,  Ryan Leef won over the Liberal by a narrow margin in a riding where there were election irregularities.)
A Tory MP has used the findings of U.S. climate skeptics to conclude the global polar bear population is flourishing. To support his claim, Leef sent the constituent — a high school science teacher — a 2008 report prepared by a marketing expert from the University of Pennsylvania, an economic forecaster from Australia and a Harvard astronomer, Postmedia reports. In a lengthy rebuttal by seven climate and polar bear experts in 2009, the study was described as bogus and misleading.

LYING, CHEATING, BULLYING

Western Star – Penashue’s comments about Coast Guard puzzle Liberal MP
A comment recently made by Labrador byelection Conservative candidate Peter Penashue has a western Newfoundland MP wondering who is telling the truth about the decision to have Canadian Coast Guard marine communications improved in Happy Valley-Goose Bay…..

Byrne contends if Penashue’s statement is correct, then the commissioner lied. If the commissioner is correct, Byrne believes that would show Penashue is not telling the truth.

iPolitics (Michael Harris) – The Wizard of Wrath: Harper and the death of civility
Here are some little things. When Hugo Chavez died, Stephen Harper acted like a crude bumpkin. His official reaction wasn’t quite “good riddance” — but it was close. You don’t have to wear Che Guevara T-shirts to extend sympathies to the family of the deceased. It comes with being a citizen of the world, a leader and a human being. I guess the reaction in Venezuela to Harper’s remarks makes the case. A diplomatic protest is not the usual response to “condolences.”

Huff Post – Marc Garneau ‘Ticked Off’ About Canadarm Event Snub
Liberal MP Marc Garneau, who was Canada’s first astronaut and led the Canadian Space Agency, is “ticked off” that he wasn’t invited to Thursday’s opening of a Canadarm exhibit and he blames Conservative partisanship for being left off the guest list…..”I’m ticked off that this is the kind of atmosphere that we’ve created here in Ottawa. I think it’s disgusting,” added Garneau. He said the government was saying the CSA was in charge of the guest list, but the agency told CBC News it did not do the guest list.

MORE EXAMPLES OF HARPER’S FISCAL WIZARDRY (JUST SO GOOD AT MAKING $$ DISAPPEAR)

CBC News – Shipbuilding contract holds $250M mystery
Cost of Arctic patrol ships’ design sparks warning of another procurement ‘fiasco’
A CBC News investigation has uncovered a $250-million mystery at the heart of Canada’s ambitious shipbuilding program. Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose and Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced March 7 in Halifax that Ottawa will pay Irving Shipbuilding $288 million just to design — not build — a fleet of new Arctic offshore patrol ships. Irving will then build the ships under a separate contract.

However, a survey of similar patrol ships bought by other countries shows they paid a fraction of that $288 million to actually build the ships — and paid less than a tenth as much for the design.

CBC News - Canada can’t account for $3.1B in anti-terror funding, AG finds
The federal government needs to do better at tracking and evaluating some of its program spending to ensure taxpayer dollars are being well-spent, Auditor General Michael Ferguson found in his spring report released today, and one of the most striking examples is that it can’t account for $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funding.

The lack of information on spending and on results achieved for money spent is a common theme throughout Ferguson’s report, which includes 11 chapters in total.

In his audit of the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism (PSAT) Initiative, Ferguson suggested there should have been a government-wide review of spending by 35 departments and of the results for the program that was funded between 2001 and 2009.

He found that departments reported spending $9.8 billion of the $12.9 billion allocated for security and anti-terrorism measures under the program but he couldn’t determine where the other $3.1 billion went. The Treasury Board had no clear answers for him.