When it comes to secrecy and one-man rule, Canada may never have had a prime minister who more closely resembled "Uncle Joe" Stalin himself than Stephen Harper.
Appointing political commisars in the PMO to block public access to information from Canadian scientists or our Defence Department so that the only "truth" we will hear is precisely the message Uncle Joe wants us to hear is despicably un-Canadian. It's not just shaping the message, petty spinning, it's outright information control through information denial.
Now let me get this straight. Our soldiers are giving life and limb in a noble quest to bring democracy to Afghanistan while this _________ (fill in the blank) throws a hood over its head at home?
These Gag Orders effectively set up our armed and our civil services against the people in order to serve not the country but, rather, the will of a decidedly undemocratic leader. It is an abuse of power, an act of political corruption, a subversion of democracy.
Now Uncle Joe's latest despotic gambit has been revealed. It came in the form of a Friday motion to the Federal Court of Canada seeking to suppress scheduled hearings into whether Canada turned prisoners over to Afghan authorities knowing they would probably be tortured.
In March the head of the Military Police Complaints Commission announced public hearings would be held because the government had stonewalled MPCC investigators despite their top-secret security clearances.
Now that the MPCC has been forced to go public, and only now, the government has seen fit to challenge its jurisdiction. That seems more than a little self-serving and duplicitous coming from the same government and the same ministers who pledged to co-operate fully with the commission back when the inquiry was launched.
The latest stunt demonstrates that it's not Stephen Harper's secret agenda that we need fear the most but his secret government. If this is the way Harper treats Canadians while he's leads a minority government, imagine what he would do to us should we be foolish enough to hand him a majority?
Appointing political commisars in the PMO to block public access to information from Canadian scientists or our Defence Department so that the only "truth" we will hear is precisely the message Uncle Joe wants us to hear is despicably un-Canadian. It's not just shaping the message, petty spinning, it's outright information control through information denial.
Now let me get this straight. Our soldiers are giving life and limb in a noble quest to bring democracy to Afghanistan while this _________ (fill in the blank) throws a hood over its head at home?
These Gag Orders effectively set up our armed and our civil services against the people in order to serve not the country but, rather, the will of a decidedly undemocratic leader. It is an abuse of power, an act of political corruption, a subversion of democracy.
Now Uncle Joe's latest despotic gambit has been revealed. It came in the form of a Friday motion to the Federal Court of Canada seeking to suppress scheduled hearings into whether Canada turned prisoners over to Afghan authorities knowing they would probably be tortured.
In March the head of the Military Police Complaints Commission announced public hearings would be held because the government had stonewalled MPCC investigators despite their top-secret security clearances.
Now that the MPCC has been forced to go public, and only now, the government has seen fit to challenge its jurisdiction. That seems more than a little self-serving and duplicitous coming from the same government and the same ministers who pledged to co-operate fully with the commission back when the inquiry was launched.
The latest stunt demonstrates that it's not Stephen Harper's secret agenda that we need fear the most but his secret government. If this is the way Harper treats Canadians while he's leads a minority government, imagine what he would do to us should we be foolish enough to hand him a majority?
2 comments:
Typical - exactly what we have come to expect.
But where is the outrage? (besides on a few blogs) The media continues to give these guys a free pass so yer average Joe (unlike Uncle Joe) doesn't notice.
Not only a free pass ... but given the polling for all to see (months of a more or less tie nationally with a slight lead perhaps for the Cons, but with Ontario trending strongly Liberal) the last half of this article is pure BS
http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=2008/april/14/backrooms/&c=2
this guy must live in an alternate universe where Chantal Herbert rules.
Interesting article NPoV, thanks.
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