Democracies Do Not Operate This Way.

One of the saddest parts of contemporary Canada is that we have a government that doesn't hesitate to use the power vested in it by the Canadian people against them.  It does this in a myriad of ways including secrecy and spying. 

It also works hard to warp public consciousness.   It freely spends millions of dollars advertising the success of a  jobs action plan that doesn't even exist.  Perhaps most insidious is the way our government has worked to avoid informing the public conscience about the reality and risks of climate change.

When Harper and his cronies mention it at all, it's invariably in the form of one-liners that purport to acknowledge the magnitude and gravity of the problem and then segue into something else such as jobs and growth.

When it becomes too difficult to change the subject, they raise an Iron Curtain of spin.  They begin by gagging government scientists and severing the public's access to information.  Next they slather themselves with credit for emissions reductions efforts undertaken by provincial and municipal governments and then go on to boast how Canada, i.e. the federal government, is already half-way to meeting its emissions reductions targets.

Meanwhile, as the minions of the gutted shell of what once was a free press stand mute, Harper slips a mandatory report to the U.N. in which the government admits that, far from slashing greenhouse gas emissions, Canada's emissions will soar 38% by 2030 due mainly to expansion of the Athabasca Tar Sands.  Even those numbers the U.N. suspects are cooked, especially the magical claims for LNG emissions.

This is a government that doesn't seek to serve the public but to control it, to blind it, to manipulate it for the benefit of, well someone other than the public.  We live under a government that has turned on us.